I have always been curious about the blogging world – so when I realized I wanted to join it, I felt that as a teacher and a parent, I could do it. After 6 years now, I feel that I understand the basics and would love to see more teacher blogs in the world! Here’s 7 steps to starting a teaching blog – whether it’s to share your expertise with the world or to get an extra income to support the teacher income, can’t wait to see what you do!
7 Steps to Starting a Teaching Blog
1. Identify what you want to write about (aka your niche)
This is where you always want to start – and I know a lot of blogging experts say you should have a super specific niche. I feel that in the world of social media and content creators, that doesn’t apply. Especially with teaching, there’s an importance of humanizing teachers – we are more than just teachers.
That’s why I focus on teaching AND parenting – but also sprinkle in just real life aspects too! When reflecting on my blog, I would argue that it is more of a lifestyle blog rather than a teaching blog, but I do talk about teaching quite a bit, so it also makes sense to categorize it that way as well. For myself, starting a teaching blog was a way for me to write about my experiences with teaching and life, which included navigating the Covid pandemic, pregnancy, and now balancing teaching and parenting.
2. Pick a brand/name
When it comes to picking a brand or a name for your teaching blog, it can feel really stressful. However, remember that you can always rebrand if the name no longer applies (it’s a lot of work, but doable!). You can always go to ChatGPT to give you some ideas of names, especially once you have your niche set.
When it comes to my blog name, I came up with a list of options using a blog name generator, asked my husband his thoughts on them, and then also let him give some suggestions. And six years later, here we are with the same blog name from the beginning!
3. Get online
Once you have your niche and name, step 3 is probably the most important step to starting a teaching blog – going online. There are tons of resources to help you determine who to get your hosting from and what site to you. I use WordPress because I have monetized. I had the long term plan to monetize, so it made sense for me. However, you do have to pay for the domain and hosting. If you’re not wanting to monetize yet, you have lots of free options.
I recommend using this post from Thrive Themes to explore the best platform for your goals. There are tons of options and this post does a great job of breaking it down into what do you want now and later, so which is your best fit!
4. Customize and design your blog
Once you get online, now comes the fun part of starting a teaching blog – designing! Have fun with it. There are themes that you can apply and see how they work. If there’s a point where you feel it doesn’t fit with your aesthetic anymore, you can easily change and adjust it later.
5. Write and publish your first post!
One of the most important parts of starting a teaching blog – writing and publishing your first post! Some bloggers feel that you should have a handful of posts before going “live,” but I’m on the opposite end – get that first post going and published. Who cares if you just have one post? Everyone has to start somewhere.
6. Promote
Something that I wish more bloggers shared with new bloggers is that when you write a post, you don’t just magically get tons of readers. In fact, in the beginning, it can be so disheartening getting no views for days on end. That is why you need to promote your posts. When it comes to teaching blogs, I have found a lot of success promoting on Pinterest and Instagram. I do have a Facebook page, but I haven’t had tons of success in getting traffic from Facebook.
7. Monetize
This step of starting a teaching blog is completely optional and there are so many different ways to monetize as well. Through ads, affiliates, and digital products, you can determine if and what you’d like to do. Feel free to check out all the monetization options and determine what you’d like to aim for.
As a teacher blogger, I supplement my income with my blog and it’s a great way to add some wiggle room into your monthly income as a teacher.
Whenever you start out, I can’t wait to see you in the blogging world! <3