We’ve all heard of blogs. There are free blogs. There are paid blogs. Blogs have been around for about 10 years. How are blogs judged? Are they judged by the number of unique visitors, amount of income they generate, amount of time a reader spends on the site, value they provide to readers? Are there different features that need to be included to achieve a given goal? What is it that makes a blog great? I’ve combined a list of basic elements that will launch your blog above the rest.
1. Create value for your reader! Your reader is usually looking for something in particular when they click upon your site. Determine what they are looking for by posting articles and watching to see what that does to your traffic and providing more if the traffic increases significantly. Provide the reader the ability to leave comments as they can provide valuable insight in this manner.
2. Use keywords to attract readers. Using Google Adwords, you can determine valuable keywords to include in your articles to drive traffic to your site.
3. Provide resources to your readers. What a valuable resource is to your reader will vary depending upon the niche chosen. Typically checklists, templates, diagrams, how to series are great resources.
4. Keep the blog active by posting articles every 2-3 days at a minimum. Blogging is not a set it and forget it method of making money. A lot of blogs are literal electronic ghost towns. It is very apparent to the reader when the date is not on the article and the information is outdated or they visit several times and nothing has changed in the last week or so. I’ve been guilty of this myself; however, a good way to work around this is to write several articles at once and schedule them to be released during your busy periods so that the site is still fresh and alive even though you may be basking on the beach in Maui.
5. Give something to your reader and provide an opt-in box. Provide the reader with valuable content and ask them to provide their name and e-mail so that you can open the communication channel to include e-mail as well as online communication.
6. Use Google Adsense. Google Adsense is a great way to earn a few pennies here and there to offset the cost of hosting. While you cannot click on your own Adsense ads, you can give others some “Google Love” by clicking on their ads. It only takes a moment and it helps the other guy out.
7. Use video. This is where blogs beat books hands down. Use video on your blog to further establish a connection with your reader. Video is a great way to convey your personality to your reader and I’ve seen statistics saying that it boosts readership by over 300%!
8. Know what sizes and colors to use when placing ads on your blog. In this particular case, size, placement and color do matter! Humans are sensitized to know what is an ad and typically will not click on it unless they are looking for that particular item. Ads within the body of the post should be 336×280 or 300×250 for best results. Ads at the bottom of the post should be 468×60 or 234×60 for best results. The leaderboard display panel which places advertising unit above your posts is best at 728×90 pixels. Colors of ads should blend into your theme, have no border (color FFFFFF) and the link needs to be blue because most humans are trained to believe that all links are blue.
9. Know who your competition is and what their keywords are. Use Google search to find some of your keywords. The blogs that show up in the top 5 results are your competition. Use SpyFu to determine not only what their keywords are but also for which AdWords they are currently paying. It’s a great tool!
10. Personalize the reader experience. Make the reader’s experience fun and valuable and you will create a great following. Create a contest to add some excitement. Recommend resources they may not be aware of. When writing speak to your reader as you would a friend at the coffee shop to create a closer connection. If you’re having fun chances are your readers are enjoying their experience as well!