Katy Whitton has a few basic tips on making one’s blog a more appealing one for visitors, and pulling in those sweet advertising dollars.
There’s an assortment of ways the organized blogger can enhance the appeal of their blog. Most bloggers probably do some of them now. Katy Whitton has posted a nicely detailed list that should be the aspiring blogger’s playbook when getting started.
Everything starts with having a domain name, instead of just going with the second-level domain free services give out. Domain names look professional, and should be selected to be relevant to the blog’s content. “Once you’ve chosen the domain name, make sure that the blog design shows this and mirrors the “feel” of the name, branding is all important,” she wrote.
Focus is equally important. Business interest blogs should be aimed at professional readers. Maintaining focus helps build trust, all-important in relationships. Without trust there is no relationship, and thus no repeat visits.
Whitton also mentions the Achilles heel of many blogs: spelling and grammar. People make errors from time to time, but an over-reliance on tools like spellcheckers let a lot of errors creep into a post. As for grammar, difficult-to-read posts mean users may ditch the blog for better options.
Permalinks and RSS feeds can help greatly, especially for search engine indexing purposes. Whitton doesn’t mention tagging, but she does use tags on her posts. Sites like Technorati and del.icio.us love tags.
‘Post regularly’ should probably be higher on her list. Whitton recommends at least one post a day, other sources recommend no fewer than three per day to a blog. As to advertising, Whitton wrote: “Make sure that any ads you show are relevant to your content otherwise no one will bother clicking on them.”
Yesterday we noted how Google’s AdSense blog recommended a simple tweak: making the text type and color match the content. That tweak helped one site increase its click-through rates greatly. (Ka-ching!)
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
