Writing style
Posts written in an engaging and succinct style about interesting and informative matters will have people coming back for more and grow your readership. As a less formal space than academic publications there is a much wider potential audience so let your writing reflect this lack of formality. Make it human.
Time
Blogging is a commitment that should not be entered into on a whim. Keep your blog active and well written. Make use of contributors if you can, there is no need for a blog to be a solo mission.
Regular posting is vital for a blog to maintain the interest of its readership. Coming across a blog that hasn’t had any new content for months gives a negative impression of the blogger and the organisation. Once a month is fine as long as you establish a pace and keep the fresh content ticking over.
Create a content plan to map out your posts for the next six months and keep adding to it. You can flex it as you go but it is important for you to know what you plan to write about over the next few posts so you never hit a content wall.
Images
There is no doubt that a good image will increase the visual interest and readability of a blog post, but it must be licensed. Picking a nice photo from Google image search and inserting it into a blog post because it’s kind of relevant and/or it looks pretty is not strictly legal and you really shouldn’t do it.
If you are using your own photos you must have permission from anybody who is easily recognisable in the image. There are some very serious reasons why an individual might not want to appear on a website or a blog post so please bear this in mind.
Additionally, any images you upload to the UWE Bristol blogsite needs to be named appropriately and contain alternative text.
Images should have a descriptive filename, written in lower-case and with hyphens between words. For example: frenchay-campus-open-day
The alternative text should describe the image for visually impaired users. Make the text as descriptive as possible, but keep it short. For example: Student smiling at an Open Day at UWE Bristol
As a rough guide, images will format best on the blog landing pages if they are landscape in orientation and around 768px by 514px in size.
Be nice (enough)
The posts on this platform are expressing the opinion of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinion or the policy of the University, but you are still representing UWE Bristol.
Blogging provides a space to air your views but there is no licence to write scandalous defamatory material about your colleagues or anybody else, or any organisation for that matter. A bit of controversy can be a good thing but tread carefully.
“A blog is so much more than just a written diary or journal these days. Now a blog is a place for sharing knowledge and views, and for connecting with people.
It’s a place that can become the entire foundation of your online world and a key to unlocking incredible opportunities.”
Further reading
There are thousands of web pages dedicated to tips for bloggers to make their posts a bit special. Here are just a few:
- Academic blogging – 10 top tips
- Seven reasons why blogging can make you a better academic writer
- What’s the perfect length for a blog post?
- 16 top tips from blogging experts for beginners
- The 23 unwritten rules of blogging
- Beginners guide to writing a blog post in WordPress
Contact
If you want to know more about blogging at UWE Bristol please email us at webeditors@uwe.ac.uk.