The Beginner’s Guide to Writing a Blog Post from Start to Publish: mini-course sneak peek
Robin Writers’ FIRST course is officially launched!
If you:
- Are new to blogging
- Aren’t sure where to start with blogging
- Are overwhelmed with everything you have to do for a blog
- Want to feel good when you go to hit “publish”
- Want to improve your writing skills
- Want to help others through your writing
- Want to learn something new to add to your portfolio
- Are eager to take your writing to the next level
…you’re in luck 🙂
My comprehensive mini-course, The Beginner’s Guide to Writing a Blog Post from Start to Publish, will walk you through, step by step, how to write a quality blog post so you can click that publish button with confidence!
One module is called “The anatomy of a blog post” and I share some notes below about adding complementary media to your blog posts that you’ll find within the course. The video above is a sneak peek into the video of the same module. Enjoy!
If you feel that this was helpful and you want the full experience, learn more about the mini-course:
Adding complementary media to your blog post
To accompany your text, you may want to add other media. Since people engage with content differently, sometimes it’s helpful to readers to have either video, audio, or imagery along with your words.
Once I started hearing more and more about how video content was taking off and how important it is, I started getting nervous. I only knew writing and how to add a picture to a post and I was not excited about getting in front of a camera. It’s scary!
Audio
So I decided to take a baby step and record audio. This wasn’t as scary and was kind of a good transition step to making videos since it still required something more than the written word. And to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it! You never know what you may enjoy or be good at unless you try. So if you’re nervous about making videos, recording audio (I always used the voice recording app on my smartphone—nothing fancy needed here), you may want to give it a try.
To add an audio file to your blog, you might have to add an audio file widget to your post. A widget is any element of a website, like a text box, button, social icon, etc. Below you’ll see the audio widget options to add when I search in WordPress:
First, I will click on the plus sign to add a block:
Then, I search “audio”:
When I click on “Audio”, it prompts me to upload my audio file:
This should be a similar process for most blog platforms.
Video
Eventually, I decided to just do it. Who cares if it’s not the best video. I just knew I had to start somewhere. So I stacked some books up on my dining room table, balanced my phone on top of it somehow, and hit “record”. It wasn’t the best, but it was a start—and once I just kept pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and continued making videos, I eventually learned to like making them!
At first, I wasn’t editing them at all. Then, I discovered YouCut (logo above), an app where you can make very simple edits pretty easily right on your phone. And then once I launched Robin Writers, I invested into editing software. But don’t get me wrong, you don’t need fancy equipment for making videos. Just start and see where it takes you!
To embed a video into your blog post, it is a similar process to adding an audio file on WordPress:
First, I click on the plus sign to add a block:
Then, I search “video”:
There are a bunch of options for where to upload your video from and since I always embed from YouTube, I click “YouTube” and it prompts me to enter the URL to embed:
Imagery
The easiest media to add is imagery, and the easiest way that I avoid any licensing or copyright issues is by using my own photos, Pixabay, or the imagery library within WordPress (other blog platforms may offer the same thing). You just want to be careful that you have the right to use the pictures you choose, and Pixabay (and the WordPress library) is one site where you can find royalty-free stock photography for your blog.
To add images on WordPress, you will first click on the plus sign to add a block:
Then, search “image”:
If you’re uploading your own imagery or something from Pixabay (or a similar website), you’ll then click “upload”:
If you’d like to browse the WordPress library, click on “Select Image” and you’ll see the option for the Pexels Free Photos:
Adding some complementary media to your posts is a great way to jazz up your posts and add some personality to them. You’ll connect better with your audience and your readers may learn more effectively.
I would absolutely love to help you on your blogging journey. Become a part of Robin Writers’ first course milestone today!
