How to blog on elephantjournal.com
Note: elephant’s new paygate—a weak “paywall” on elephantjournal.com, allows readers to read two free articles a day, every day in addition to our Front Page. If they’d like to read more, they can come back the next day for another two free articles, or pay $1/month for unlimited reading. Our paygate only effects the 5% of our most loyal and avid readers who read the most, and enables elephant to get sustainable and focus on editorial instead of advertising.
We encourage readers to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, or best of all get our free once-a-week Top 10 Blogs email newsletter to get links to favorite articles.
Why are columnists asked to pay?
elephant’s paygate is just $1/month for everyone, including staff, interns and columnists…that said, if you don’t want to that’s perfectly alright, just let us know and we’ll give you a password. Just read this if you can first and let us know—either way is awesome. It’s really just symbolic that we’re all on board, committed, and appreciate the platform of elephant—a community-created vehicle for ordinary enlightenment and community dialogue. ~ ed.
Blogging for elephantjournal.com:
> Basic: Any wordcount is fine, though you may want to break up longer posts with images, videos, or quotes. Email us with any questions about angle.
> Rights: any original writing and photos, etc. published on elephantjournal.com is owned by you—but we reserve use rights. Meaning, if you’re going to sell or use your original elephantjournal.com work anywhere other than for personal use, we need to 1) grant permission for said use and 2) be credited (with link if online) if we’ve done any editing to your piece.
It’s important that elephant’s writers and photographers are contribute in the spirit of independent journalism, not PR or advertorial.
> Edits: We will likely edit your post once you publish it online. We’ll never change the basic message or content, but we will edit for grammar and basic readability (this also includes adding or substituting images). The fact that we edit posts is what makes this journalism, not blogging. If you are uncomfortable with any changes that we have made, please let us know. You do have the right to change things back, but we also have the right to object to such changes and may decide not to publish your work. If we’ve taken the time to make edits, it’s for good reason—we hope you’ll trust us to make changes that will help your posts get more clicks and more reads in the long run.
> Posting early: You can post at any time of the day, but keep in mind that the vast amount of blog reading is done between the hours of 9-5, while people are (supposed to be) working. These are prime hours for networking your posts, so it’s ideal to get a post up early in the morning and network it soon after. You can also schedule out your posts through WordPress by editing the “Publish” section:
Set the desired publish time (there is no am/pm, it’s on a 24-hour system) and click OK:
Then Schedule:
(That said, one of our biggest traffic days was a Sunday, in the middle of a holiday weekend—so post whenever you feel most inspired.)
The specifics: How to use WordPress.
Watch this video (the whole thing—even if you think you know how to use wordpress—there are some steps that are specific to the elephant site):
In case that was too fast, or confusing, here are some written instructions. Even if you think you’re set, you should still read the points in red. These will help you get more traffic to your posts.
1. Go here: http://www.elephantjournal.com/wp-admin/ (bookmark this page so you can easily go back to it next time ‘round) and login using your username and password.
2. Make sure you are set to the “visual” tab, not the “html” setting.
3. Type your title in the title field with a period at the end of every title/subtitle. Titles should contain keywords that people frequently search (this will help your blog be recognized on search engines like google), especially city/place names and people/companies/organizations. Try to aim between too specific (Macky Auditorium) and too general (Boulder, Colorado). Titles should be like an itch that readers want to scratch—give just enough to interest readers, but don’t give away your entire point, or readers won’t have a reason to click through. Titles that ask questions or titles that say the opposite of what you actually mean can sometimes be good ways to hook readers.
Once you write your title, copy it into the Title and Description section of the SEO Pack at the bottom of the page. (SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization…it means google will be more likely to find your title.)
4. Every post must have an image. If you publish a blog without an image, we’ll have to take it down (because it messes up the design on the homepage). It’s easier for google to pick up on words in the text if they are separated from images. No wrap-around text for the main image. Please separate main image from text with one line break. All others images within the article are fine to have wrap-around text.
4a. Choosing an image. We need to be sure that we have permission to publish all of the images that we share on our site (otherwise we can be shut down, eek!). We love it when writers include poignant images they’ve taken themselves—or have obtained permission to use from the photographer. Alternatively, search keywords on Flickr (make sure that your search filter is set to find images shared via “The Commons”) and Wikimedia Commons. (This means the photographer has granted permission for them to be used anywhere.) As a courtesy, it’s always nice to link the photo back to wherever you found it.
We try to stay away from cheesy or stock-photo images. Choose an image that you personally can relate to. Something fun or funny or bold or subtle—something that you might feel motivated to click on yourself.
When saving your image to your desktop, put keywords in the file name. Google will pick up on this later. For example, a yoga image might be saved as “TreePoseYoga.jpg”.
Please be sure that your image is low-resolution (a small file size), and no larger than 600 x 600 MAX. Large images slow down our site.
4b) To insert a photo, click on “insert photo” under MEDIA on the task bar above the text box. Enter a title with keywords in the title bar (this will pop up when readers move their cursor over the photo and more, importantly, will help the post come up under google image searches). Make sure image alignment is “None” and always upload them as “Full Size” (which shouldn’t be more than 600 x 600). Be sure to click “Use as featured image” at the bottom of the pop-up box for whichever image you would like to represent your post on the homepage.
If you made a mistake or uploaded the same image more than once, be sure to go in and delete the extra images, so they don’t slow down our site. Click “insert into post” to insert a single image.
For a photo slideshow, click “save all changes” and then type the word galleria surrounded by brackets ([ ]) (we can’t actually type it here or a gallery will pop up) where you would like the photo gallery to appear in your post while in the visual tab.
