1.30 – 4 pm
Canning St North Melbourne
Cost: $120 (includes afternoon tea)
To book: cecilia@ocean.com.au or 0412 474 282
(Advanced Blogging workshop on Monday April 13 $120. Both workshops $199)
Blogger is a program that gives creative people a way to show their work to the world, stylishly, instantly, and for free.
Regular websites can be cumbersome to start, to update, and to get finished. With Blogger, you can post your designs, your events, your unique ideas as they come. Interaction from your visitors allows you to shape things as you go, keeping you and your work relevant, interesting, and in demand.
What shall we learn?In this fun informal workshop, Matthew and Cecilia will guide you through the process of setting up a Google Blogger website. You will make your first postings and learn basic strategies for generating traffic (relevant readers) for your site. You will also be given an introduction to Google Analytics, which gives you hard data on how people discover and value the work you have posted, allowing you to spend more time on what works and less on what doesn’t.
How do you define a good blog or website?
And what exactly makes a bad site bad? The best way to create an interesting and successful blog is to look at other successful websites and make a list of things you might like to include in your own, for example:
Content – Having an idea in your head of whom you are blogging for is a way of keeping your website consistent and interesting.
Design – By default, your Blogger website will look good. What you now have to think about is what makes your site easy (or frustrating!) to use: link placement and colour, font size, archiving, and generally making it easy for your audience.
Setting up a Blogger blog
Cecilia and Matthew will run through the process of setting up a blog, including:
- Setting up a Google account
- Choosing a URL and blog name (with important tips for getting found on Google)
- Choosing and customising a template to give your blog a unique look and feel
Making your first posts
The key to a successful blog is to make readable and appealing. Paying attention to the little things such as neatly formatted text and consistent image size will help make your blog tidy and professional. Cecilia and Matthew will run through:
The key to a successful blog is to make readable and appealing. Paying attention to the little things such as neatly formatted text and consistent image size will help make your blog tidy and professional. Cecilia and Matthew will run through:
- Formatting text
- Adding hyperlinks
- Adding images
Advanced blogging techniques
After the basics have been covered, Matthew and Cecilia will introduce some more advanced techniques such as:
After the basics have been covered, Matthew and Cecilia will introduce some more advanced techniques such as:
- Adding tags - this will make your posts easy to find and sort
- Beginners guide to generating traffic
- Keyword research - did you know that you can find out exactly what people are typing in to search engines? We'll show how to find out where the people are and what they're looking for
- Installing Google Analytics - registering for this free service gives you detailed data on almost everything about your visitors including where they come from, how long they stay, how often they return
- Do a Google search for a blog on a topic of your interest. For example “permaculture blog” or “yoga blog”, and see the best and worst of what’s out there. Have a think about what your niche might be, and what might work for you.
- Think about your blog’s name and theme
- Write a couple of mini-stories that will be your first blog posts (a paragraph or two is fine)
- Bring a couple of images in jpg format (preferably under 1mb in file size)
Book by phone or email (hurry as there are limited places!)
You will be given a list of blogs to preview, account details to send your workshop payment to, and workshop location details.
As with all truly creative acts, to make progress it's best to just jump in and start first, then clarify and refine later. So long as you plan to keep on going. How do you plan to keep on going? Set a weekly schedule for blogging, and stick to it even if you don’t feel like it in the beginning. Set a scheduled time (one or two months from now) to review if you want to continue or abandon your blog.
Once you get momentum, blogging can become an addictive creative act!
You will be given a list of blogs to preview, account details to send your workshop payment to, and workshop location details.
As with all truly creative acts, to make progress it's best to just jump in and start first, then clarify and refine later. So long as you plan to keep on going. How do you plan to keep on going? Set a weekly schedule for blogging, and stick to it even if you don’t feel like it in the beginning. Set a scheduled time (one or two months from now) to review if you want to continue or abandon your blog.
Once you get momentum, blogging can become an addictive creative act!
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