Blogging is an important process of getting content on the internet and connecting with your customers/clients. Blogs are becoming more and more prevalent and it is important to create the best possible posts each and every time.
An Introduction to Blogging
Blogging is all about creating a post about a certain topic. These can be distributed on a website and then be shared through social media. Approximately 33,000,000 posts are being added every month using WordPress alone. This demonstrates how easy web publishing has gotten and how blogs are becoming a very critical part to the overall interaction online.
Blogs are being written as a way of making a profit, as a way of identifying what’s going on in the community, as a way of focusing on a hobby, as a way of maintaining a diary, as well as in a corporate view, with them being written to stakeholders or consumers. This essentially means that you have the ability to create a blog post about virtually anything – it simply has to have the proper design.
How People Use Blogs
Understanding how the blogs are used by people will allow you to choose a specific theme.
Corporate blogs can offer a variety of different themes, and this is when it is often effective to use a subdirectory or domain. Topics can vary from product launches to community relations efforts and everything in between.
Personal/diary blogs are basically designed to share one’s life or experience with their audience, primarily targeting friends and family. This has been effective in various industries as well, such as the chef sharing their personal journey through the world of food.
Blogging Strategies and Tactics
When you begin blogging, there are various strategies and tactics that you want to take. One of the most important is that you need to establish authority over the niche that you are in. This will make sure that people care about what you are saying.
Additionally, you want to make sure that you have quality content. It may be beneficial to look at the website of competitors to see what they are blogging about and take a similar approach. It’s also important to achieve the proper balance between too many blog posts and not enough of them.
The Elements of a Great Blog Design
Creating a great blog revolves around using all of the right elements. This is going to take a little bit of trial and error to determine what it is that your audience wants. It can vary from industry to industry, which means you need to work on optimizing and make changes when you notice that it isn’t resulting in the desired level of interaction.
Here are some tips to help you out:
- Create snippets on the homepage
- Provide a sidebar for easy navigation
- Limit excerpts to 5-10 posts
- Ensure website is responsive
- Offer social engagement buttons
Font and typeface is going to have an impact as well. More sites use 12 point than anything else, though research has indicated that headline font is ideal when it is between 17 and 25 point. Further, Verdana and Arial are the most commonly used fonts.
As for design, a light background with a dark by text is the most common, and therefore the most highly desired because it is what people anticipate when they go to a website. Using whitespace within the blog design is critical as well.
Optimizing the posts
You want to make sure that URLs are short and sweet, as are your blogs. Essentially, you want to get in and get out without drowning the facts in a bunch of content that makes no sense being there. It is also a good idea to make the most out of your meta tags.
Spruce it up!
- Put a few photos into the blog because these can speak louder than words
- Provide social media sharing buttons so that people have the opportunity to share with others
- Utilize Google Authorship to put a face to the name
Final Thoughts
Social media is constantly changing, as is search engine optimization. This all needs to be taken into consideration when you are blogging. The best blogs are ones that provide quality content and make it easy for people to read. Companies are using blogs in all sorts of different ways, and it pays to be different from time to time as a way of encouraging further engagement as well as sharing on social media.
Frequency needs to be maintained, and it’s okay to try new things – such as adding videos and photos to the blogs as a way of connecting with people on a deeper level.
