Have you ever thought about starting a science blog? Whether you’re knee-deep in academic research or just a science enthusiast, sharing your passion through blogging can be fun and rewarding. This guide will explain how to start a science blog, even for a beginner!
Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
Define Your Science Blogging Goal
Why do you want to blog? Your strategy will ultimately determine what you write about, who you write it for, and possibly even which platform you choose for writing.
Consider the following:
Topic: what is the subject area that you want to write about? Pick something broad enough to have a meaningful audience but narrow enough that you don’t have much competition. Search for blogs about sub-domains, such as “organic chemistry” or “biophysics,” and see how crowded they are. Here is a guide to help you find a science blog topic.
Audience: who are you trying to reach? There are many ways to slice and dice an audience, but for scientific topics, there are four broad audiences: students, professional academics, industry, and the public. Which you choose will influence how you write.
Differentiation: why is your audience going to read your blog? What is special about what you have to say? Your content should be the most informative, engaging, or thought-provoking on your topic of choice.
Outcome: do you want to sell a product or service? Are you looking to build a newsletter list? Or are you just trying to share your passion? Your desired outcome may impact your choice of topics, your publishing frequency, and where you set up your blog.
The answers to these questions will evolve over time. It’s okay if you don’t have them all locked down when you first start, but you should try to answer them as you write and get feedback on your work.
Pick a Platform
Creators these days have loads of options for where they can start a science blog! However, where you set up your blog can influence how successful you are.
Here are some of the most popular options:
Medium: this is a free blogging network, where writers can post their work and readers can find it. While the platform’s mechanics can be unintuitive, it is a great place to start.
Newsletter: these are not technically blogs, but they are blog-like, especially with services like Substack and LinkedIn newsletters that offer a landing page. These are best for people who already have a following.
Website: creating a website takes some work, but even someone without coding experience can have a functional site within a couple of hours with WordPress, Squarespace, or similar tools.
If you are a scientist attempting to write on the internet for the first time, and your blog is not directly attached to a business, I suggest starting with Medium. It is the easiest to use and maintain and helps build a fledgling audience.
However, science isn’t one of the more popular topics on Medium. Once you get some practice, you may want to launch a website or newsletter.
Get Started – How to Write Your First Blog Post
Now that you have all this prep work, it is time to start writing! Your writing process will influence your work’s quality, efficiency, and impact.
You can find a guide on how to write a science blog here, but here is a quick summary:
- Do research. Do a lot of it and do it before you get started on your actual writing.
- Lay out the structure of your article.
- Write your blog.
- Edit your work using both machine and human editors.
- Put together any images you need, then publish your article.
If you are aiming to engage a scientific audience, you should remember to cite your sources. Professional researchers expect you to link to academic papers or reputable news outlets, even for a blog. Don’t formally cite your work or add a references section – just use hyperlinks.
Putting together images is one of the last steps, but it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Graphs, diagrams, flowcharts, and more fit into this step. In science blogging, a compelling figure can make or break an entire post.
Distributing Your Blog Post
You have written your blog and posted it to your work on your website, newsletter, or Medium profile. You are done, right? Not yet. The internet is a highly competitive place with many people fighting for attention. You must put some effort into sharing your content and building an audience.
Google is one of the best ways to attract readers, mainly because it operates in the background. If you write an excellent blog post on a topic that people are searching for, Google will hopefully direct them to your article.
This kind of traffic is known as “organic” traffic, and tailoring your blog post to get traffic from Google is known as “search engine optimization” or SEO. This is a massive topic, but you shouldn’t focus on it as a beginner. Come back to this once you have gotten comfortable with the basics of how to write a science blog.
The best place for beginners to share their work is “owned” channels, such as social media. Even if you only have a few connections on Facebook, X, or LinkedIn, why not take advantage of them and generate some attention? They may not be the “right” audience, but their feedback is valuable, and they may spread that content to others.
Not active on social media? No worries! You don’t need it to be a blogger, but building a follower list is valuable for any content creator. Focus on your content first, but start a simple social media presence soon. LinkedIn is the best choice for scientists–here is a guide on getting started.
What about paid traffic? I don’t recommend it for early-career bloggers, even if you have the money to spare. Paid traffic will often send you the wrong kinds of traffic or overwhelm your other traffic sources, so you won’t be able to tell how successful your writing is. Paid channels have their place, but they should wait until much later in your process.
Measure Results – Science Blog Analytics
Now that you have written your science blog, and distributed it, you must be done, right? Mostly, but the next step happens later: assessing if you have met your goals. Every platform has analytics tools that will show the number of people visiting your work. These numbers will help you improve your blog over time.
What level of traffic should you expect as a science blogger? That will vary by topic and how much effort you put into distributing your work. However, you should set your expectations really low. One hundred visits within the first month for a first-time blogger would be a strong performance. Even if you get literally 0 hits, this isn’t a cause for panic at first.
However, you will gain momentum if you keep up with your writing. As Google recognizes you as an expert in your field and you attract links from other websites, your authority on a subject grows. Your growth rate will ultimately depend on your writing skill, the size of your audience, and the effort you put in.
What about other goals, like newsletter sign-ups, leads, or purchases? For now, you should focus on views – if people aren’t reading your content, then they certainly aren’t going to sign up for a newsletter or buy from you. Once you have a steady stream of visitors, see if you get any other conversions. Try to tune your content until you get the results you are looking for.
How to Start a Science Blog: Next Steps
Congratulations! Starting is the hardest part. Actually, that’s a lie – now that you have figured out how to start a science blog, you need to keep up your dedication as you grow your audience. But you finished the first step, which is critical for becoming a science blogger.
Want more in-depth tips on how to start a science blog? Make sure to check out the resources linked throughout this article. Also, sign up for my newsletter, and you will get more content about science blogging and marketing to scientists.
