Have you just started a research website and want to learn how to write on your academic blog?
…or have you been running a scholarly site for a while and want to generate more visits, content, and page views?
This post gives a strategy for content creation based on templated academic literature summaries. No expertise with SEO, keyword optimization, or audience research is required.
This approach allows you to generate a ton of website traffic by doing only two things: reading papers (I am sure you are already doing this!) and writing every day (most of us want to do this, but struggle to find a routine!).
Background
When I started my graduate research website, www.myDustExplosionResearch.com, I knew nothing about blogging, search engine optimization, or even how people found websites. My first three blog posts took weeks to write and to create images for. Furthermore, no one was visiting my site to view the posts anyway leaving me discouraged.
I started following writers in nonacademic areas to see how they were generating content. I came across a post by Niklas Goeke called “How To Publish Like a Huge Content Creation Machine (When It’s Really Just You)“. In Step 2 – “Streamline Content Creation – And Everything Else”, Nikalas summarizes the templated structure he uses to post a four minute book summary every day for a year (see http://fourminutebooks.com/).
Using a slightly modified version of Nikalas’ approach, I committed to publishing 5 literature summaries per week, on papers in my research area. I called these summaries “Three Minute Papers” in honour of the four minute books concept.
In the next two months I created over 40 blog posts and wrote over 40,000 words. Not bad for someone who up until that point, had only wrote 3 facebook posts in the 10 years of having a profile!
The remainder of this post covers the basics of the three minute paper approach, benefits and drawback, and lastly, some tips or things I wish I had done differently to improve the process from the start.
Academic Blogging Approach
The main goal of this approach is to remove all of the extra time-consuming steps of creating blog posts (brainstorming relevant content, creating a good title, formatting, sourcing images and SEO, to name a few). With all this removed, you can start every morning by sitting down, opening your laptop, and writing. After several weeks of practice, I could write an 800 word blog post in 30 minutes.
Template Structure
The key to this strategy is starting with a good “ever-green” template that you can use over and over. Below is the template I created based on Nikalas’ four minute book summaries. It is in HTML and must be pasted into the “text” tab on your wordpress editor. You can then write in the visual or text editor. Alternatively, you could create a template in word and drag and drop depending on your workflow.
The template is broken into three sections. The 1-sentence-summary, authors, and image are “above the fold”, so that the reader sees them first when coming to the post. The second section gives an overview and list of the three main findings, for quick glance readers. Lastly, the third section gives more detail on each of the main findings and an overall summary or conclusion.
Writing Tips
I have experimented with several different writing approaches and have found the following writing tips speed up the process and make the summary more concise:
- Limit paragraphs to three sentrences
- Limit sections to three paragraphs
- Download the Yoast SEO plugin and follow the readability guidelines (use simple language, short sentences, and active voice)
This may feel funny coming from academic writing which is generally verbose and complex. However, give it a try and see how it feels. From what I have seen, it makes for more concise writing that is easily digestible over the computer.
Images
Every blog post should contain at least one image. They engage the reader, breakup the text, and can be used as featured thumbnails for social sharing.
In the templated structure each post is given a single image that is taken as a quote from the paper. I used a simple image generator (https://behappy.me/generator), although there a several options available with various levels of sophistication. An example quote image from one of my posts is shown below.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is included directly in the ever-green template and only a few things are set for each post. I would again recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin as it allows you to set SEO properties directly for each post, and can be used as a check that everything is set before hitting publish.
Only a few things need to be set to ensure a fairly high level of SEO:
- Post keyword comes from the PAPER TITLE
- Post title is “PAPER TITLE – Summary”
- Set image “alt” and “description” fields to PAPER TITLE
- Put PAPER TITLE in final “take-aways” or conclusion section header
- Include post keyword in meta-description
This process should only take 60 seconds and ensures that each post received a “good” rating by Yoast, and is likely to perform well with SEO. Once you get several posts in one area of research, you should be optimized for so-called “long tail” keywords and for researches typing in the direct name of the paper you are summarizing. This is very powerful as that is likely the exact audience you want to attract to the website!
Links
I have found a lot of success by including many links in my summaries. I put links to previous three minute papers that are relevant and link out to journal publishers so people can access the papers. The goal is to have a reader start on one page and spend hours sifting through the information on your website.
Writing Procedure
With the ever green structure in place writing daily posts becomes quite simple. Every time you read a paper take five minutes at the end to review. Highlight the three main points and circle any key images or statements. Also, circle any quotes that jump out as these will be used for the post images.
Keep a stack of these papers by your desk, in case you get downtime and want to write. I like to create the image, setup the template, and fill in the SEO for posts I will write that week on the weekend. Then the first thing I do each day is open the next skeleton post and write.
Copyright and Plagiarism
It is important to make sure that paper summaries are in your own words and proper attribution is given. I like to include the full paper citation at the bottom using the Papercite Plugin which integrates with bibtex, and a link to the paper on the publisher’s website. I avoid using images from the paper, but permission can be obtained from the copyright department of the publisher if needed.
