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Effective Teaching and Learning: Summarizing 3 Days Workshop

There is saying that   "There are no bad students, only bad teachers.” It means there is the necessity of understanding and implementing teaching and learning methods. Learning is never tiring process. Teachers are also a learner. In this age, the content-oriented teaching is now transforming into the student-oriented approach.  

The three days workshop at Kathford International College of Engineering and Management was on this issue containing the contents such as:   

Pedagogical Planning, Classroom Management, Teachers’ Professional Development, Students’ Assessment and Feedback and Action Research for the improvement of Pedagogical and Professional practices. 

In this article -Effective Teaching and Learning, the brief summary of each session has described respectively. The resources persons for this event were from the school of education, Kathmandu University(KU).

Day 1: Pedagogical Planning

Resource person: Dr. Bal Chandra Luitel, Associate Dean, School of Education, KU

Pedagogy is related to the theory and practice of teaching and how these influence student learning. Regarding this topic, Dr. Bal Chandra Luitel started his presentation from Outcomes-Driven Curriculum Planning. There are different levels of curriculum planning.

Level 1: Assessment of Interest 

• I am aware of what am I going to do.

• I am willing to do whatever I need to do.

Level 2: Assessment of relevant skills and knowledge 

• I am able to do whatever I need to do

Level 3: Assessment of Readiness 

• I am ready to do whatever I need to do.

Level 4: Assessment of Practice/ Implementation 

• I have done and I am reflecting on my success/failure!

In this way, assessment of interest, ability, readiness, and reflection are the fundamentals blocks of curriculum planning. He further added plans are the means, but they are ends to the means.  If Plan A does not work, one needs to have PLAN B or PLAN C in effect. Now the question is why we need curriculum planning?  He added, entering a classroom unprepared marks the beginning of a devastating career. The students of this group may be more knowledgeable in the subject area than those of previous year also we may encounter one day:

• A difficult question
• An uncontrolled situation
• A disruptive behavior 
• An incoherent  set of classroom activities

So, A good planner can anticipate these problems, and think of alternatives immediately. Planning gives confidence and enables us to identify the necessary resources.

 Then, who are the stakeholders for planning? Dean/Associate Deans, HoD/ Coordinators, Lecturers, Professors, Students are all responsible for this. 

Finally, how it can be done? 

There are five steps of the outcome-driven model to curriculum planning. 

Stage One: Finding the key attributes of graduates

For this, we have discussed in a group and drawn some key attributes of our graduates that they should have. 

Stage Two: Mapping those attributes into learning outcomes for our course

For project work, these are some learning outcomes:

Stage Three: Key concepts, ideas and “contents”, skills and attitudes are needed to demonstrate those learning outcomes

Stage Four: Assessing whether, or not our students achieved those outcomes

For laboratory these questions might be the tools of assessing students:

 Finally, Stage five was working interactively through those stages. 

The topic for the second session was "Taxonomy for Developing Course Learning Outcomes". According to Dr. Benjamin Bloom, analyzing and evaluating concepts, processes, procedures, and principles are higher forms of thinking in education rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). 

In this session for the different levels of taxonomy, the following learning outcomes were derived based on a topic called transducer of a subject-Instrumentation I.

For effective teaching and learning, There are different learning activities such as Individual activities, Group activities, Teacher-led activities, Shared activities, and  Student-led activities. 

Quick reading tasks, groups with the same number of members, roll numbers for each member in a group regrouping as per the same roll numbers are the examples of cooperative learning whereas lecturing, demonstration, expository teaching, problem-Solving and Q/A are Teacher-led activities. 

Case-based learning and problem-based learning are student-led activities. The case method is the best pedagogy to teach design, environmental engineering, managerial, and engineering ethics (Gorman,2000). Problem presentation, redefining the problem, identifying key elements, trying out a solution are the steps of problem-based learning.

