Creating a Successful Blog

Dec 12, 2006

Let me state at the outset that, since I don’t yet call my blog a “successful” blog, I cannot claim to be an authority on creating successful blogs. The thing is, I know how to create a successful blog, it’s just that, I haven’t been devoting much, or rather, enough time to blogging. It was only in mid-November that I decided to add at least 3 posts daily. Since then, more or less I’ve been keeping this promise that I made to myself. Anyway, the point is, I have a basic idea of how to create a successful blog, and I’ll be implementing a few things in the coming days/weeks. Here are a few of them:

Continuously write quality content for your blog

I say write here because that’s what I do. You can publish images or videos or any other form of media, according to your target audience. The only thing is, it should be relevant to your blog’s theme and its quality should be good. Generate quality content over a long period of time and do it with a pre-determined regularity.

If you post daily, then post daily. If you post weekly, then post weekly. Maintain a pre-decided schedule so that you readers know when to expect a post from you. If you don’t stick to you schedule, your readers don’t take you as a serious blogger.

So what do you call quality content?

Content that satisfies some immediate need
Content that breaks news and gives exclusive coverage
Content that can be used again and again, for instance, useful tips and tricks
Content that makes people think
Content that engages the readers and encourage conversation

Nurture a community on your blog

Your readers are at the center of your blogging effort. They have the ability to make or break your blog. Everybody likes being given a chance to share ideas and interact with other people. So encourage people to do so. Create thoughtful posts that trigger debates on your blog. Lively comments section gets you lots of repeat traffic because people want to keep track of what people have to say about what they’ve just commented upon. A popular community also bring you word-of-mouth publicity: if your readers like you and respect your opinion, they’ll surely recommend your blog to others.

Communicate with other bloggers

Bloggers are a close-knit community. And they are a great community too. Communicate with other bloggers as much as you can; not to solve some purpose, but for the goodness of it. Networking with other bloggers keeps you aware of what other bloggers are doing. You can also get insider scoops that you can publish on your blog. There are many tools your more successful blogger friends may like to share with you once you know them properly and you can do the same with whatever you know. They’ll also link to your blog if they feel your blog is worth linking to.

Take part in conversations and add value

Great conversations and debates take place on other blogs. Participate in them. But don’t be desperate if you feel like an outsider or if nobody gives a damn about what you have to say. Keep being a part. Try to say something useful that no other commenter has said. Pick a point that no one else has noticed. Spend some time and read what the post actually means and how the other commenters have reacted to it. It’s not necessary that every time you’ll have something to say. If you don’t have anything to say, just keep quite. Dropping a comment merely to get your link there is a sure-shot way of making people shun you for a long time.

Create a decent-looking layout

Some blogs have horrible layouts and you don’t want to stay on those blogs. Create, or get a blog template that makes your content easy to read. Avoid putting too many advertisements. Sometimes there are so many advertisements on some blogs that you actually have to look around for the blog post. Such blogs are great turn-offs. Preferably, have a clean layout. Don’t use contrasts that strain readers’ eyes; they come to read, not to get a headache.

Use your blogging software carefully

All blogging software have limitations and advantages so choose yours keeping your aspirations in mind. My favorite is WordPress. You may prefer MovableType, TypePad, or even Blogger. Keep your long-term perspective in mind. I recommend WordPress because it can easily grow with your growing blogging scope.

Keep SEO in perspective

A lot of traffic comes from the search engines so you cannot, should not ignore them. Many say that you should write “search engine optimized” posts in order to get more search engine traffic. Basically what it means is

Create the title of your blog post keeping your keywords in mind (within <h1> and </h1>)
Repeat the keyword 2-3 times in your blog post
Use your keyword in bullets (within <li> and </li>)
Use your keywords in the anchor links (within <a> and </a>)
Emphasize your keywords (put them within <strong> and </strong>)

Also, design your blog template in the manner that relevant content is as nearer to the top as possible. So ideally keep the content before your navigation. Don’t use frills that occupy the precious top slot and push your relevant content downwards.

I myself will be gradually implementing the above-mentioned steps. I’ll share the progress with you as and when it manifests.

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