How to Start a Teacher Blog from Scratch

To start a teacher blog from scratch requires that you get the right teacher blog topic, decide on your kind of audience, define your goals, get the necessary tools, buy a domain name and web hosting, decide on the content management system you will use, set up your website and start blogging like nobody’s business. Yes, that summarizes how a teacher can create and use a blog for teaching students online.

Can Teachers Be Bloggers?

Of course, yes. Teachers can be bloggers and frankly, anyone can be a blogger.

Now if you wish to know how a teacher can write a blog, I will encourage you to go take a look at my article on how to write an educational blog article.

Here is another article on the most profitable topics for education niche blogs.

How to Become a Teacher Blogger

Are you still interested in becoming a teacher blogger?

Then allow me to explain to you a little bit more about the above steps you need to take to create an educational website.

The ideas I want to share with you on how to start a teacher blog are simple yet critical. That is if you truly want your educational blogging business to take off smoothly.

I Will Show You the Way to the Technical Details

Now listen to this.

There is a ton of guides and blueprints on the internet about the technical aspects of starting a blog in general. So I am not going to bother you with more of the same stuff. What we want to focus on in this article are the strategic steps for making a teaching and learning blog work.

But if you still need to know the minute technical details of creating any website and making it come live on the world wide web, theblogstarter.com has an in-depth article on the subject. You might want to read it later.

Note also that YouTube is filled with channels that focus on blog starter guides for beginners. All you need to do is to type in your search words and follow the results.

With that out of the way, let us have the practical steps you need to follow logically to start a teacher blog from scratch.

We shall begin with some fundamental truths you must know about starting and running an educational website.

Basic Truths About Blogging Today

Before we go into greater details about how one can start a teacher blog, it is important to bear in mind the below points.

It does not matter where you are in the world.

You can start a successful teacher blog in Ghana, Nigeria, USA, India, or elsewhere in the world. Almost every teacher from every single country in the world can start and build a successful educational blog.

There is a way to start a teacher blog for free.

In fact, that was how I personally started Cegast Academy, my educational blog. I started my teacher blog with the WordPress.com FREE plan. It was later that I paid for a domain name and moved to a self-hosted website on WordPress.org.

Yes, there is a fundamental difference between WorPress.com and WordPress.org. And here is how a WordPress.com article explains the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

WordPress.com is a service that helps you build a website using the WordPress software with managed hosting, where WordPress.org is the source where you can download the software itself, which you can use to build and maintain a website on your own.

WordPress.com

However note that like all free things, you can’t hope for much in terms of turning your teacher blog into an income-generating business. If that happens to be your goal, then you need to consider paying for a self-hosted website. I will explain this further down the road.

It is also entirely possible to upgrade your WordPress.com free plan to their premium managed hosting plan. At the time of writing this article, I am in the process of personally starting a website on WordPress.com’s premium managed hosting plan. Because I think it is great.

Real Traffic Will Take Time in Coming to Your Site

It is highly likely that it will take a while for your new teacher blog to start attracting little trickles of traffic. This is quite normal. So you need to be patient at the beginning.

Blogging is Never Easy

Contrary to what you may be thinking, blogging consumes time. The truth is all blogging, and educational blogging, in particular, is a tedious undertaking.

Sometimes it can be very frustrating. Convince yourself that you are willing to keep going no matter what.

Gear Yourself Up for Competition

There is competition out there waiting for you. You will have to fight for the same audience that multiple other teaching blogs are already serving. And there are content thieves too loitering about online.

Again, your content, when it starts ranking on Google, will face stiff competition from other equally great (or greater) educational blogs. You will have to work harder and smarter to maintain your top stop on Google and other search engines.

Consistent Learning is Important

Typically, every successful blogger is a committed student of their trade. I mean they love to learn, experiment, face daunting challenges, make mistakes, learn from them and keep going.

Are you ready to learn the numerous skills required of every serious blogger? But before you run away let me assure you that you need not have any coding knowledge in order to start a teacher blog or any other niche blog for that matter.

The WordPress ecosystem, for example, makes it relatively easy for anyone willing to learn a little to understand everything about digital publishing to be able to blog like a pro.

Blogging is Still Alive and Kicking

It is not true that it is too late to start a teacher blog or a blog in any other niche.

Educational bloggers who refuse to give up too easily almost always smile at last. Because there are always new opportunities for newbie teacher bloggers like you to seize and utilize to your advantage.

