I just finished teaching the module on Blogging this past week to my BCIT classes. I love introducing people to WordPress. It pretty much is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Part of why I love WP so much is that it gives people the ability to customize their website/blog, and the possibilities are basically unlimited.

When blogging, it’s really important to remember to make sure you make your posts scannable. If you land on a page, and there’s just reams and reams of text with no break, you’ll quickly click off somewhere else. But if you land on a page that has chunks of text, bold statements, images or video, it helps to break up the page and is much more pleasing to the eye. It is my policy to include a graphic on every single blog post I write–whether a photo, graphic, or video.

Sometimes it’s hard to find appropriate images, though and you don’t want to grab just anything from google. You might be infringing on copyright.

Check out Compfight. It’s a search engine tool that searches through Flickr and finds images that are licensed under the Creative Commons. You can use it as-is, or you can install the WP Plugin, and search for and insert images right from your WordPress kitchen sink. You have the choice of three different sizes, and the plugin even creates the licensing blurb for you.

Check it out!

Photo Credit: Andy Piper via Compfight