Blog Posts
Blog posts can be powerful tools in building our brand and reputation, widening our reach and our community.
Our blogs
We have three centrally managed blogs:
FROM
Provides insightful and specialist content for our B2B and academic audiences. It builds brand and reputational awareness, and highlights our work as a world-leading research-intensive university.
Belong
Supports the prospective student journey to university. It raises awareness of Newcastle University and higher education, and nurtures post-application conversion.
Experience
Focuses on current students, and supports the academic, wellbeing and social experience of our student body. Its intention is to foster a sense of community and belonging.
Best practice blogging
The following guidance relates to posts for these blogs. It is also relevant for blogs managed by faculties, schools, institutes and research centres.
It represents best practice in writing engaging, informative posts. They should support our ethos, vision and strategy as a university.
Why we write blog posts
Blog posts aren’t just a way of keeping our website up to date with fresh content, they also:
- raise awareness of the university
- build brand reputation, showing thought leadership, demonstrating our expertise and establishing our authority
- build credibility, trust and influence
- educate and inform
- support SEO, driving organic traffic to our website and creating the opportunity to widen our reach
Writing a blog post
A well-written blog post should be relevant to, and have value for, the reader. It should offer a solution, provide information, insight, or advance discussion.
It should also have a flowing and compelling narrative that’s clearly structured. It should also be easy to scan because of how we know web users consume digital content compared to printed content.
Posts should be between 600-1,000 words. This should give you more freedom to explore your topic and the opportunity to be more conversational in your writing. But don’t go off track. Stick to your point.
A post should follow our style and guidance on tone of voice. You should always check facts for accuracy and any quoted, referenced or adapted content should be credited.
Writing a blog post can be broken down into sections.
The headline
This is the first impression you’ll make on your reader, so ensure you:
- make your headline dynamic and succinct
- make it relevant to your post’s subject
- leave your reader keen to find out more
- don’t mislead your reader or use a click-bait style headline
The introduction
Your opening paragraph or introduction should grab your reader’s attention and give a summary of what’s to come in your post. It should contain the ‘hook’ that will get your reader to read on.
Hooks can incorporate a question, a quotation, a statistic, or an anecdote. But keep them and your introduction succinct, so around 25 words is the sweet spot.
The body: content
Give your reader the information they want and your post the structure it needs. Make sure to cover:
- who?
- what?
- when?
- where?
- why?
- how?
Try to stick to this order, too. It’ll help you plan your content, giving your writing a logical flow and encouraging your reader to keep reading.
Every sentence of your post has one purpose which is to get the reader to the next sentence, and so on, all the way to the end.
As a guide, paragraphs should include no more than two or three sentences. Sentences should be concise (around 20-25 words) and their structure simple, without unnecessary clauses.
Avoid jargon and complex language, using appropriate vocabulary for your reader.
Your blog post may contain specialist or scientific terminology. Consider whether your reader will understand what you’re writing about. If you think they won’t, simplify your language or include a brief explanation.
Use an active voice. Eg ‘staff and students write blog posts’ (active) instead of ‘blog posts are written by staff and students’ (passive). Active voice is more engaging and direct, helping you get your point across.
The body: style and setting
How you style and structure your post is also important for determining its effectiveness.
Abbreviations and acronyms
Write out abbreviations and acronyms in full on the first mention in this format 'National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD)'. Some abbreviations and acronyms, such as UK, BBC, NASA, SIM have passed into common parlance, so there’s no need to spell out what they stand for.
Subheadings
Subheadings help section and structure your content and aid the pace of your writing. Subheads also give readers an indication of what’s coming next and encourage them to keep reading.
Bulleted lists
Don’t forget the power of bulleted points. They can make text quicker and easier to read or scan, especially if you have a lot of related facts. Keep lists restricted to six items, so longer lists should be edited, consolidated or broken up into categories.
Quotes
If you’re quoting someone in your post, make sure you have their permission. You must still ensure that the quotation complies with readability standards.
Be accurate, both in reporting what they say and in how they spell their name and any personal or professional title they hold.
Call to action
If there’s a call to action for your reader (other resources they can explore, or a next step you want them to take) include this at the end of your post. Keep it brief and make sure they know how they’ll benefit if they follow that call to action.
Hyperlinks
Unless there’s a very good reason to do so, don’t draw attention to hyperlinks using phrases like ‘click here’, ‘read more here’. This approach is jarring for the user and interrupts the flow of your content.
Instead, embed hyperlinks as naturally as you can in the text. If, for example, you’re talking about an organisation and want to link to their website, embed the hyperlink in the organisation’s name.
Including other media
Photography gives a webpage impact and visual appeal, so include at least one image with your blog post. Images should be supplied as jpegs, landscape in orientation and of a high resolution (300dpi). Provide an image caption so alt text is accurate for users with accessibility requirements.
If you’re taking the photograph yourself:
- keep your camera or mobile device stable
- avoid shooting in dim light and never into the sun
- position your subject slightly off-centre
- pay attention to the background and keep it clutter free
If the photograph has been supplied by someone else, include an image credit, stating the source of the image.
Make sure you have the consent of anyone featured in the photograph to publish the image.
Our photography guidelines provide more help with this.
Video
You can embed videos into your post from a streaming platform such as YouTube too. If you’re using other people’s material, make sure you credit the source with a hyperlink.
Referencing
If you quote, paraphrase or summarise another person’s work, you need to reference it. You can do this by:
- directly attributing the quote
- embedding a hyperlink to the original source
- adding a footnote containing the title, author(s') surname, initials and year of publication
Copyright
If you’re including someone else’s work and it’s been copyrighted, you’ll need to credit the owner of the copyright. Don’t assume internet content is copyright free. This is the case whether textual or photographic.
Proofreading
You should proofread your article multiple times checking for:
- flow
- sense
- accuracy
- punctuation and grammar
If you can, get someone else to read it as well before you submit.
Using AI
AI chatbots offer responses learned from data, so they can provide text responses found elsewhere. That raises the question of plagiarism and copyright. AI chatbots also get things wrong.
If you’re going to use an AI chatbot, think of it as a tool to help you explore ideas for your article, structure your work, or check it for readability. We have more guidance on using AI.
After submission
If you have written a post for one of our three central blogs, after submission it will be checked for style, readability, grammar and punctuation. It will also be optimised for organic search. Remember to also include the blog author.