studentblogger

With so many online tools available for students, many of us overlook the very simple blog.  While there aren’t hugely useful applications for a blog (like it doing your math for you), there are a lot of things that a blog can do to help your career and your studies.

Blogs are also useful for all students so it doesn’t really matter if you’re studying to be an administrative assistant, a nurse or a lawyer, you can still use a blog. However; it should be noted that any career that will later be involved in online media (I.E. Writing, graphic design, media design, web technology, web design, etc.) will benefit more from a blog than someone who will be working offline.

Here are five reasons a student should have a blog:

         Build Your Reputation – Did you know that you can build up a reputation as a blogger? If you blog about useful information, worthwhile things or even just blog about student life you can still build up a following and a reputation as a writer, blogger or whatever it is you are blogging about. For example if you are a photographer and you post your photos to a photo blog such as Tumblr than you can build up a following and earn a reputation as a good photographer before you even begin looking for work. This is great if you will eventually have to rely on photography to pay your rent!

         Get Experience – Did you know that blogging can help to build your experience? Not only do you learn to use online media interfaces but you learn to smooth out your writing style and you learn to edit your images for online use. You can also often use your blog as inspiration to go and do something. For example the photographer listed above might take photos because they want to blog about a specific technique or a writer might write something just for the blog. Blogs can inspire you to practice and therefore gain experience.

         Display Your Portfolio – Do you have a portfolio? Chances are that even if you don’t think of it as a portfolio, you have one. Your portfolio is a collection of everything you have ever worked on. Posting your portfolio to your blog is a great way to add to your blog and to advertise your skills.

         Find Readers – A blog attracts readers. Readers mean an audience and an audience means possible sales and free advertising. If you gain enough readers you can even start making money off of your blog but you shouldn’t worry about that. Instead, you should be concerned with making content that your readers will enjoy. Readers can follow you through a variety of media interfaces, however; the more of them you have, the more popular your blog is which obviously means success for you.

         Expand Your Skills – Having a blog means learning new skills. The first skill you will learn is web 2.0. After that you can learn all sorts of things including writing, SEO, blog management, back linking, advertising, media management and etc. All of these skills can come in useful at whatever eventual job you end up with. 

Everyone wants their blog to look great and your theme is the easiest way to do it. As a student studying an online college course, you might have more time for blogging, but you most certainly don’t have more money.

While there are a lot of really cool themes that you have to pay for; there are hundreds or even thousands of themes that you can get for free.

Free Blogger Templates

Blogger is the Google Blog. If you want to download a Blogger template, you can either search ‘free blogger templates’ or ‘free blogger themes’ and then download the blogger theme of your choice. Good websites for downloading blogger themes include BTemplates which allows users to review and comment on themes and BloggerThemes which supports similar features. Both sites allow you to search themes by color and keyword.

Free Wordpress Templates

Wordpress is another very popular blog. There are actually more free Wordpress themes available than there are free blogger themes. You can locate many free Wordpress templates by searching on the Wordpress site under themes.

If you don’t find the theme you are looking for there, you can search your web browser for ‘free Wordpress Themes’ or ‘Free Wordpress Templates’.  A few good sites you can use include Wordpress Themes base and Wordpress Daddy. Both sites feature a lot of unique Wordpress designs and templates that are available for free.

Tips for Finding Free Templates

      Always check the reviews on a site before you download. It is very easy to install a virus in something that you will be downloading and installing onto your blog. Installing a virus theme into your blog can damage other people’s computers and even cause your blog to be banned. Alternatively you can also run a virus scan before you use the theme.

I     If you don’t know how to install a theme to your blog, try searching it online. In most cases you should write ‘how to install a ____ theme’ with the name of your blogging platform.

 Finally, enjoy your free blog theme! If you don’t like it you can always go find another one, after all, it’s free! 

Starting a blog can be tricky business. You have to come up with posts, design your blog and find inspiration and motivation to work on it after spending your day studying. It doesn’t matter if you're studying to be a software engineer or you are an online art student; your blog will take the same amount of work and dedication. Here are a few easy blogging tips for beginners to get you started.  

   C    Concentrate Your Theme

What you are blogging about is important and you should pick one concentrated theme rather than blogging about anything and everything. Blogging about one thing attracts readers who are interested in your blog posts. This means that by writing about one thing instead of 20, you will attract more readers who will become followers rather than readers who only want to read one post.

        Study Your Audience

If you have a blog then you should have an intended audience. Decide what your intended audience is interested in, what they will read about and what will keep them coming back for more. Usually you can simply look at blogs that are similar to what you want in order to find inspiration (however remember not to copy content).

        Blog Consistently

Inconsistent blogging is as bad as not blogging at all. The more frequently you blog, the more people will find your blog, the more your blog will come up in search and the more you will hold peoples interest. If you only blog once in a while, people might think that you have nothing to say and therefore they have no reason to follow you or read your blog.

        Be Interesting

If you don’t have anything interesting to say, don’t say it at all, or better yet, say it in a way that appeals to an audience rather than only you. Try incorporating interesting topics or etc. into what you want to say. For example, in a fashion blog, if you want to blog about the fact that you caught the bus to college in the rain don’t say, “I caught the bus to college today and had to stand in the rain, it was awful” say, “It was raining when I went to catch the bus today and I decided I needed something waterproof. At first I was thinking a rain jacket but….” And etc. It’s perfectly okay to write about your life so long as you put it in ways that people will want to read.

        Use Keywords

Keywords which are also called search terms are an important part of your blog. Do you want people to find you when they type in “fashion mistakes,” use these two words once or twice in your blog and in the title. Search engines will come up with your blog when people search for the keyword. Keywords should be things that people are likely to search, “Fashionable Waterproof Clothing” as opposed to “Clothes that won’t get drenched”.  Be imaginative, be inventive and if you have to, use your search engine to see what comes up when you start typing in words. The things that come up first are searched for the most.

         Use Media

Media is a great way to spice up your blog. Try adding relevant photos or videos to your posts to add visual impact. If you are using photos off the net, remember to use pictures under creative commons license so that you are legally allowed to use them. You can also take pictures yourself which is great if you are blogging about places or things you have seen.

        Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help

Whether you don’t know what to blog about, don’t know how your blog works or need help on any number of things that can go wrong; don’t be afraid to ask. Your friends are probably a great resource and the easiest to ask, if not, try your teachers or try going onto a forum where anyone can answer your questions. If you do the latter, try to be polite and thank people for their help.

        Learn As You Go

Blogs are always changing and so is information. Don’t be afraid to try new things and learn as you go. If you aren’t 100% up on everything blogging when you start, don’t worry, you will catch up!