Not every blog has to look and feel the same.
Preferably not as a matter of fact.
But there are some essential elements you can’t leave out if you want your blog to be effective.
Content is number one obviously, but here are five more:
1. An effective About page
For most blogs the about page is the best visited page after the home page. When I visit a new blog, the about page is one of the first things I check out. People need to get a feel for who you are and what your blog is about. That means you have to share something about who you are, why you are blogging and most importantly what your blog is about.
If people can’t answer these two questions (“Who are you?” “What is this blog about?”) you’re missing something on your about page. We’ll write more about how to create an effective about page in another post.
2. RSS feed
Yes, there are blogs who get away with not offering RSS feed. But they are few and are either so popular it’s worth the email subscription or nobody reads them at all. If you want people to read your blog, make it easy for them to do that the way they like.
I follow more than 150 blogs, do you really think I want all of these posts to end up in my email inbox? As a matter of fact, I only have one email subscription to a blog that doesn’t offer RSS and as for now, it’s the only one that’s worth it.
An argument you often hear is that a email list is worth ten times more than an RSS list. That may be true, but until your blog is worth email subscribing to (and for me that threshold is fairly high!) I’d offer RSS anyway so people will read it at all. If you’ve got your heart set on an email list, start sending out a newsletter.
Make it as easy for your readers as possible to read your blog, to find stuff, to share the content and to comment. . . .
3. Search option
I honestly have no idea why people still have blogs without search options, for instance a Google search box. If you want people to find older content, adding a search option is the only way. Make it visible and easy to find.
4. Easy share options
People prefer different social media, but they also prefer different apps and methods to share. That means you have to make it easy for them to share your content according to their preferences. To do that, you have to offer different share options and make the info they need to share your content as easy to find as possible.
I use the Buffer app for instance but that means I usually have to look for the Twitter name myself, because it’s not automatically included in the tweet (which is usually the case if you use the ‘share to Twitter’ option). I come across a lot of blogs who have their Twitter name hidden somewhere. Now I really want to credit the author with a mention, but not if it means I have to spend 5 minutes searching for the info I need.
Make it easy and fast for people to share your content by offering many options and providing the info they need in a clearly visible place.
5. Fast and beneficial commenting
Though the importance of comments van be debated, I think we can all agree that it’s nice to get comments and that they can certainly impact your blog in a positive way. But if you want people to comment, you have to not only make it easy for them, but also offer them benefits.
Let’s start with the easy part. Most people are okay with confirming their email address once, for instance with systems like Disqus or the email confirmation you can set up in WordPress. Just make sure you pick a system where they don’t have to confirm each and every time. Those ‘captcha’ boxes annoy a lot of people by the way, if you want to avoid spam, just use a good spam filter like Akismet.
Now for the benefits part. People comment to throw in their two cents, but they also comment to get traffic to their blog. That’s just a reality, so you should facilitate that. Don’t pick a commenting system where people can only ‘register’ with Twitter or Facebook for instance, or only with a link to their WordPress account. I (and many others) run multiple WordPress blogs for instance so that doesn’t work for me and I don’t want to link to Twitter or Facebook. Offer the option of commenting with simply a name and a website, that will make a lot of people happy.
What other elements do you think effective blogs should have?
