Thousands of bloggers have used Blogging U's step-by-step email courses to get started, grow as writers, create beautiful websites, learn the ins and outs of WordPress.com, push their photography skills, and more.
There are ten different courses currently available, for folks of all interests and skill levels. Click any course's title to learn more about it and to get started!
- Blogging: Learning the Fundamentals -- a solid grounding in the three big components of blogging: publishing, customizing your blog, and engaging with the blogging community.
- Blogging: Commenting Basics -- a short course to get you comfortable with reaching out to other bloggers and commenting etiquette.
- Blogging: Branding and Growth -- audit your brand, analyze your stats, explore social networks, learn about SEO, and more in this intermediate course.
- Blogging: Intermediate Customization -- go in-depth into the customization options available on all WordPress.com sites. Learn to work with themes, custom headers, background and fonts, widgets, and basic HTML.
- Writing: Intro to Poetry -- find your inner Dickinson with daily poetry prompts, and sharpen your verse by learning some basic poetic forms and devices.
- Writing: Finding Everyday Inspiration -- a longer course to spark a daily writing practice and explore ways to find new post ideas all around you.
- Writing: Shaping Your Story -- an intermediate course on the art of revision: four weeks of self-editing and rewriting. Dig into the process of focusing and building a story, whether fiction or nonfiction.
- Photography: Developing Your Eye I -- a fun introduction to the fundamentals of photography, with 10 daily themes and shooting tips. Use any camera you like: the lens on your phone, a point-and-shoot, or a dSLR.
- Photography: Developing Your Eye II -- 10 more days of themes and tips, getting progressively more in-depth. Take it after Developing Your Eye I, or on its own!
- Websites: Build a Business Site -- create a website to help you meet your business goals. Publish pages and add site navigation, look at themes and customization, understand custom domains and SEO, and more.
Courses give you a daily assignment or writing prompt, along with the technical help you need to complete the task and insider advice from both our editors and the wider blogging community; each course has a handy resource page collecting everything in one place for you to refer back to whenever you'd like. Publish new posts using the course's tag and you'll be able to connect with others working through the same course for support, feedback, and friendship.
Click on any course title for more detail on what it covers and to begin immediately (click the "Start" button on the course's page to enroll) or read on to learn more about how Blogging U. works.
FAQs
How do I start a course?
Visit the page for the course you're interested in and click the "Start" button -- that's it! If you're logged in to WordPress.com, you'll receive an introductory email right away, and your first assignment a few minutes later. If you're not logged in, we'll prompt you to do so, and you're off and running. Do each assignment as you're able, and interpret them however makes sense for you and your site.
What if I want to stop?
No problem -- every email you'll receive includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Click it, and the course stops.
This won't affect any of your other WordPress.com emails, like notifications. And if you want to give the course another try, you can register again.
How many courses can I take? Can I take them more than once?
As many as you'd like, as many times as you'd like. We recommend taking one course at a time -- blogging is fun, but that doesn't mean it can't also be overwhelming! -- but you're free to take multiple courses simultaneously.
What if I need assistance during the course?
Every assignment includes expert advice from our staff as well as links to more resources and to our customer support folks, called Happiness Engineers.
How do I connect with other bloggers during my course?
Reaching out to other bloggers helps participants get the most out of Blogging U. courses. We encourage you to use the tag for your course when publishing posts (e.g., #bloggingfundamentals) and to browse that tag in the Reader to find and connect with other bloggers. If you don't know what tag to use or browse, don't worry -- when you begin a course, we'll tell you.
We also have a weekly Community Pool discussion thread where anyone can seek or give feedback on any aspect of blogging. A new thread opens every Monday. And each Friday, new bloggers are invited to share their first posts with the community in our First Friday thread.
What if I don't blog on WordPress.com?
All general assignments (publishing posts, customizing your blog, leaving comments, etc.) are applicable to any blog, anywhere. However, you'll need to have a WordPress.com account to register for a Blogging U. course, and any specific how-to guidance we offer will be specific to WordPress.com.
How much does each course cost?
Nothing. Blogging U. courses have always been free, and still are.
Ready to register? Head to the Blogging U. home page to get started!
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