5. Subtitle: Google likes subtitles and lines that are highlighted in large text. The first line of your blog, just under the photo, should be a subtitle. Make the text large by clicking the “Paragraph” pull-down menu in the tool bar and selecting “Heading 2” or “Heading 3.” If you don’t see the “Paragraph” button, click the dotted button on the far right side of the tool bar’s first row to expand the middle row.
6. Type your text into the text field. The text of your blog should include at least three links to other blogs on elephant (and links to other websites, to set context and define terms, if necessary).
If you’re copying and pasting an excerpt from another website, or from Word, click on the icon that looks like a clipboard with a “T” on it first, and then paste your text into the box that pops up. This will get rid of any screwy formatting. You can also write your blog online, just be sure to save it as a Draft—and not Publish—if you don’t have time to finish.
Formatting also includes making your posts more readable. Try to break down big chunks of text into short paragraphs, or use numbered lists or bullet points. Use bolded subheads to divide longer posts into sections.
7. How to link: under VISUAL setting, you can highlight and link (click on chain icon in tool bar) to any website for reference. If you want to link to an email address, type mailto: and the email address (without spaces).
8. To embed a video clip (from youtube, Vimeo, etc), click on the Youtube button in the toolbar (or the Vimeo button, etc) and paste the video url into the box that pops up (you don’t need the embed code.)
9. Write any relevant keywords under ‘tags.’ This is mainly used for people searching keywords on our site. Then, copy those tags and paste them into the “Keywords” box in the SEO section at the bottom of the page.
10. The categories that you check under “categories” define which page of the website the blog will appear on. Always be sure to select “blog,” and then any other categories you think are appropriate. IMPORTANT: Don’t click “Best” “Most Popular” or “Today Only”—those are for editors only.
12. Click the preview button to check your links, photos, and/or videos before you publish. You may want to click “Save” first, as sometimes your preview won’t contain the latest adjustments. Also, page breaks don’t always appear in previews, but if you put it in there, it’ll be there when published.
13. You can always press “Save” before you publish the blog if you need to save changes and finish working on it later.
14. Did you fill out the SEO Pack? Make sure that the title of your post is pasted into “Title” and “Description” fields of the SEO section (see image below), and that your tags are copied into the “Keywords” field. Adding keywords that people are likely to search on google will make your post easier to find.
15. Press PUBLISH.
16. Click on elephantjournal.com to check it over live.
17. Columnist profiles. Under “Profile,” you are able to add in a bio (3rd person) and photo. Columnists photos need to be square and 175 x 175. Use hyperlinks in author bios. Example:
<a href=”http://www.facebook.com/elephantjournal”>elephant journal facebook</a>
which will show up as “elephant journal facebook” (and will link to the specified url).
How to: Promote Your Article.
> Networking: Publishing the post is only step one. A wonderful blog is worthless if no one sees it, reads it, is inspired by it. To get readers to your post, we ask that you:
Take a look at Chris Courtney’s latest post on “Attracting Readers to your Blog”: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/04/how-to-attract-readers-to-your-blog-chris-courtney/.
1) email the link to any friends, family, colleagues, businesses, organizations and those you think might be generally interested in the issues written about to let them know about the post—and
2) ask them to comment on it, then forward it onto their friends and colleagues if they like it.
3) post the link on your Facebook Wall (you can click facebook icon below your blog). Tag any relevant friends or pages so that the link will be posted to their friends’ pages too.
4) twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, technorati, reddit, or other social networking sites. Our Twitter handle is @elephantjournal (also @themindfullife, @waylonlewis and @walkthetalkshow). Please follow us and, if you like, include our handle in your tweet re your article.
5) comment with link on like-minded blogs, and submit your blog link to share sites like notcot.org.
6) Bug us to promote your article. Email us to tweet it, facebook it, “Today Only” it on our Front Page. We may only promote your blog once we see you’ve done your best to promote it and/or if you’ve left 7 comments for the week (see below under “Comments).
For google rankings, it’s important to send traffic to your post within the first 24 hours.
> Comments: We also ask all columnists to comment on at least seven others’ blogs at least once each week. If we all do it, that means others will do the same for yours—a rising tide lifts all blogs. (If you don’t do this consistently, we may kick you to the virtual curb!)
How to Rock Twitter: Tweetdeck 101 [Video]
> Search the internet with key words pertaining to your article or anything remotely related.
> Comment on web pages and articles with similarities to your article with an engaging comment that links back to your article. You want your comment to evoke your article’s unique viewpoint, don’t just spam your link.
> Comment on other elephantjournal.com blogs and hopefully the authors will do the same back. We aim to create a community with our readers and writers.
> A few examples of past titles that have done particularly well:
10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Life when I was 21.
(Numbered titles tend to do particularly well. Plus, this title piques a reader’s curiosity without giving too much away.)
Chogyam Trungpa: The Buddhist Recipe for Success.
(This title contains the keywords “Chogyam Trungpa” and “Buddhist.” It also makes a reader wonder: what’s the Buddhist recipe for success?, which translates into clicks.)
Why I Don’t Eat Organic.
(A controversial, opinionated title will often get clicks from readers who are both genuinely wondering, Why don’t you eat organic?, and who are thinking, Everyone should eat organic!)
Feminism, Body Image and Yoga.
(Great keywords that are very different, but often searched together. While this title gives away the general subject matter of the post, it doesn’t reveal exactly what the author will say about feminism, body image and yoga.)
