Key Components of a Successful Blog
After reading many articles on the web about successful blogging, the main components are fairly universal across the board. The main and possibly most important components would be to blog about something that you have a passion for. Yes, you can fake it for a little while, but eventually you will run out of ideas to write about on that topic, and your readers will lose interest. You must also be able to gain trust and become and authority among your blog following readers.
Another crucial aspect is that you must strive to keep your blog different, and interesting. With as many options as there are across the web today, you must be able to capture your readers’ attention. Also, you must consistently post on your blog, allow response to comments, choose an appropriate template, and create a brief biography to give readers more access about who you are and perhaps why you choose to blog. Lastly, you would probably like your blog to be easy found through search engines and the like, so include some keywords in there that will allow for that.
The most important components and the backbone of your entire blogging experience are to write about something that you are passionate about. One of the articles I read gave the analogy of someone from Hawaii writing about ice fishing, even though he or she may have never seen ice (3 Key). Readers can sense this, and will probably not still around long if they feel that the blogger is simply feeding them a bunch of garbage solely to get site hits.
Also, you must stay committed to the topic that you decide to blog about, improve your knowledge on the topic, and consistently provide updates in order to hold your reader base. A second component that is also viably important is that you establish yourself as an authority figure on the blogging topic you choose. This can be accomplished several ways, one of which is to simply master your knowledge on the topic at hand, which was discussed in the previous chapter. This alone will not necessarily establish you as an authority figure on the topic, although it will help.
With a successful blog, you are going to want to target a specific audience, and adjust your writing styles appropriately to garner the maximum amount of interest in your blog. The next two components of your successful blog go almost hand in hand. Naturally, most bloggers are not looking to read thesis papers on the topics in question, but rather something different, and interesting. You can do this through a variety of ways; your blog can be humorous, thought provoking, or informative (5 Key).
Long term, this is very necessary to developing a successful, popular blog. Another aspect that must be considered when trying to keep your blog interesting is the amount of times you post on your blog. It’s a very simple concept; very few readers are going to want to read the same thing over and over again. Bloggers enjoy reading about other peoples’ lives in an interesting, and captivating way. Consistently posting, and dedicating yourself to create and maintain an interesting and addictive blog is a major key in how successful your blog ultimately is.
People in general enjoy interaction as well, which is why you want to provide, and encourage, constant feedback from your readers. According to the article titled 5 Key Components to Consider when Creating a Blog, you must remember that your blog is created as a social community, or at the very least, you want your readers to feel that way. The article elaborates on that topic in saying that without the option to comment on your blogs, you have taken away the “spirit” of the blogging experience.
You will simply have a website that is just constantly updated, which will not hold the interest of your readers nearly as long as a friendly, interactive blogging community. With that being considered, the ability and easiness to comment will only get you so far with your blog. You must read over the responses to your article and reply in a timely manor. A reader’s comment can also give you more insight as to what content is most appealing to them and the direction that you’re your blog should follow.
Additionally, you will want to entice you readers to comment by initiating a “Call to Action” of sorts (Attack). This simply is a way to encourage your reader to perhaps subscribe to you blog, or an open ended question to try and entice your readers to leave more comments. The structure of your blog also plays an important role in the ultimate success you will have. If you are creating a blog to try and improve an existing business, or perhaps help a start up business get moving, you would probably like to keep the page looking rather professional.
On the other hand, if you are blogging out of the sheer enjoyment of the activity, you will probably want your page to reflect that. Create a fun, entertaining page that will capture your readers’ attention and reflects the mood of your writing. Blogging, as stated earlier, is a social community. Considering this fact, you will also want to include a brief bibliography about yourself. Perhaps why you started blogging, or any other interest you have besides the one that you are writing about in your blog.
Doing this creates a more familiar atmosphere that your reader will want to follow and perhaps even comment on. According to the Enzine article, adding a picture to your bio will be helpful, unless you are currently in the witness protection program, which in that case, an Avator or something else along those lines will due. Even if you master all of the previously stated components of a blog, you create a captivating template, and are willing to put forth the time and effort in constantly updating the blog and reading readers’ comments; it could all be in vain.
You will want to include keywords in your blogs that will allow it to be more easily available to search engines and the like because, lets face it, if your blog cannot be easily found, how many people to you honestly believe are going to read it? As you can tell creating a blog can be a relatively easy and enjoyable experience. The components of successful blogs are almost universal regardless of which reference you consider.
The main thing you must remember is to choose your topic wisely, and be able to expend a large amount of your time in developing, maintaining, and managing your successful blog. Keep all of these components in mind when creating your blog as they are viable to your success and keeping your readers enticed.
Works Cited 1. Jacobson, Rich. “Attack of the Biller Blog. ” Web log post. Http://soundbiteblog. com/tag/top-5-ingredients-of-a-successful-blog/. Web. 2. Park, Gyutae. “3 Key Components of a Successful Blog. ” Web. 3. Philpott, TJ. “5 Key Components to consider when creating a Blog. ” Web.