Day 2: 

Session I: Classroom Management

Resource person:  Mr. Prabat Dhungana, Leadership Trainer, School of Education, KU, parbatdhungana@hotmail.com

The session was starting by a video of shallow dive from a mountain by the special kind of birds species showing that the early bird has a high rate of living than others. Mr.Prabat told that we should know how much skill or knowledge required in engineering education. First of all, objectives must be clear. Our power is the knowledge that's what students salute for. He added, for progress, we should come out from our comfort zone. He also showed us few unique terminologies such as:

FOLD-UNFOLD:  Do you know about this? के तपाईलाई थाहा छ यस बारेमा ? 
ANALOGY: Comparision
GALLERY: Show; What students have done?
GRAFFITI:Contribution/Value
JIGSAW: Assemble and Exchange Idea
ABC in Learning: 
A - Anticipation; like an appetizer, सिकाईको भोक जगाउने , Analogy: Soup
B- Building Knowledge; ज्ञान बाड्ने,  Analogy: Main meal

C- Consolidation; ज्ञानको मजबुतीकरण through revision and assessment, Analogy: Dessert 

About Classroom, It is like a busy road. Prabat sir demonstrated this by showing a video- Test Your Awareness: Whodunnit?. He also let us write about the attributes of classroom management that we experienced in the classroom.

Classroom management starts from the classroom building construction duration. Classroom management consists of physical management, psycho-social management, and learning management. 

A fundamental feature of management is planning. In physical management following planning activities should be included:

• Teaching-learning materials ( Instructional Material)
• CCA materials
• Text and references
• Reading material/space/ reconceptualistic learning 
• Space (floor, wall, and ceiling/ above shelf)
• Teachers space 
• Students space
• Classroom traffic and regulations
• Group workspace
• Infrastructures 
• Doors, Windows, Restrooms, hygiene, light, air, strength.
• Furniture ( Shelf, Desk, Chairs…)
• Mounted/fixed, peer/individual/group task
• Surveillance

Psycho-social management & Learning management:

The individual are different. The most difficult is to know people inside, and more difficult is its management. Learning is an inside and more truly a physiological process. As a teacher, he/she would have faced new class, open defiance, noisy classroom, unable to gain control, feelings of shame, anger and frustration. Fear leads students up to violence through discontented, frustration and anger. Few tips:

• Don’t sow the seed of fear, but need. 
• Make them realize the need. 
• What tool; gradual but counseling with teenagers and guidance to early

 This session also dealt with the ' Cause of Disruptive behavior of students in the classroom':  

• Past traumatic life episode(s)
• Acquired or genetic disabilities
• Emotional, physical, mental or sexual abuse
• The prolonged influence of critical, domineering or laissez-faire parenting
• The temporary or permanent absence of parents
• Prolonged exposure to poverty or adverse environmental conditions
• Boredom or lack of appropriate stimulus
• Poor teaching or poor relationships with teachers in school 

Tips: Work early, analyze, plan resolve; don’t attempt for a cure. Preventive intervention will help not the individual to climb the disruptive behavior ladder. Following interventions may require:

Statistical evidence:

• Individualized intervention would address rest 1-5%
• Targeted Group intervention will address 5 to 10%
• Universal Intervention will address 80 to 90%

In the final round of this session, We learned about the learners' types and classroom strategy. There are varieties of learners. Audial learners are good listener whereas visual learners are good at observation. 

Sharing some classroom strategies:

• Real life experiences/situations/problems
• Time management
• Meaningful engagement
• Tied to the knowledge
• Soft skills integrated
• Retains interest
• Reinforce learning, learning to do
• Also, let them engaged, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate; See how?

This is why a teacher needs to have the different strategy for effective learning:

Table: Classroom Strategies and their effectiveness in General ( ofsted, 2015)

Few other tips:

• Continous lecturing may bore students. Determine the best learning methods suitable for them like a case study, lab task, project and so on.
• Focus on integrity(value)than compliance (बाध्यता )
• Provide Mentoring, Counseling, Guidance if necessary
• Don't just allow them to hear (सुन्नु ), make them listen(मनन गर्नु), Q & A is the best strategy for this. Don't go for the surfacial question, go for deep level/ brainstorming questions.

Session II: Teachers' Professional Development

Resource Person: Dr. Laxman Gnawali

Task 1: Book you read and date; I wrote: reading चार बेद को सार 

Task 2: Add a prefix to your name start from the same letter start of your name

I added: Sound Saban

Dr. Gnawali presented that teacher professional development is possible by both individual and institution initiatives (50-50). In other words, it is a two-way process. 

