What you Should Have on Your Blog:
1. A link to what the blog is about.
First create a blog post describing in detail what your blog has to offer, and how it is different from other blogs. Then make sure and add a link to this at the top of your blog.
If you're using blogger.com you can do this by going to LAYOUT, ADD GADGET, select: TEXT, then add a hyperlink to your post. And save your settings.
2. Contact information - how people can contact you directly!
I've been to so many blogs where I wanted to contact the blogger but they didn't provide a way for me to do that! Heck even I forgot to put that on my blog at first - I guess I just assumed my contact information was already on there - but it wasn't! In Blogger.com if you choose to share your email - it only appears on your profile permalink page - it does not appear on your blog! I have no idea why! But anyhow if you want your email displayed you have to do it yourself!
3. Rss Feed link.
That way people can subscribe to your blog to get the latest updates of your posts.
3. Labels.
Basically a list of blog posts categorized by topic.
4. Your Profile.
On blogger.com you can display your profile on your blog! And if you don't use blogger.com there are many sites that offer free "widgets" that will allow you to display a profile on your blog.
Read my post on Profiles - What to Put in Them!.
5. Links to sites that are similar in nature to yours. Why?
Isn't that just promoting my competition? No, it's actually you're way of doing 3 people a favor.
1- You - heck if this person's blog/website has information you're interested in then you're going to want to go back and check it out often!
2- Your Reader - I wrote a blog post on how you should give your readers more than what they asked for. If you look this principle up in a search engine you'll see a lot of people recommend doing this.
3- The person who you linked to - it's a nice way to send "business" their way - and it doesn't "take" readers away from your blog as you would expect. In fact it probably will bring more readers your way because if the person you linked to checks out how they are receiving traffic to their blog and they see a lot of it coming from your site they may feel inclined to put a link to your site on their page as a "thank you" - and that means whatever number of readers they have already enlisted can potentially become your readers!
And what you might want to think twice about before adding to your blog:
1. Tons of Widgets.
And there are tons of out there from clocks to astrological readings. I'm not saying omit them entirely - just be selective and think minimalistic and you'll be alright!
2. Ads.
Unlike links to similar topics most ads will take readers away from your page rather than bring you more readers! Yikes! I know!
Plus you've been to sites/blogs that are loaded with tons of ads - what do you do? Well I know I get overwhelmed and frustrated because it makes it harder for me to find the content I was seeking! In fact if the ads interfere to much with my ability to locate the content I just leave the page and try another site. So keep that in mind!
3. Buttons.
I've been to a lot of blogs that have all these buttons on them saying that they are "pro bloggers" or giving you a link to their profiles on digg.com, technorati and such. I guess I understand the purpose of these buttons but really they do seem to clutter the page a lot.
If you really want to give your readers a way to view those things why not just create a link to them and put them all on one page thereby eliminating the clutter it creates on your blog.
4. Photos.
The current trend is to add a photo to each of your blog postings. I'm not sure how this trend got started but I find it a bit like trying to "dumb-down" your site to your users. If people come to your site for high quality content and you provide that for them then it shouldn't matter that you don't have tons of pictures taking up a lot of space on your blog. Of course if your blog is a photo blog then it would be silly to omit the photos! lol
Things that are a personal decision to put on your blog:
1. Counters.
Some people argue that counters are "bragging" and detract from the tone of your site. I personally don't use a counter, but I've been to sites with counters and when I see they have had 20,000 visitors I have to say that it does make an impact on me - the impact it makes is it gives me MORE of a reason to stick around and see what they have to offer. Of course it doesn't affect my reasoning faculties - if I go through their blog and find that little or none of what they've written is exciting to me then that's it I pack up my bags and say goodbye! Just because 20,000 other people found it interesting doesn't necessarily mean you will.
2. Polls.
I'm sure you've seen these - a little list of usually trite questions no one really cares about asking for your opinion.
Well if your blog is just about being social than I guess you might be interested in this feature.
That's all I've got for now,
CB Webmaster
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