Do you still want to start a teacher blog that will eventually make you money? Then come as I show you the strategic steps to take to start a teaching blog for students.

How to Start a Teacher Blog

Take the following steps to start the educational niche blog that you will be proud of. Make sure to take particular note of items 5 and 6 below.

1. Choose A Topic Related to Education.

There are many educational blog sub-niches. Research the topics that appeal to you most and quickly settle on just one.

You might as well decide to combine two related educational topics. Here is the deal. You do not want to run out of content ideas a few months down the road.

Take a look at the ideas below to guide you on your choice of a topic for your educational blog.

• Essay writing website
• Lesson plans for a particular type of teachers
• Study guides in a subject or more. This is the core content strategy on my own educational blog. The subject you choose, be it Mathematics, Literature, Chemistry or Graphic Design, must align with your personal interests and knowledge.
• Language learning. It can be any language of your choice.
• Guidance and Counselling for Students
• Effective School Administration Tips
• Private School Business Startup
• University admissions advice
• Mock tests and exams portal
• Test prep coaching
• Education news

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2. Choose Your Audience.

A second step worth taking to start a teacher blog on the right note is the choice of a specific audience. Knowing the kind of people whose pain points you want to address on your educational blog will help you stay focused and organized.

Broadly speaking, there are about five main types of audiences available for a newbie educational blogger.

• Students
• Teachers
• Educational Administrators
• Workers/mature learners
• Parents

The above are among the major players in any educational system. They are the ones that the content you publish on your teacher blog must seek to attract and serve.

Note that you can break down each one of them further into more manageable micro-audiences. For instance, for a student audience, one may start a teacher blog that appeals to only K12 learners, high school students, college students or adults who are in active employment.

Do not forget, though, that you may decide to start a teacher blog that provides solutions to problems confronting two or more of these educational niche audiences.

3. Define Your Goals

What is it that you want to achieve with a teaching and learning blog? A goal is like a destination. When you are clear about your objectives for starting a teacher blog it gets easier to draw and implement the right strategy for your new blog.

Let’s have a quick look at some possible objectives for starting a teacher blog. You can choose whichever you fancy and work on it.

Still, you may ignore them and decide on your own unique goals. All that matters is this. At the end of the day, you know exactly where you are headed with your blog.

Having a well-defined goal for your blog is essential for maintaining clarity and consistency.

• To assist students to learn properly for an external examination.
• You want to guide learners to achieve better results in one or more subjects.
• To assist teachers to be able to teach a subject more effectively.
• You want to provide sample lesson plans for teachers.
• To educate parents so that they can help their wards to learn better at home.
• You want to provide homeschooling services.
• To assist students with their homework
• Provide guidance to students seeking admission to the university.
• Help workers improve their skills on the job.
• Provide easy and reliable access to online learning opportunities
• To make money online while doing any one of these.
• Give free assistance to people struggling with their educational pursuits.
• Provide both free and premium content for the benefit of your audience.

4. Gather the Necessary Tools

In the beginning, no one needs much to start a teacher blog. Here are some of the vital tools you need to start your educational blog for students.

• A laptop or desktop computer
• Power source. At least, your laptop or phone needs electricity to be recharged periodically.
• A phone. You might need it for shooting videos, making business calls and receiving verification codes from the multitudes of online platforms and software developers you will be dealing with.
• Reliable internet connection and ability to pay for data
• Pens, notebooks and/or other writing tools
• Sources of information such as textbooks and syllabuses
• An online international payment system like PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Authorize.net, or Payoneer. This will be required as soon as you are ready to begin paying for blogging services like web hosting, web design or receiving online payment for your products.

Please, bear in mind that as you progress with your teacher blog, you will be needing additional tools. These include plugins, themes, printers, external drives, microphones and digital cameras.

But while some of these are a must, others are simply a matter of personal choice. It all boils down to your goals for your blogging business.

Here is another good news about using blogging tools on a teacher blog. Most of them are inexpensive.

The moment you begin to generate an income from your educational blog, it gets easier to pay for the most important blogging tools and services.

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5. Buy a Domain Name

If you wish to start a teacher blog from scratch using a domain name that you own, then this is the stage you must purchase one.

I am referring to the address that will take visitors to your website when they click on it. For example, here, we have bloggingtothemax.com as our domain name.

You can buy a domain name from most hosting providers. Bluehost, Hostinger, WPEngine, Namecheap, GoDaddy, Siteground, A2 Hosting and Hostgator are just a few of the hundreds of these WordPress hosting companies.

