BLOGGER GUIDEBOOKRead this carefully!!! This document, along with the blogger video is your training and covers everything you need to know.

HOW TO BLOG

1. Watch the Blogger video before getting started: http://borgenproject.org/how-to-videos-for-staff/.

2. Find a topic or news article to cover.3. Write/compile the post. For news articles you can basically copy and paste the

article into a summary. With shorter articles you can copy the entire article. Always site the source.

4. Publish the article. When writing the article, on the top right of your screen is the “publish” box. By clicking “edit” next to the text that says “publish immediately.” If you’re account has authority, you can pre-date the article to appear on any date or time you select. Otherwise, it will be filed for review. Make sure there are always articles appearing on weekends. Articles pre-dated should appear in the morning of the date selected. At minimum the blog should have a new post daily, but ideally several posts per day.

THE FORMAT FOR BLOG POSTS

1. In the title, the first letter of words should be capitalized.2. Write in AP Style (same as newspapers). Simple and easy to read.3. Single space after periods.4. Use images in all posts. Resize images. We want all images to be under 100 kb -

This site is very useful for that: http://www.webresizer.com. 5. All images tinted/styled. We want a similar look and feel for all images, so try to use the

same app or method with each image.6. Sign your name at the bottom of the article. Some of your articles will likely appear when

people Google you, so if you prefer, you can write under an alias.7. Make the cited source text small. You can use the code below. Be sure to be in html

mode (not visual mode) when pasting it

LOGGING IN

1. Login athttp://borgenproject.org/wp-admin/

2. Click “THE BORGEN PROJECT” in the top grey box.

3. You are now at the Dashboard where you can edit and create new posts.

4. Scroll to the “Posts” button in the left hand column.o To edit existing click “all posts.”o To create a new blog post click “add new.”

5. Once you’re at a new post you can begin writing

CITING SOURCES

The source should be cited in small text and include a link. You don’t to know coding, but a simple copy and paste will give you the needed small text for sources.

1. Click the HTML tab on your blog post. This tab might also be called “text.”

2. The following is the code for adding a linked source.

<a href=" http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="”font-family: arial; color: #2200fc; font-size: xx-small;">FAO</span></a>

3. Copy and paste the above code into your post. Then change the codes web address and linked text to your source.

4. Copy and paste the link below to add the words “Source:” or “Photo Source:” before the linked site reference (above).  Put a space between the 2 codes:

<span style="color: #888888; font-size: xx-small;">(Photo: AP)</span>

The highlighted area should be replaced by “Source:” or “Photo Source:” – parenthesis not required. 

MAKING YOUR POST SEO FRIENDLY

SEO (search engine optimization) is the term for making pages and posts on a website more likely to appear high in search engine rankings. This is a complicated and always changing process, but there are some simple things that you can do to increase the likelihood that your post about “Why starving children have big bellies” is one of the first to appear when people Google that term.

The SEO Box is called “Wordpress SEO by Yoast” and appears at the bottom of the page while writing/editing a blog post. You can learn more about utilizing Yoast here:

- http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/ - https://managewp.com/google-seo-by-yoast-guide-part-ii

1. Pick a “Focus Keyword” – Based on the content of your article pick a keyword or phrase that best summarizes it. You want people searching that phrase to find your article and by meeting the requirements of the SEO box discussed below you’ll greatly increase the likelihood of that occurring. Pick specific phrases to target for your SEO. For example, if that article is about malaria in Africa. Make the target phrase “Causes of Malaria in Africa” instead of just “Malaria.”

2. Fill out the SEO Box - On the same page where you are writing the post, scroll to the bottom of the page to the box called “Wordpress SEO by Yoast.”

Here’s the box before SEO Here’s the box after

The key is to more or less to fill in the empty spaces with the word or phrase you are trying to optimize (want appearing on the top of search results). In this case, we’re trying to get “Why Starving Children Have Big Bellies” to be the key phrase. You can change the “url” of the page right below where you typed the title.

3. Try to use the term frequently in your post.Within reason, the more times your phrase and keywords appear in the post the better. First and foremost, write a good article, but if there are opportunities to rephrase sentences so the term appears more often that will greatly help the articles SEO.

For example, if you have this sentence in your article, “starving kids have big bellies because of a nutrition deficiency.” You could change it to this, “Why do starving children have big bellies? Starving children have big bellies because of a nutrition deficiency.” This simple change

kept the flow of the article, while greatly improving the likelihood that people searching the term (and similar terms) will come across your post.

Helpful Tip:

The more websites and social media accounts linking to your post the higher it appears in search rankings. Google takes each link to your page as an endorsement that people thought it was good enough to share. Encourage others to share your favorites posts.

Use the Google Keyword tool for finding keywords to target. From example, type “global poverty stats” and it will give you dozens of similar key terms and tell you how competitive each term is. The less competitive a term, the easier it is to get your blog post in the top results when people search the term. The keyword tool also gives info on how often each term is searched.https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool

Green Means Go! When your content is SEO ready the red “no” in the Yoast SEO box will turn to a green “yes” next to each requirement that is met.