I have emailed several large journal publishers directly, to see if permission is required prior to publishing three minute papers. The response has been mixed with some publishers stating “go ahead, checking with us first is unnecessary…”, while others have stated that they require permission upfront.
If you are interested to know whom I have spoke with (they likely publish in your area) send me an email and I will send you the information.
Benefits of “Three Minute Papers”
There are several benefits of the templated academic blogging approach to get started and gain experience online. Some of these are outlined below.
Search Engine Optimization
In the templated approach each post is optimized for SEO quickly. Your blog will also build up a rapport with google for long-tail keywords in your field. If done correctly, and with a little bit of luck, your posts will show up on the first page of google when someone from your research area searches for the paper title. In many cases my website came up near the top of google for paper title searches within days of creating the posts.
Your Own Figures
One of the difficulties in generating your own content is getting images. Following this templated process allows you to create many great quotes directly from your research area. These can be used for social media, slide decks, and presentations to your supervisor!
Literature Database
Two things happened with my website that made me realize the power of building up your own literature database using this approach. The first is that website visitors would enter through one paper and bounce around from post to post, getting to understand the research links. The database developed using the three minute paper approach mimics how academics complete literature surveys which makes it a useful tool.
The second thing is that after four weeks of posts, I stopped looking through the stacks of papers around my desk to find the article I was looking for. I instead would open up my website and search through my blog post keywords, rapidly finding the content as well as relational content I had forgot about.
Better Writing
After doing this for a few weeks your writing will vastly improve. I can not describe the joy the first time I finished a post and the Yoast readability icon switch from red (“Needs Improvement”) to yellow (“OK”). Recently, I have even received a few green (“Good”)!
Gain Confidence
In addition to better writing, sitting down to write becomes less scary. The thought of writing a 50,000 word dissertation has decreased since I have started using this approach. I realize now that this can be done over two months with writing as little as an hour per day!
Potential for Affiliate Programs
The last benefit that I will touch on is the potential for affiliate programs through journal publishers. I have not started this on my website, but affiliate links can be setup with the major publishers and gain a percentage of any purchase someone makes when clicking through your links.
Until recently my website traffic has not been high enough, although it seems like a possible future source of revenue. Alternatively, you can work directly with companies in your field to promote/advertise their work. This is ultimately the path I ended up taking with my research blog and my research company.
Drawbacks of “Three Minute Papers”
Although this is a great way to get started, there are some drawbacks to templated posts for academic blogging. Two of these include difficulty writing every day and feelings of doubt about this being your “best” work.
Writing Every Day is Hard
The first drawback is that writing every day can be mentally taxing. The best way to overcome this is to build up a store of posts that are ready to go in lean times. I did this by writing 1.3-1.5 posts per day, which over time allowed me to build up a stock of ready posts when I needed a break.
Is this my Best Work?
After listening to “Leap First” by Seth Godin on audible/soundstrue, I found myself asking if Three Minute Papers was the best creative work I could send to my audience.
In my case the answer to this question was “no”. I felt that I could offer more to people using other mediums such as long posts (such as this one), video, and “how to” posts in my research field.
That being said, I would have never been comfortable tackling these types of posts before using the templated approach for two months. My hope is that you find this approach useful for your audience and as a tool to increase your skills as a writer. I found it an excellent stepping stone in this direction!
Expert Tips
Below are several expert tips that you can use to improve the three-minute paper approach. Some of these I wish I had done, while others I learned are best practices to consider.
Use Variables in Templates
If you are tech savvy enough, I would recommend using variables for all elements of your ever-green template structure. For example, my closing header says “My Personal Take-Aways From “PAPER TITLE”” and I have wanted to take away the “My Personal” part for a long time.
I did not use variables, and now need to change 40+ posts manually if I want to make these changes. The alternative is to keep the old posts as they are and start a new template moving forward. Having single variables set at the back end of your site would make the template more flexible moving forward. Unfortunately, this was (and still mostly is!) outside the scope of my tech knowledge.
Make All Images the Same Size
My first 15 posts had different quote image sizes. This makes it hard to reuse the images in mega-posts, and also makes it harder for social sharing. I have found success making all of my images 400×400 pixels; however, this may change depending on which social channels you are using.
Stack Posts to Create Literature Surveys
Once you sufficiently cover a niche aspect of a research area, you can create “mega-posts” from this content. Pick the posts that are most popular and publish a literature survey on that topic. Alternatively, you now have all the knowledge you need to create a literature survey for journal publication.
Promise Less
When I started three minute summaries I promised my newsletter 5 posts per week. I have since cut this back to 2-3 as I have started writing other more detailed posts that take up my time. I would again recommend creating a backup store and drip them out slowly over time.
Conclusion
So, are you ready to start writing everyday, increase the number of posts released, and drive more traffic to your website? This strategy has been great for getting people directly in my field of study (those searching for academic papers in my area) to my website. It has also significantly increased my writing ability and confidence as a blogger and I know that it will help you get started as well!
What strategies do you use to get people to your research website? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below – I would love to hear from you!