Here are few exclusive ways for Teachers' Professional Development:

Source: Dr. Gnawali's presentation

Reading books, journals etc:

Reading is important to update with the current scenario of development/ trends in technology, politics and so on. Time is changing, to adapt change we should read the new books, journals, articles ans so on.

Being attached to professional associations:

संघमा शक्ति हुन्छ। There are different professional associations associated with different professions. Like in Engineering profession, there is a body like Nepal Engineers' Association which do several activities regarding the different engineering stream.

Give a session:

Beside regular classes , we can give sessions within our faculty members or in another institutions that enhances and sharpens our capabilities.

Attending professional conferences/seminars:

For presenting our research papers and to know from other researchers, experts we should attend professional conferences/seminars time to time.

Attending in-service training:

Institutions should also offer workshop, training to there faculties and staffs whereas teachers shouldn't miss the opportunity to participate in the different workshop and training that enhance the knowledge, skills and provide good attitude for own profession. 

Mentoring a colleague:

There is saying that when you help others you will learn more. Its a win-win situation. Helping to those who need help  and enhancing knowledge and experience.

Publishing an article:

Writing is very powerful tool. Publishing articles in different platforms helps other to explore on that field hence enhance the capabilities of own. 

Peer observation and feedback

Disclosure and feedback are powerful ways of professional development. The information and knowledge will enhance more when we are in no. 1 open mode as depicted above.

Finally, for the institution Dr. Gnyawali suggested these six institutional arrangements.

Also he showed his career path and let us make it for ourselves. Here is mine career path.

He also talked about professional development plan that we should make and move on accordingly. 

This session ended with a motivational song for a teaching profession " i am a teacher an educator's anthem" Lets enjoy our teacher hood. and a motivational video "2013 world public speaking champion presiyan vasilev" giving the message that reach out whenever you need monitoring and help to the senior, expert. Our knowledge may limited, our skill may rusty but we can change it when we reach out. 

Day 3: 

Session I: Students' Assessment & Feedback

Resource Person: Dr. Dhanapati Subedi, Asst. Professor, KU

The session was started with a task:

Share, reflect and theorize about assessment and its types:
Sharing is done based on two perspectives one mind opinion another expert opinion. First sharing with students then ask students and briefing about the topic is the efficient process of learning. 

According to Brown, et al. (1997) the term assessment comes from the Latin 'as sedere' which means to sit down beside. 

Norm- referenced Assessment: 

Peer comparison ,it is prepared by concerned teacher.

Criterion- referenced Assessment: 

It is prepared by an external.

Formative Assessment : 

Summative Assessment:

Ipsative-referenced Assessment: 

Comparing previous exam and recent exam.

A Paradigm Shift: From Traditional to Alternative Assessment Practices:

• Performance Assessment Approach 

• Observation Approach 

• Task- based Assessment Approach

• Portfolio Approach: Within finite peroid 

• Rubrics Approach : Template based

• Conference Assessment Approach : E.g. 15 min. presentaion of students in the classroom everyday

• Self-assessment Approach: Via applications

• Peer-assessment Approach: Involving students themselves for each others' assessment

Stages of Assessment Design:

• Construction of Specification chart:
• Weight to the objectives
• Weight to the content areas
• Weight to the nature of the question 
• Weight to the objectives has three criteria:
  • Cognitive Domain: knowledge
  • Psychomotor Domain: skill
  • Affective Domain: value, attitude

Note: In engineering, Psychomotor domain has greater weight than the cognitive and affective domain. 

Weightage to the content areas:

Note: It is provided in the curriculum

• Blue Print: Providing weight for the questions unit wise
• Construction of Test Items
• Editing the Test Items
• Analysis of Test Items
• Scoring Design

Question preparation:

Assumption: 27%- weak, 27% -Brilliant, 47%- Medium

E.g. of a long question: 

Creative type question

Feedback:

It is information that is given to learners about their performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving their performance. Usually, teachers comment on students’ work saying good, satisfactory, poor and excellent. 

