Duration 1 days

Objectives
Every business must have a story to tell, and blogging is a great way to tell it! Our hands-on interactive blogging course for SMEs shows how to set-up and write your very first blog, or write better blogs to help promote your business. Learn how to write relevant and enaging blogs that help forge a stronger presence and relationship with your customer base or target audience. At the end of this course you will have learnt how to:- - Quickly set up your own blog - Identify the goal, audience and a suitable writing style for your blog - Write your first blog posts and include images - Create links and implement keywords and keyphrases - Manage and develop your blog over time We'll also provide worksheets with many useful blogging hints and tips, including what to write about if you get stuck for ideas!

Requirements
This course is open to anyone, but it is ideal for those working in small businesses with a desire to quickly get started writing effective blogs. For this course you'll need your own laptop with web browser, wi-fi, power cable and fully charged battery (or you can book one with us beforehand - please enquire). Please note that we will be using Wordpress as the blog service provider for this course, but our content is suitable for any of the popular blogging platforms such as Typepad, Google Blogger etc.


Course Outline

What is Blogging all about?
• What exactly is a blog anyway?
• Why are they so popular?
• Types of blog
• Who reads blogs and why

Setting up your first blog
• Getting an account
• Setting up and branding your blog
• Styling your blog with a suitable template
• Creating your first post
• Adding an image
• Add keywords and tags
• Edit your posts
• Manage comments
• Additional pages
• Using block quotes

Benefits of using Blogs
• Blogging to promote your business
• Differentiating your business
• Building an audience and a discussion
• Adding a human dimension to your service
• Your blog as an SEO marketing tool
• Building your online presence and brand
• Media and PR benefits

What to write about
• Identifying suitable topics
• What writing style to use for your brand
• Understand your market and what will interest them
• Encouraging comments and feedback
• Blogging frequency and quantity
• Integrating Keywords and tags
• Using suitable images and copyright issues
• Pitfalls and common mistakes
• Establishing yourself/your company as an authority

Blog Linking
• Why you need links in your blog
• Reciprocal linking and partnerships
• Using anchor text effectively
• Cross linking your blog
• Getting people to link in to your blog

Wrap up and QandA
• Developing your blog over time
• Planning to blog as a work activity
• Review the days learning
• Final questions