Hands up who’s sick of spending hours creating reels, crafting Instagram captions and designing beautiful carousel posts only for them to disappear beneath streams of newer posts hours later?
I know I am. And judging by the conversations I’ve been having with language teachers lately, I have a feeling you might be too.
Don’t get me wrong — social media is great for reaching a new audience, building a community and sharing your expertise.
But when the average Instagram post has a lifespan of 48 hours (which is at least double that of other channels), you can’t just rely on social media to market your business.
You need a longer lasting marketing platform that allows your content to show up weeks, months, and years after it’s published. Nothing does that better than a blog.
But since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re less concerned with the benefits of blogging and more interested in how to get started.
So, here’s a step-by-step guide to starting a language teaching blog to promote your business.
Step 1: Set your goals
Most people say you should start by deciding where to host your blog. I say there’s no point in choosing a hosting platform if you don’t know why you’re even starting one.
So, before you wave goodbye to a few hundred pounds, start by thinking about what you want to achieve.
Do you want to attract more traffic from Google? Boost your website authority? Or simply serve your existing audience through longer content? What kind of topics will you discuss? How will your blog fit into your content strategy?
Like any marketing channel, blogging takes time and effort. And as a busy language teacher, you want to make sure a blog is the right platform to invest your energy in.
Step 2: Create content pillars
Okay, you’ve set your goals. Now it’s time to plan what you’ll post. We’ll do this using what are known as blog content pillars (or categories).
These are basically overarching themes that guide your content, making sure it’s relevant, interesting and useful to your ideal students. It’s also a great way to organise your blog posts so that new readers can easily find what they’re looking for.
To create your content pillars, write down 3-5 core themes that relate to your ideal students’ wants and needs and your areas of expertise.
Let’s say you’re a Spanish teacher who runs courses for digital nomads in Spain. Your content pillars could include:
- Learning tips
- Travelling around
- Workplace Spanish
- Beginner tips & tools
These would allow you to speak about anything from slang and idioms to searching for a job.
Step 3: Brainstorm content ideas
Your content pillars *should* make this next step easier because they give you a starting point for coming up with actual content ideas for your language teaching blog.
Under each pillar, write down related topics that would appeal to your audience. No pressure to write good titles at this point — it’s just to get your creative juices flowing.
When you have a list of 5-10 content ideas for each category, pull up a fresh Google search and start typing them in, one by one.
The goal here is to see a) if anyone’s actually searching for content on this topic and b) what’s already been written.
You can use this information to find content gaps, keywords and even more great ideas.
Step 4: Choose a hosting platform
I know, it doesn’t seem logical to throw this in here, but hear me out.
Now you’ve got a long list of ideas of what to write about on your language blog, you know your efforts are going to pay off. And you can confidently invest in building a home for your articles.
If you already have a website, I suggest hosting your blog on the same platform. This is usually easy to add if the function doesn’t exist already, so check with your website hosting platform for instructions.
If you don’t already have a website? Check out platforms like WordPress, Wix or Weebly. I personally prefer WordPress as it’s super easy to use.
Step 5: Design your blog
I won’t pretend to be an expert on design because, well, you’ve seen my blog. So, we’ll keep this short and sweet.
Here are some quick design tips for your language teaching blog:
- Create a blog home page that includes your most recent posts
- Add your categories and make them visible on every page (blog home and individual posts)
- Design your blog post layout, making sure to include space for an image
- Write a mini bio so new readers can meet you without clicking away
- Include a search function so people can easily find what they’re looking for
Most blog hosting platforms provide pre-designed templates, so if you’re worried about designing your blog, this is an add-on worth adding on.
Step 6: Create your blog content plan
Now your blog is set up, the last things left to do are to create a content plan and start writing.
Start putting the content ideas you came up with in step three in order of what you want to share and when, based on your business goals.
It’s up to you how often you choose to post. I like to publish a new blog post every week, but I am a writer, and I literally do this day in, day out. If once a week is too much for you, once or twice per month is absolutely okay.
The key is to choose a schedule you know you can stick to so you don’t kick yourself for falling behind.
Step 7: Research and write!
I mentioned at the start of this post that blogs can continue to attract new people into your world years after you publish them.
This is hands down one of the biggest benefits of starting a language teaching blog. But it’s not as simple as just writing.
For Google to show your articles in relevant searches, you need to optimise them and include relevant keywords. This is known as search engine optimisation (SEO).
Tools like Wordstream, Google Ads Keyword Search and Ubersuggest will show you what your ideal students are typing into the search engine.
Type the content ideas you’ve come up with into them to find data and specific keyword ideas. Then, choose one main keyword and a handful of related terms to integrate naturally into your blog post.
Then? It’s time to start writing!
And there you have it. You’re ready to start a language teaching blog to promote your business!
If you found this post useful, then you’ll love my marketing crash course. It’s free, it’s fun, and it answers all the questions you never knew you had about growing your language teaching business.
Or, if you’d rather not even think about doing it yourself, I’m here to ghost write your blog for you.
January 15, 2024
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