According to research evidence, it is a mistake to give false praise in an effort to motivate students and boost self-esteem. 

Session II: Action Research

According to Dr. Subedi, Action research is a technique used to examine the educational practice systematically. 

Assumption:

• Problem identification
• Examine and assess student's work
• Need time & space away from the daily routine
• Collaborative work

Action research helps a teacher to be updated with time coz it's changing.

View of the teachers of our institution:

Few problems in our students:

• Teaching-Learning climate disturbance
• Lack of culture of greeting the teachers
• Lack of interest in learning
• Negligence
• Discipline and attitude
• Lack of self-motivation
• Lack of self-study
• Lack of active participation
• Marks oriented rather than learning

Among these identified problems, our workshop group dealt with mark oriented issue. here it is:

Finally, the workshop was completed with a formal session. In a formal session, the chief guest Prof. Dr. Mahesh Nath Parajuli, Dean ,KUSOED said that students learning is for better life quality. Similarly, patron Toran sir suggested for eye contact, the to&fro movement to students. Additionally, Dr. Bal Chandra sir suggested for doing one thing at a time, commitment and to follow evidence-based approach ( correcting present from past evidence).

Workshop resources:

Contents by facilitators
Photos

How to Write Better Project Proposal? Essential Guidelines to Engineering & IT Students

There is a famous saying by  Abraham Lincoln "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe". This quote represents the value of planning and preparation. A correct planning can lead the project to the successful accomplishment. The project both academically and professionally is a very essential portion.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the project is defined as a specific plan or design whereas a project proposal is a detailed description of a series of activities aimed at solving a certain problem.  In engineering or computer science education, Project plays a vital role in the students' career. According to B.E. curriculum, in a 3rd year, they have to do the minor project whereas in 4th year they have to do the major project. Before starting the project, after forming a group and selecting a suitable project title they should be focused on writing the proposal. So there is an issue that how to write a better project proposal? In this blog, I will try to provide the essential guidelines to write a better project proposal which may be helpful to the students of Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/Computer Science/Information Technology.

Though the project proposal format can be different for different departments, Here are the fundamentals contents of a project proposal described briefly. After this description, I will be sharing the sample of project guidelines. 

Cover/Title Page

Cover Page consists of the institution's name with address, project title, project members, concern department and a submitted date in a correct format. 

Defining proper title is the difficult task. A title is the main thesis statement that overall reflects the own idea. It should be clear. For e.g. if developing Smart dress is a concept then "Design an efficient smart dress" can be a title. Whenever you write or define title it should be meaningful and logical.

Abstract

This is the most important part of the proposal because it is the reviewer’s first impression. Even though it appears at first, write it at last because it is the summary of the proposal. The abstract is a concise description of the project covering objectives, need, methodology and dissemination plans. It should identify the expected outcomes of the project. An ideal abstract should be less than 500 words and fit on one page. 

Abstract contains:

• The background & problem statement;
• The project’s objectives;
• Key project activities; and
• The total project budget.
• Keywords: the words that represent your project

Introduction

Elaboration on the topic in the correct or logical way, Be specific.  For e.g. If you are a student and you are introducing to your teacher, giving the background of +2, grades with name and address are fine rather explaining all your hobbies and personal matters. 

Note: Avoid giving less information or over information. 

i. Background

Background of the project will be stated here. Elaborate on why you are doing this project. 

ii. Problem Statement

Well-documented description of the problem to be addressed and what it is important.  Elaborate on what are the problems in the existing system.

iii. Objectives

The objectives should be correlated with the title. It indicates the expected outcomes of the project, preferably in measurable terms. Objectives should be clear and concise. Objectives can be general/main and specific. The main objective is only one and it is related to the project title for. e.g. If the project title is " E-Ordering System for Restaurants" then the main objective can be" To design and develop an E-ordering system for restaurants. Similarly, the specific objectives can be more than two and it shows that how you going to achieve the main objective. for e.g. In hardware approach, For the given main objective following can be the specific objectives:

• To design and develop the keypad based input section and the RF-based transmitting section that take the order from the user and transmit the order.
• To design and develop the receiving section that receives the data and display in LCD in the kitchen of that restaurant.

