Dear EAA 309 Chapter Members,
With the help of Ronnie Brown I have set up an EAA 309 Blogsite at http://eaa309.blogspot.com/ to complement our excellent EAA 309 Web Site at http://www.eaa309.org/ ( note the similarity). Now I need your help to make it interesting and enjoyable to anyone with a passion for aviation!
So, what is a Blog? - Start by watching the 2 minute VIDEO on our new site!
A blog is a frequently updated website featuring news, commentary, advice or insight, and entertaining and helpful information, with pictures that can expand to full screen with a mouse click. Blogs are published using third-party content management systems (ours is free, the most popular, with Google) which makes them simple to manage - even for beginners. Our Blog content is displayed on the left panel in reverse chronological order (newest post at the top), with a right side panel with our General Information that does not change or move, with posts categorized. The EAA 309 Blog will broaden our internet presence, increase EAA 309 website’s value, make ourselves more visible to search engines, provide enjoyment and online interactive comments to our members and world-wide visitors, using active internet links just like on websites to enrich our messages by combining web resources. By getting involved as an EAA Chapter 309 Team Member you will help us display our wealth of background, experience, aviation talents, and aviation interests that our own members have, as well as welcoming interactive comments from our world wide visitors, so all can enjoy and benefit from our site. Our EAA 309 aviation blog can deliver all of this and more!
The Benefits of Blogging
EAA 309 blog will help us become more popular for a number of reasons. Blogs have a user-friendly publishing interface, so organizations often update their blogs more frequently than their regular website. Some of the most popular blogs get updated once or twice a day. In addition to keeping readers coming back, this also improves search engine optimization by adding fresh content to our online presence. Blogging is easy and can bring a valuable resource to our chapter. Please give it some consideration. Look at some of the other blogs out there (an example of a personal aviation blog) and see how they are being used. This may be something that you may want to also do as your own personal website, all for free. You can go to the Google Blogger Start Page and start your free blog with 3 easy steps. I did not know what a blog was a short time ago but I was asked to learn to blog for my granddaughter Sarah and to help others find help for their child with Hemangiomas. Sarah’s site has many worldwide subscribers that automatically receive posts via email, complete with pictures, right after a post is made, so you do not have to keep going back to the site to see if new information has been added. With help from Amanda at Bloggerbuster I have been able to optimized the site for search engines - try doing a Google search for Sarah Hemangiomas and you may see us at the top of the list. I also have a Personal Blog Site with links to our personal Web Albums and EAA 309 sites, cross links to Sarah’s site, and a Business Blog Site to compliment our C&C EDM Website.
Step 1 - Set up our blog
I have drafted an EAA 309 blog with Google for us to get started together. May I request at this time that you email me with your comments and suggestions rather than make online comments, at least until we get started. It is important that we use a software such as Google which allows us to customize our Chapter blog with our logo and colors but which is very feature rich and works best with PCs. I do not feel that our blog should match our website in that it is designed to complement it. Think of it as an opportunity to create a new online look for EAA 309 but also give us a chance to give our blog its own look!
Step 2 - Learn how to Blog as a TEAM BLOG Member
As the EAA 309 Blog Administrator I have set us up with what is called a TEAM BLOG to give access to those members that wish to make posts and can log in with their own personal password and begin publishing immediately. If you wish to become an EAA 309 Team Blogger simply email me and I will send you an Invitation Email which will set you up to enter the site with your own private password. We need your help! If you feel that you do not have the time to participate but wish to see an idea posted simply email me your article or copy in a Word File with Hyperlinks, attached pictures, and I will make the post quickly for you!
Blogging is easy! In fact, if you can type an e-mail you can post content to a blog. It really is that simple. However, general business e-mail rules still apply. Do not put anything offensive or off-color in our blog articles. This includes images. Keep your content professional, but still with a familiar, personal voice. You don’t need to write an encyclopedia entry. Don’t capitalize entire lines of text or bold every word that you feel needs emphasis. This is extremely annoying to online readers and they will start to overlook your phrases.
Step 3 - Blog
Once you’re comfortable making a blog post, you can post content on a regular basis. When you start you may find that it might be convenient to make a Word file for your text then copy and paste it into your post. If that works for you an easier way is to add a Toolbar to Word to post from within MicroSoft Word. You can easily upload pictures from your own computer or other web sites. Once you publish your post you can view it and go back and make as many corrections or additions as you want - even delete the post with one click. You’ll be helping to grow our blogsite with quality news and information - good for your Chapter, readers world wide, and good for the search engines, too.
A good practice is to pick at most three key phrases in every post and link them to three different pages on a web page that supports the text. This gives you a chance to create a legitimate linking campaign on the internet. If you look at my sites you will see that I have chosen phrases and linked them to pages on our EAA 309 website as well as other blogs and websites. I chose pages that match the key phrases. Internet users dislike it when you link a phrase to a web page that does not match the phrase. This might get our blog blocked from ever being used by that user and you will have lost a possible future visitor – or maybe a future chapter member. As your Administrator I can remove any posts or visitor comments that are not appropriate. You as a Team Blogger can erase or edit your posts at any time but not the posts of others. You can email me with any comments or clarifications of other’s posts for my consideration for changes. If you need help at any time I will be glad to assist.
What to Blog?
What to write about? Here are just a few ideas to start with:
•New product, service, or building technique - with pictures
•Upcoming event
•Member Aviation Trip/Vacation (such as John’s trip to Alaska)
•New Airplane Kit, power plant, or accessory
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• Interesting aviation article
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• Recent aviation article such as the Strategic Bridge at Remagen, Germany on our blog site as an example that I simply copied from our EAA 309 Discussion Group.
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• As time goes on I may set up separate pages such as Home Builders, Aviation Articles, Young Eagles, etc., and then move posts to the appropriate page.
The topics are endless. Anything that is interesting aviation news can become news on our blog!
Now with your Interest and Help we can Get Started! Who knows, you may even be like me and find that it is fun!
Thank you for taking the time to consider Blogging!
Best regards,
Chuck Porter , Chapter 309, EAA – “The Spirit of Aviation”
Phone: 704-296-5512 Fax: 704-296-5513 Cell: 704-231-4867
Email: chuck@edmspecialists.com
http://www.eaa309.org/ . http://eaa309.blogspot.com/ . http://picasaweb.google.com/EAA309
