As almost all of you know, there are about over 100 million blogs in the blogosphere. And there will be more in the coming future as most kids/wives/other people will take interest into that especially with over a million blogs telling you can really make money online with your blog. Before school started I have been pretty much reading a lot of blogs related to my niche and alth0ugh I do read many, only few were able to catch my attention. Of course as old adage says “first impression lasts”. Most of the blogs that have caught my attention before are the same blogs that I keep on following so it speaks so much about it.
I would really like to make an emphasis on the importance of leaving a “sticking impression” with the brand of your blog. An impression that doesn’t just make a reader say “just another blog”. In any niche you can see its importance as they normally determine your future followers, subscribers or even customers. So now I put up some things here that make me think a blog is “not just another blog” and is worth following for. Please take note these are all aside from posting a good content which has been rehashed over and over again. 😉 Here they are:
- RSS Subscribers – Now this is always hard to achieve when starting out thats why most people will tell you that the hardest part is when starting. But for most sites, I think seeing a blog with over 500+ feed readers make sense to me a lot. It goes to say people are following that blog and for a reason. Last year I was wondering why people are working so much growing their rss subscribers. I even never cared about my blog’s feed fluctuating just between 50-100 before. But now I have realized a lot of things about its importance. So try growing your rss subscribers first then a ton of conversion from curious readers to loyal readers will follow.
- Nice layout and design – Design is an integral part of everything. Whether you are promoting a brand or what. Believe me, nowadays design is overcoming good content. There are many blogs right now that just have a “unique custom blog design” and yet they are followed well. I’m not really saying go ahead and go a custom theme (because I myself doesn’t have one), but you see there is always a distinction between a nice theme, simple and minimalistic from ugly and cookie-cluterred one. 🙂
- About Page – When I visit a blog and I see a great post, the first thing I do is read the about page of that certain site. Although most people have their own About Me page, not a lot take effort to make it more than just being readable. Personally the About Page means “Why should I subscribe” to me.
- Non – Intrusiveness – Ok lets face it, every douche blogger puts an ad on their blog whether its a sponsorship or maybe referral/affiliate links or so. But that doesn’t mean your site is intrusive and not user friendly. Sometimes when I see a blog with a lot of ads (especially in IM niche) and I mean really a lot I come to think “Is this guy really want to make his readers learn making money online, or he just wants to make money from them?”
- Interaction – Or more familiarly known as comments. I run a couple of blogs outside this dirty niche and I really love the interaction on some posts. I mean originally a blog really is a form to communicate and share each others views on certain things right? So basically getting to see some interaction in posts really makes a blog a better one. Let’s be honest, we are skeptic to comment if we don’t see a comment before us right? But then its a different case for bigger blogs.
Are you missing out those things? Start working for it now! It may be hard (for some its not seriously) but the rewards are so big! With all the blogs giving their best effort to stand out and gain traction, you may not want to go far behind…