For the software-based project on the same topic, the specific objectives can be:

• To design and develop an android application that takes the order from the user and also send a notification to the kitchen section.
• To develop the SQL based database that manages the data from an android application.

Note: Representing only specific objectives point wise is also fine.

Literature Review 

In this section, you should describe literature that you studied before making a final decision about doing this project work. You should be able to list similar work that has already been done and the outcome of those works. References should be given while citing the algorithms, principles, theories, works, results -outcome etc.  

Few Important Links:

• Researchgate
• IEEE
• ScienceDirect
• Scholar.google.com
• Academia.edu

Feasibility Study

While doing the project various unexpected problems may arise. So you should be able to predict them. A feasibility study is about the evaluation of the sustainability of your project from the different prospect of cost, technology, and equipment, academic knowledge and time. 

Methodology

How will you be doing it? It is the critical part of the proposal and is the longest part and worth the most points. It is a plan of action for how the objectives will be achieved. This section usually starts with a description of the overall approach, its relevance, effectiveness, and inventiveness. Then it gives details on methodology, the population being addressed and how anticipated problems will be managed. 

For ECE projects following are the subsections of methodology:

• Block diagram of proposed system
• Flowchart of proposed system

For software-based projects following are the subsections of methodology:

• Development Model
• Flow Diagram/Project Workflow

Note: Since literature review also consists of related theory such as waterfall model/spiral model. Avoid explaining these theories in the methodology section. 

Schedule (Gantt chart)

Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. It describes how long specific tasks or components of the project will take. Include graphical chart representation. You can prepare Gantt chart by using Microsoft Visio.

Hardware/software requirements

List the required hardware/software that the project going to use.

Cost Estimation 

Show the overall cost of the project.

Expected Outcomes

State about what may be the result according to the specific objectives.

References

The referencing style can be different for different departments such as APA, MLA, IEEE. In engineering IEEE referencing style is preferred for research papers.  Simplified Hardvard style is preferable in academic reports. Here are some examples of APA & IEEE format/style. 

 [University paper with two authors]

IEEE style

[1] R. Gowarishankar and M. F. Demirkol, “Adaptive M-QAM Modulation for MIMO Systems”, IEEE 2005, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA, 2005

APA style

Gowrishankar, R., & Demirkol, M. F. (2005, April). Adaptive M-QAM modulation for MIMO systems. In Wireless Communications and Applied Computational Electromagnetics, 2005. IEEE/ACES International Conference on (pp. 66-69). IEEE.

[Proceeding of Conference]

IEEE Style

[2] A. Svensson, “An Introduction to Adaptive QAM Modulation Schemes for Known and Predicted Channels”, Proceedings of the IEEE | Vol. 95, No. 12, December 2007 

APA Style

Svensson, A. (2007). An introduction to adaptive QAM modulation schemes for known and predicted channels. Proceedings of the IEEE, 95(12), 2322-2336.

[Book]

IEEE Style

[3] T. S. Rappaport, “Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice” Second Edition, Prentice Hall, 2003 

APA Style

Rappaport, T. S. (1996). Wireless communications: principles and practice (Vol. 2). New Jersey: prentice hall PTR.

[Website or Document from any electronic source]

IEEE Style

[4] Quantil, "Data Transmission – Parallel vs Serial," 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.quantil.com/content-delivery-insights/content-acceleration/data-transmission/.

Report format guidelines

Your report should meet following standards: 

Font Name: Times New Roman 

Font Size: 12 pt (for normal text) 

Left Margin: 1.5 inch 

Right Margin: 1 inch 

Top Margin: 1 inch 

Bottom Margin: 1 inch 

Header and Footer: 0.5 inch 

Line Spacing: 1.5

All the text should be justified.