Now if you live in Nigeria, Ghana or elsewhere in Africa, it is possible to buy your domain name from multiple hosting companies on the continent.

In Ghana, for example, Nakrotek, Intek Host, Avehost and Web4Africa are just a few of the numerous places to buy a domain name for a new teacher blog.

Pro Tip: Most web hosting companies give their new customers a free domain as part of their hosting package. So make sure you are taking advantage of that.

One more piece of advice about choosing a domain name: make it as simple and easy to memorize as possible. It counts.

6. Buy Hosting

Please note that the website where you will start a teacher blog must have a home to stay online. This is where hosting comes in. Shared hosting is the most popular among the self-hosting plans you will find on the market.

This is because shared hosting is usually much cheaper than others like VPN hosting and managed hosting. You can get your self-hosted site running for as little as $3/month or even less in some cases.

Again if you wish to settle for a local hosting company in India, Nigeria, Ghana or any part of the developing world, you can easily get one at a much lower price.

Though a lot of considerations come into play when choosing between a more established international web hosting company and a local one, it is basically a matter of personal choice.

7. Decide on a Content Management System

My personal choice is WordPress. And I strongly advise that you go in for WordPress.

In fact, WordPress remains the most-used CMS within the blogging community. One reason is that WordPress is super-easy to learn and use. The customization options are equally amazing.

On top of that, WordPress has an extensive plugin repository that will make your teacher blog truly functional.

However, if you are uncomfortable about using WordPress, you can go in for others like Wix, Joomla, Squarespace, Magento, Drupal and Weebly.

Other popular CMS platforms are Blogger, Ghost, Shopify, Hubspot, BigCommerce and Bitrix24.

8. Set Up Your Website

This stage involves a bit of technical work but it is not something you cannot do. That is especially so if you are willing to learn, experiment and learn more from any mistakes you may have made in the process.

For example, you may have to download and install the WordPress software on your new self-hosted website. But if you’re lucky your hosting company will take care of that for you for free.

Do you want a hosting company that does for its customers much of the initial work of setting up a website from scratch? Then I encourage you to do some searches on Google. Take some time to closely read the reviews of as many hosting companies as you can.

Another way is to visit the home pages of the hosting companies on your list and read through what kind of services they offer. You will know if they are willing to help you set up your new website for free.

One key service we provide at RN DigitaZ, our parent company, is helping beginner bloggers to set up their new websites. So feel free to let us know if you need our help as you prepare to start a teacher blog soon.

9. Start Blogging

So finally, it is time to make it happen. Organize your first few educational blog posts and start writing.

Publish as many blog articles, lesson plans, study guides or tutorials as you can and keep going. Because remember, content publishing is the most important activity in any blogging business.

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10. Do not Wait to Promote Your Teacher Blog

Right from day one, publicise every piece of content you publish. Quickly letting the world know that you’ve got some awesome educative content on the internet is one of the smartest ways to get visitors coming in.

Here are some suggestions to try from the beginning. As time goes on, you will discover additional methods for marketing a blog in general, and a teacher blog in particular.

• Share blog posts on social media. Personally, I share my tutorials inside my Facebook group of some 26k members. I also use Pinterest, Twitter and Linkedin to promote my blog content.
• Tell people you already know about your blog. Do not forget to encourage them to go see what is in there. If you are a teacher in active service your students, their parents and your fellow teachers can be the easiest source of initial traffic to your new teacher blog.
• Another tactic most teacher bloggers use to promote their website is to set up an account on Quora and answer as many questions as they can in their area of expertise. In many cases, people who are impressed by your answers on Quora will make an effort to follow the link you have provided to your website. They would love to have more of the same.

Start building an email list as soon as the blog is up and running. Head over to Mailchimp for a free email marketing account. Other email marketing service providers you might want to consider are ConvertKit, Sendinblue, Mailmunch and MailerLite.

Believe you me, your email list will soon become one of the most valuable marketing and sales assets in your educational blogging business.

Wrapping it up

Like I said earlier, anyone who is willing to learn new skills, no matter their age, can start a teaching niche blog or any other niche blog. Do you have the desire to start a teaching and learning blog for students or teachers? I encourage you to make the move right now.

Trust me, educational blogging can be a fulfilling undertaking for anyone who loves to share their valuable knowledge and positively impact the lives of others. Start a teacher blog today if this article has given you the information and motivation you need to make your dream a reality.