Congrats! Your article is now on track to not only being viewed by people visiting The Borgen Project’s website, but also by thousands of people who will search the key word or phrase in the coming years. It can take a couple of months for search engines to start including your article in search results so be patient.

THE URL/PERMALINKThe url or permalink is the address for your page. You won’t be able to create a url until after you click the save draft button. After clicking "save draft" a url will appear below the title. The url that appears will usually be the title, but you can change it as needed. Be sure to add dashes between the words that you add to the url.

Example: http://borgenproject.org/the-co-operative-and-global-poverty/

THE TITLEKeep your title under 70 characters. Make it catchy (ideas later in this document) and include your “focus keyword” phrase.

META DESCRIPTONA good Meta Description is extremely important for Search Engine Optimization. Be sure to include your focus keyword/phrase and write a great sentence summarizing your post.

TAGSFill out the “tags” section of each blog post with 4-6 keywords. Capitalize the first letter in the tags you add.

CATEGORIESAll posts should be assigned a category. Select a category from the category box.

ADDING AN IMAGE

The image is extremely important! A good image engages people and increases the likelihood of them reading your story. Every post should have one image.

Before uploading all images need to be…

- Resized to under 100 kb. You can do this with webresizer.com. This is a simple tool for keeping images the same width and height, but making the image appear faster when people enter the page (it decreases the file size). If the images are slow to load, it hurts our search engine ranking.

- Styled. Use pixlr.com/o-matic/. It’s available with Chrome or as an iPhone Ap. We’re trying to create a consistent style on the blog.

- Rename photos. To help the chances of people finding your article when Google searching images, rename your photo something that will help it get found. For example, if the image above was called “12244355.jpg.” When downloading it, you could save it as “donkey-standing-africa-desert.jpg.” That will increase the likelihood of the image being discovered when people do an image/your post search for those terms.

Editing with Pixlr O’Matic

1. Go to http://pixlr.com/o-matic/ (Available on iPhones and for Chrome).2. Select the computer icon to upload a photo.3. Use the half circle bar to style the image. We’re trying to keep a consistent brand/look for

the blog so try to follow the formula below.

4. Red adjusts the tint. You have a lot of freedom here, but make sure the tint doesn’t make the image too dark or hard to view. Salomon, Peter, Tony and Sophia are frequent favorites. Some images you find online well look better without a tint so use your best judgment.

5. Blue use sparingly. It usually makes images harder to see and isn’t worth the trouble.6. Yellow is a must and gives the image a frame. We want all images to have a black frame.

It’s the first option. That said, if it crops your image too much use a different frame. Smoke, Soft and Sand are all good options.

How to Upload the Image

1. In your post select the upload media button.

2. Drag your properly formatted photo into the box.

3. When the image loads make sure.- Link URL is left empty.- Alignment is set to “None.”- Size is set to “Full”

HOW TO PRE-DATE A POST (once you’ve been authorized)

There should be at least one blog post a day appearing on the blog. For post that aren’t timely you can schedule them to appear on weekends and dates in the future.

Instructions: Rather than clicking on the “Publish” button as you normally would, look up one line to where it says “Publish immediately.” Click the “Edit” link next to that line and a series of fields will be displayed allowing you to select a month, day, year and time, right down to the minute. Once you’ve entered the date and time you want your post to be published, click the “OK” button, and the scheduling info you just selected will be displayed.

You’ll now notice that the “Publish” button has been replaced with one that says “Schedule.” Click on that and your post will go live at the time you’ve chosen.

CHECK LIST BEFORE POSTING

1. Photo is styled and under 100kb.2. SEO box is filled out, you’ve added Tags (capitalized)3. All formatting looks professional. There’s no space between the photo and the text.4. The first letters in title words are capitalized.5. The source is in small text.6. Your name.

OBJECTIVE OF THE BLOG

Educate the public about important issues. Convey The Borgen Project’s brand/essence. Make the cause interesting and

relevant to people who wouldn’t typically be engaged in global poverty. Steer new visitors to the website. Help increase traffic to the website by creating

SEO friendly articles (make our website appear when people search key terms). Keep visitors coming back to the site. Create consistently great articles that will

keep people coming back to the site.

WE WANT THE BLOG TO HAVE SWAGGER! ON THE MAIN SITE WE HAVE TO BE PROPER, BUT THE BLOG IS WHERE WE CAN LET OUR HAIR DOWN A BIT, SHOW SOME PERSONALITY AND CONVEY THAT WE’RE NOT YOUR GRANDMA’S NONPROFIT. IN SHORT, THE BLOG IS WHERE YOU CAN MAKE THE BORGEN PROJECT AND GLOBAL POVERTY A LITTLE MORE USER FRIENDLY.

WHERE TO FIND STORY IDEAS

Finding content to write about can sometimes be the tricky. We highly recommend signing up for Google News Alerts and E-newsletters.

1. Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts - Register keywords to receive e-alerts when those words are mentioned in the news. Suggested keywords: Global poverty, world hunger, foreign aid, world’s poor, USAID, international development.

2. News Search: Search keywords in Google news to find the latest (Foreign Aid, Global Poverty, etc.) https://news.google.com .

3. Sites to Monitor for News and Ideas

- http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters - http://www.one.org/blog/ - http://www.foreignpolicy.com - http://www.trust.org/alertnet/ - http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org - http://blogs.state.gov

- http://blog.usaid.gov http://www.usglc.org/category/blog/

- http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs - http://www.good.is/everyone - http://www.un.org/news/ - http://www.impatientoptimists.org - http://www.youtube.com/user/GOODMagazine - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUy291UFAvLeHJCqyxYpopnw&feature=plcp - http://www.un.org/events/calendar/

4. Sign up for E-Alerts http://www.unfoundation.org/how-to-help/sign-up.html (our fave) http://www.cfr.org/global-governance/group-eight-g8-industrialized-nations/p10647 www.one.org http://www.usaid.gov/stayconnected http://www.usglc.org/ http://bread.org/

Tips for Finding Images

As a nonprofit we can use just about anything you find, as long the photo source is cited.

1. Google Image Search 2. Use the image from the article you are summarizing.3. Flickr.com allows you to search images that users have made available.4. United Nations Photo Database –

User: press@borgenproject.org Password: 3sujju2o

WHAT TO POST ABOUT?

Ask yourself these questions when choosing a topic:

1. Do I care/would I read it? It’s very easy to get in the habit of picking any old topic, so always ask yourself if you would find the topic interesting. If it’s an important topic, but a tad dull, think of ways to bring it to life.

2. Is it SEO worthy? We can sneak in the occasional boring topic if it’s something that has potential to crack the top 10 when people search for it.

Tips, Topic Ideas & Angles

- Use Number Catching Headlines and Listso “5 ways to Reduce Global Poverty”o “Top 10 Foreign Aid Quotes”

- Give the People What they Want: Oprah.com is very good at doing this (along with the numbers trick above).

o “Your Biggest World Hunger Questions - Answered!”o “What do Legos and Foreign Aid Have in Common”

- Work in Celebs and Pop Culture: Lets be honest, US Weekly gets more readers than Foreign Policy or humanitarian publications. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Oprah, Bono, etc., there is always a celeb doing something related to global poverty. Covering their visit to Capitol Hill or Sudan is a great way to get people reading about the topic.

- Begin Titles with… How, Why, What, Where and When: These eye-catching titles make people want to read to find out the answer. Think Cosmo magazine, “How to dump your boyfriend?” Also begin posts with “Everything you need to know about (fill in the blank).

- Explain Human Nature: We’re all on life’s journey to understand ourselves and those around us. Articles that give us insight and research into human nature tend to be very interesting. Use psychology/life helper sites (like below) to get summarized psychology research and then re-tweak the article to be relevant toward our issues and cause. For example, an article on how to tell if someone is lying could be tweaked into an article called “5 Ways to tell if a political candidate is lying.”

o http://www.spring.org.uk o http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/07/40-superb-psychology-blogs.php o http://lifehacker.com

- Provide Useful Information: Take information that will help them get through the day or succeed in life and tweak it toward the cause. For example, an article on “8 habits of highly successful people” could be written “8 habits of highly successful political leaders.”

- Teach Computer/Tech Tricks: Create posts like “5 great aps to aid your advocacy.”

- Do Q&A Articles: Ask various experts, organization leaders, celebs or members of Congress if they’d be interested in being featured on the blog. Send them (or their staff) a list of 5 questions relevant to their expertise.

- Innovative Solutions: Find stories like these http://borgenproject.org/innovative-solutions-to-poverty-and-hunger/

- Highlight the Good News in the War on Poverty: News coverage focuses on wars, disasters and famines occurring, so the public rarely hears the slow, quite progress being made. Find data and news about how life is improving for various villages, countries, etc. http://borgenproject.org/victories-fighting-poverty/ “Congress approved a $2 billion increase for fighting TB.”

- Cost Comparisons: Be on the look out for news about the defense budget, military contractors, corporate excess and other big dollar spending that you can compare to poverty related figures (USAID’s budget, cost of giving a million people polio vaccines, etc.

Good blogs for article style inspiration http://lifehacker.com http://mashable.com http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/07/40-superb-psychology-blogs.php

Content No No’s: Avoid partisan politics and religion. Our base is comprised of every belief system imaginable. While your posts, “Republicans Block the Global Poverty Act” and “Democrats Drop Ball on Foreign Aid Reform” might be factually accurate, a person of that party reading the headline is sure to assume we’re not one of them. We are all of them and want to make sure we come across that way to new visitors to the site.

You never know who is reading your post! Many public figures and organizations receive Google Alerts whenever their name or organization is mentioned on blogs or in the news. Many of the people and orgs you mention in posts will read the article! This has been a great tool for bringing influential people to the site and we occasionally get emails from these individuals thanking us for the coverage.