Before Paragraph: 6 Pt 

Heading should be in the following standard

1. Heading1 (16 pt, Bold) 

1.1 Heading2 (14 pt, Bold) 

1.1.1 Heading3 (13 pt, Bold) 

1.1.1.1 Heading4 (12 pt, Bold) 

 Mistakes or Confusions to Students

• Not clear about tasks
• No proper flow of literature and citation
• Poor grammar
• No consistency
• Ignore the guidelines and report format
• Overambitious
• Limited expertise and exposure
• Confused about task divisions
• Improper time management

Finally, let's conclude the blog with following Q&A representing contents for a better project proposal:

Who will be doing it? >>>>>Group member

What you will be doing?  >>>>>Literature review>>>Title>>>Objective

Why are you doing this project? >>>>Background and Problem statement

How will you be doing it?>>>>>>>>>>>>>Methodology and Tools

How long will it take?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Gantt chart

How much will it cost?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Estimation of budget of hardware

Also, Project's Objectives should be “SMART”:

• Specific to avoid differing interpretations
• Measurable to monitor and evaluate progress (preferably numerical)
• Appropriate to the problems, goal, and organization
• Realistic achievable, yet challenging and meaningful
• Time-bound with a specific time for achieving them

And, here are the tips to be considered before writing a project proposal:

• Review past project proposals
• Review past project evaluation reports
• Organize groups
• Consult the field related individuals, journals, papers, websites, and books
• Select the topic based on the interests of a group focusing on time, budget and other hardware/software resources.
• & Read properly the proposal format guidelines set up by the department and strictly follow it.

According to Dr. Diwakar Raj Pant, HOD, Department of Computer & Electronics and Communication Engineering, IOE, Pulchowk Campus, Engineering projects must have:

• Algorithms
• Developing apps only isn’t accepted
• Need mathematical method or model
• Testing  & validation is required i.e. comparing between the conventional system and your system
• Engineering needs the fact and evidence, so be realistic
• Think twice before writing

Also, 

See the Sample Project Guidelines of an Institution

See the Orientation for ECE students for project title and proposal writing

See the Presentation template sample for proposal defense

[ MEMO ] 10-Days SEO Training in Nepal by Elance Digital Media

Aren’t we familiar with terms like Search Engine, Social Media, E-Commerce, Digital Marketing? Yes, Indeed. These all technologies drive our daily life. We are connected with our friends, family via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and so on. We search contents on Google, Bing and so on. We buy from E-Bay, Amazon, Keymu and so on. We spread our and our firm’s information by creating unique web portals. So the question is how could our web portal can be found on the search engine so that concern user can easily find it? Either you advertise your portal by paying or it could be optimized without paying further. SEO-Search Engine Optimization is the techniques for this. In this blog I am going to share the tools and techniques of SEO that may help you to rank your website in the front line of Google by using SEO on the basis of 10 Days SEO training conducted by resource persons Er.Anish Shah, CEO and Mr. Bijay Ghimire, COO of Elance Digital Media. 

Here I will be presenting the each day’s two-hour session’s content respectively.

Day 1: Session I:  Introduction and Importance of SEO

According to Er. Anish Sah, SEO is an act of making your website popular & relevant enough to rank high on Google for free traffic ( that saves the amount goes to the advertisement ). For e.g. if we type “Fashion tips” keyword in google there will be millions of search results.  Now, the question is among them how the website comes on the first rank of Google leaving those advertised websites? The answer is simple. It is so because of the two main features of SEO. i.e 

i. Relevancy (on-page SEO): 

The contents of the website itself like the title, description, tags, labels, interlinking, HTML source code and so on.

 ii. Popularity ( off-page SEO): 

The public engagement like the no. of visitors, social media engagements,  creating backlinks and so on. 

Again, the question raises how Google determines the relevancy and popularity of the website? And the answer is : 

After the keyword is typed on google search, the activated google spider bot check all these parameters and sorted the websites accordingly. Technically, any search engine works based on three processes named as “crawling” where content is discovered, “Indexing” where it is analyzed and stored in huge databases and “retrieval” where user query fetches a list of relevant pages.  

Thus, At this moment, The SEO seems important because Google has 82% search engine market share and according to the Google latest updates “Google Panda” -2016 (latest 4.2), focuses mainly on “on-page” and “off-page” SEO. 

Session II:  SEO tools and techniques

I already informed you about the two main features of SEO i.e relevancy and popularity. So to rank on google our websites should be relevant and popular. Question is,  how to make it so? This second 1st day’s 2nd session was about the tools and techniques of SEO.  

