Best Practices for a good Blog

Blogs are a great tool today to enhance a website in terms of Quality. And the Blogger plays a vital role. There are three elements about the Blogger that can make a blog popular among its readers.

1. You have a good understanding of what you are saying, so people take your opinion about the subject matter seriously.
2. You put facts on table simply, and put forth your personal views to a certain degree without being too over bearing
3. You engage your readers through your blog – either by unfolding facts in multiple portions, so they keep coming back to read the next part of the story, or you ask questions, seek personal thoughts and invite comments.

The last point, especially, is quite common, and you will be successful if you pose the right questions, and can generate the right platform for a meaningful discussion or positive argument in support of and against your personal views on the topic.

Here are some areas you may want to focus on, while you talk about subject of interest.

1. Readable text – useful content.

Today, content is king. Whatever your purpose of writing and maintaining a blog may be, you want to reach out to maximum number of readers and increase your audience base. And therefore your strategies to market your blog have to be search engine friendly. It is ultimately the search engines that are going to take you to your readers. This pretty much explains the hype over new and fresh content. Fortunately or unfortunately, over the last few months, the emphasis of major search engines have experienced a paradigm shift — from mindless link building and other cliché (mal)practices to complete priority to fresh content. Adding and upgrading existing content is the focus of all websites, as that is the single most powerful and effective way to beat the latest algorithm modifications made by Google. Relevant and updated content means you are actively serving your audience with up-to-date information and are mindful of the changing market trends. Therefore you are treated as more relevant and hence deserve a higher position on search engines results.

2. