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Writing for the Web Course Starts June 3, 1013
I will be teaching “Writing for the Web” at Clark College Corporate and Continuing Education in Vancouver, Washington, Tuesdays and Thursdays, June 3 – July 8, 2013. The class will be at the West Coast...
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Blog Exercises: Polls and Surveys Follow-up
In Blog Exercises: Polls and Surveys I asked you to create a poll on your site asking for input from your readers. Today’s exercise is on creating a follow-up poll. In that exercise, I invited readers...
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Blog Exercises: How Many Posts Can Your Audience Handle?
In “Blog Exercises: How Many Posts? the exercise asked you to consider how many posts you should publish within a specific time period on your site, such as by day, week, month, or year. The goal was...
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Blog Exercises: Blasts from the Past
It’s time to dive into your archives and feature some blasts from the past on your blog. We all know we have some great gems in our archives, article series, great topics, informative and educational...
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Blog Exercises: How to Tag Posts
Categories are your site’s table of contents. Tags are your index words. While it is simple to explain the two basic organizational and navigation elements of a WordPress site, coming up with tags for...
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Blog Exercises: Preview Posts
Do you preview a post before publishing? If not, consider adding this extra step to the publishing process. Why? I’m human. So are you. We mess things up. No matter how careful you are, you will make...
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Blog Exercises: Make an Elephant Out of a Fly
G.I. Gurdjieff said, “We have made an elephant out of a fly.” A friend of mine and fellow college professor, Mark Smith, is a dedicated follower of George Gurdjieff, a Russian spiritual leader. He’s...
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Blog Exercises: March Current Events
It’s time to blog the news and current events in our Blog Exercises for March. The first Current Events exercise was in January, and it featured some ideas to help you get motivated to blog some news...
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Blog Exercises: Honor the Moment
In “Okay, Everybody, Group Hug!” the author of True Stitches, Heather, honored the moment of a publishing triumph. This is my 300th post. An accomplishment of sorts, I guess, although it took me years...
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Blog Exercises: How Many Words in a Link?
How many words should you put into a link? Is there a rule? There isn’t a rule but there are good standards and practices. These state that two words should be the minimum, and only enough words to...
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Blog Exercises for March
March was a busy month in my Blog Exercises series. Wow, are we already done with the third month in this year long series? The participants explored a wide variety of blog exercises on editing,...
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Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles
What are the articles that drive people to your site? What are the posts that help people understand and benefit most from what you publish on your site? What articles represent you as an authority on...
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Blog Exercises: Editorial Calendar Check-in
If you have been with me since January on these blog exercises, it is time to check in with your editorial calendar again. If you are new, welcome, and take time to read the previous posts on the...
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Blog Exercises: Footnotes
In “Creating Footnotes in WordPress,” the tutorial explains how to use footnotes in WordPress, and applies to other blog publishing platforms. Links are the footnotes of today, linking to citations,...
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Blog Exercises: Do You Teach or Lecture?
Do you teach or lecture on your site? We all write with a specific “voice” and “style,” representing our perspective on the information we are presenting. On this site, I’m a teacher, sharing with you...
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Blog Exercises: Who Changed Your Life?
This is one of the special Blog Exercises this year, a chance to really celebrate who you are and those who helped make you. As we travel through life, people change our lives on a daily basis as well...
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Blog Exercises: Fall in Love with Words
There are certain clues that tell you how much a restaurant will cost. If the word “cuisine” appears in the advertising, it will be expensive. If they use the word “food,” it will be moderately priced....
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Blog Exercises: Dissecting Post Categories
In a recent article, Noah Weiss shared his struggle to figure out categories and tags on his personal site. I know many of you following these Blog Exercises have also struggled to figure out your...
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Blog Exercises: How Long Are Your Paragraphs?
How long are your paragraphs? Have you measured them lately? One of the telling differences between traditional writing and writing for the web is the length of the paragraph. Look at the example...
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Blog Exercises: Excerpts and Continue Reading
Encountered the front page of a blog where the posts ran on and on and on and on, stretching across the length of the page? Do you ever wish you had more control over the length of your posts on the...
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