Tool no 1: “Keyword everywhere”

This is an extension of the web browsers like chrome which shows the search volume, cost per click and competition which are also the major factors for the “Niche Research”. 

Now, let’s explore further the niche research and its factors. Actually, Niche is the common interest of the common group. To understand niche let me give an example: We all soccer lovers know that Messi is a world’s top football player. His niche is playing football.  Ammittawbachan is Bollywood's top actor. His niche is acting. Just as, A niche website is a website that focuses on specific information such as “health”, “education”, “entertainment”, “music”, “travel and tourism”, “jobs”, “fashion”, etc.  that is useful, interesting and dedicated for the concerned audience.  Talking about Amazon –the biggest E-Commerce site is a non-niche site because the niche area is not specific enough although it is focused on shopping. 

Now, the point is how to find out the appropriate niche? We can term this process of finding and choosing appropriate, relevant niche as “Niche Research”. Choosing niche is depend on our field of expertise or can be chosen for the purpose of profit. The following table depicts the four factors of profitable niche research. 

Day 2: Keyword Research and Blogging

i. Keyword research:

Whatever we type into the google search that becomes “keyword”. For e.g. If ‘Motivation’ is a niche then the ‘, ‘Motivation at work’, Motivation tips for good relationship’, ‘Motivation for success’ can be the keywords. The ‘Keyword everywhere’ extension for chrome provides the information about the factors explained in the above table. 

Before start writing the contents in the blog or in the website, we should do research for the appropriate niche and the keywords.  Another term we have to deal with secondary keywords i.e LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing ) Keywords. It is the keywords that are listed in ‘Related Searches’. 

ii. Blogging: 

Initially, blogging involved a personal web log, in which a person would journal about their day. From "web log" came the term "blog." Blogs are updated frequently. Blogs allow for reader engagement. Blogs are often included in social media because of the ability for readers to comment and have a discussion with the blogger and others who read the blog makes it social. Search engines love new content, and as a result, blogging is a great search engine optimization (SEO) tool. [Source: https://www.thebalance.com/blogging-what-is-it-1794405]

How to create your own blog? 

Here are the easy steps to create your own blog:

i. Go to BlogSpot.com and log in using your Google account. It is recommended to you uses your Google Plus profile.

ii. Once you are logged in, click on “new blog” then add a title and select your domain. The selection of the domain (Address) can be similar to that of your niche. 

iii. After choosing the title and the address, you can choose theme depending on your requirements.

iv. Now, click on the “Create Blog” button, you can see “Dashboard” from where you can easily create new posts and pages.

Day 3: Topic Research and Content writing

In this session, we are going to learn about topic research- selecting the good topic for start writing the contents. Here are those steps to find a good topic:

i. Type the focus keyword in google

ii. Open at least 5 different articles on new tab

iii. Copy the title of each article & paste it into notepad then decide the appropriate title.

Now, before start writing the contents we must select the attractive title. Here are the few tips  for keeping better title: 

SEO Title Rules:

i. Length of the title should be 50-60 characters.

ii. A title should include focus keyword.

iii. Use of power words; e.g: Amazing, Eye-opening ( you can google it for further power words).

iv. If you are going to give tips and tricks or steps to solving any problems then it is better to start the title with” How to ”or “Numbers”.

About content writing, it has main three sections:

i. Introduction: 

This section should contain a well-defined problem statement with the assurance of the solution. Here, for optimized writing focus keyword within first 50-100 words can be included with the bold format. It is also better to write the contents using “I” and “You” to give the audience an emotional touch.

ii. Body: 

This section is the explanation of the subject matter. It can include the steps or the subheadings with LSI keywords. 

iii. Conclusion: 

This section will be followed by focus keyword. The appropriate volume of words for an article is around 2000 and the appropriate keyword density is 0.25-1.25% i.e. 2 to 12 keywords in 1000 words.

