10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

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10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog Slide 1 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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Here are 10 quick steps to start writing engaging blog posts for your college or university.

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Page 1: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 1

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your

College’s Blog

Page 2: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 2

1. Pick your topic2. Pick your keywords3. Do your research4. Write, write, write!5. Add links6. Add a visual7. Post your blog post8. Measure and optimize9. Share your content on social bookmarking sites10. Create a newsletter

Overview

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 3: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 3

1. Pick your topic

Although your blog posts should include news about your

programs and what is happening at your school, do not

make the same mistake many schools are making by just

pushing their content and making their blog a blatant

marketing tool that only serves the Marketing

department.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 4: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 4

1. Pick your topic

Whether your career college specializes in dentistry or your

community college is reputed for its business programs,

make sure your posts are useful to students and prospects:

news about:

the industry

community partners

alumni succeeding

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 5: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 5

1. Pick your topic

Create a list of blog topics.  

Your posts can be news-based or more research-based, but

they have to be relevant.

Listen to your current students to learn about what is on

their minds, and what may attract other students to your

school. 

Use an editorial calendar to help you define monthly themes

and make content creation and coordination easier within

your team.Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 6: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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Using tools like Google Analytics will allow you to see how

your college or university ranks in respect to specific

keywords.

It also shows you variants of your keywords that are being

used online and for which you can choose to try and rank.

2. Pick your keywords

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 7: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 7

Keep in mind that keyword ranking is dependent on

several different factors (SEO, PPC, and web

development).

Be sure you use keywords important to you in each of

your posts and that they appear in the anchor text of the

link.

2. Pick your keywords

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 8: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 8

The goal of a college or university blog should be:

to present unique perspectives on matters of interest

Your research will help you determine:

what has already been written on the topic

what you can add to it

gather useful references for your posts (with these you can

create links in your blog)

3. Do your research

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 9: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 9

4. Write, write, write

Blog posts do not have to be a specific length, but typically you should aim for your posts to run between 500 and 700 words.

For the form and structure, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 10: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 10

4. Write, write, write

Craft a key-rich title that will pique your reader’s curiosity: a question, an intriguing statement about their industry, something most of your students are doing wrong (3 Deadly

Sins of College Freshmen), or are doing well (5 Secrets of Successful Chiropractic

Students).

Make your points scannable: Make it easy for your readers to know what the article is about.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 11: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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4. Write, write, write

 Optimize your blogs for search engines crawlers : Your blogs have a secondary, but just as important, audience to satisfy: search engine crawlers. Optimizing your blog posts will help search engines position your content.

Call to action: Make sure you end each of your posts with a call to action. Invite your readers to comment and interact with you.  “Tell us what you think about…” is a good way to start conversation.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 12: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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5. Add links

Your blog posts should include 2 or 3 links: 1 should be an entering link (going to one of the main pages of

your website).

the others can be external links.

Some posts will demand more links than others, but try to

hover around a maximum of 1 link for every 200 words.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 13: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 13

6. Add a visual

Make sure each post is visually appealing.

You can find great visuals online or create your own.

Pixlr (http://pixlr.com) is one of the tools we use

regularly.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 14

7. Post your blog post

Always fill in the category, description, tags and meta-tag

sections on the Dashboard.

The more fields you are able to fill, the better it will be for

SEO.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 15

8. Measure and optimize

As with any marketing activity, measuring is key to knowing what works and where to make tweaks.

Google Analytics metrics will help you see which posts are most popular and what your audience really cares about.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 16: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 16

9. Share your content on social bookmarking sites

Social bookmarking is a great way to give visibility to your blog

posts while building links.

All you need is to create an account for your school on social

bookmarking sites and share your content there.

Stumble Upon, Reddit, and Delicious are some of the examples.

Find those where your students are, Share with them, follow them,

and respond to their comments.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 17: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

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10. Create a newsletter

After a few months of blogging, depending on your posting frequency, you will be able to set up a newsletter.

A newsletter is a great way for your college or university to stay in the minds of prospects, future students, etc.

The more interesting content you have to share, the more you can pluck out for your newsletter.

You can add a button to have all people who stay on your blog long enough to sign up for your newsletter.

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 18: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 18

Have you been blogging for your school?

Please share any tips to make posts more engaging and more visible!

Source: Higher Education Marketing - 10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Page 19: 10 steps to writing engaging posts for your college's blog

10 Steps To Writing Engaging Posts For Your College’s Blog

Slide 19

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