Blogs are a way to communicate with other people. Groups and individuals interact with their audiences through blogs. The objective of communication may vary. Some blog to share an opinion, to persuade, to market and sell, or to simply inform. The owner or manager of a blog and the goals set for that blog will determine its design and production.
Despite these differences, all blogs share a common purpose, which is to reach a wider audience, engage readers, and get them to respond. This leads to the suggestion that all effective blogs follow the same general rules in setup and design to attract increased viewership.
The most important thing that you can give your blog is quality content. While there are many blogs that manage to lure in visitors with a pleasing design, poor quality content quickly drives them away. The most successful blogs always have great content that the readers can appreciate. The blogs should be articulate and contain meaningful information. A little humor helps as well.
Since blogs aim to create a personal and interactive relationship, provide a comment area to allow readers to put in their two cents. When readers have a chance to connect with the blog, they are far more likely to return.
The title of your blog and the individual titles of each post are going to draw your readers in. As such, they are vital to a successful blog. Ensure that the title sounds interesting and also looks appealing by taking advantage of the different fonts and colors available to you. The titles must be able to grab the viewer’s attention and lure them into the post. They should also be pleasing to the eye and welcoming to the readers.
A growing number of bloggers are forced to use advertising to generate revenue through their blogs in order to sustain the blog. Care should be taken to see that the posts are not overshadowed by the ads. Visitors should never feel like they are walking into a giant sales pitch, but rather feel that the blog exists for their benefit. If the ads are too big or plentiful, they can distract the reader from the articles.
How long does your blog take to load? If the answer is more than five to ten seconds, you might need to restructure the layout. Many people do not have the patience to wait for slow-loading pages, despite the quality of its content. Go over the technical aspects of your website. Are there too many unnecessary widgets and applications that might be dragging down the loading process? Getting rid of redundant data and applications will greatly improve the loading time of your web page. De-cluttering your site will also make it much neater.
Your blog should also provide ease of navigation to the visitors. Most of your visitors will likely be directed through links to a post on your blog rather than the homepage. Placing navigational links in the sidebar will aid in redirecting surfers to other areas of interest within the blog. Footers can also be used for this purpose.
Blogs can be a great way to make some money and provide readers with your point of view on hot topics at the same time. It is thus worthwhile to create an alluring and efficient blog design that captivates your readers.