Day 4: Posting the first article on BlogSpot

There are following rules while posting an article:

i. Follow the mentioned optimized “title rule”.

ii. Use of focus keyword and LSI keywords ( in bold, italic or underline format).

iii. Interlinking (linking the current contents to other contents of own blog/site).

iv. Outbound links (linking the current contents to the other contents of other’s blog/site).

v. Mention labels sometimes called tags i.e.  Shortcut keywords separated by commas.

vi. Edit the properties of image i.e. give title & alt text to the inserted image since free images can be inserted from unsplash.com, pixabay.com where there will be no issue of copyright.

vii. Use of H1, H2 H3 headers tag i.e. by default 1st heading has <H2> tag, Subheading has <H3> tag, for e.g.  In the body section, a first step can be assigned as first heading, the subheading can be appended under that heading and so on.

viii. Make URL short by customizing the permalink on the right-hand side of the blog dashboard.

By following all these rules I have created my first blog on “5 Eye-Opening Tips to Motivate Yourself at Work” where my niche was motivation with keywords -motivate yourself at work and LSI keyword -stay happy. 

Day 5: Digital Marketing

There is few abbreviation we should know when there is a term of digital marketing:

SEO: Search Engine Optimization; its free

SEM: Search Engine Marketing; payment basis by advertisement

SMM: Social Media Marketing; via Facebook, Twitter

SMO: Social Media Optimization; sponsorship basis

In this session, we had learned about social media marketing. i.e. creating a page on facebook and posting the related posts also creating facebook groups finally learned about posting on other social media such as Twitter using Google URL shortener, Quora, Tumblr and so on.

Day 6-8: Link Building  

In these sessions we had learned about:

• Creating backlinks (contextual and non-contextual): here, social media are tier 2 backlinks where web2.0 (blogging), article directory, profiling, bookmarking, guest posting, press releasing, do sharing are categorized as tier 1 backlinks.

• Creating an account on article directory: for this, we should know about DA-Domain Authority & PA-Page Authority which can be shown by Moz toolbar.  To start article writing and authorship less than 70 DA sites are preferable. Here is the HTML code for link creating in article directory: e.g.: Read my article, here for giving link at “my article”, following HTML code is used; we are ,ahref=www.kcsabanblogspot.com/blog”>my article</a>

• Forum posting
• Profiling in Facebook, Twitter, Quora, 
• Document sharing sites like SlideShare, Researchgate, 
• Video submission on youtube, vemio ( by using pawtoon.com)
• Orientation on word AI, turing spinner, yopmail.com and other SEO tools

Day 9-10: Monetizing the blog/site

Now the concern is how to monetize the blog/site?

Here are the ways:

i. Google Adsense 

It requires a high number of visitors. It also requires pre-investment for creating an account for earning from advertising the blog/site. Note: There is the hassle of payment gateway in the Asian region.

ii. Affiliate marketing 

It is commission based marketing. Medium no. of visitors is okay for this. For e.g. Writing the product review of Amazon, if customers purchase the product by reading the product review via your site/blog you will get 4%-15% commission from Amazon. There are different platforms like jvzoo.com, warrior plus, clickbank & so on where different products are categorized and review can be written for them and earn the commission.  Note: There is the hassle of payment gateway in the Asian region.

iii. Email marketing

This is the way of increasing visitors to the blog/site. Creating the list of email of clients and flourish the information to them and update them timely about the content of the blog/site. 

iv. Earning $ by Approaching on freelancing platform: SEO Clerk

Here, we can find and contact online clients (Global) directly. We can create different services and sale here. The services can be:

• Do 20 highly profitable niche research for $5
• Do 20 highly profitable keyword research for $5
• Build 10 hand-crafted web 2.0 sites for $5
• Write 500 words SEO content for $3-$5
• Write 10, 1000 words highly unique content for $5
• Create highly relevant 50 DA + backlink for $5

Conclusion

 Finally, we got following tips from CEO Er. Anish Sah:

• Make an SEO friendly site/blog
• In a week write almost 3 articles
• Give 1-2 hours per day
• Visit Back hat, follow SEO experts like Neil Patel
• 1st-day blog writing, 
• 2nd-day social media marketing and link building 
• At the same time approaching on freelancing platform like Seoclerk, Fiverr
• Do learn from mistakes so do the mistakes. 
• Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

At last, Thank you Elance Digital Media team. 

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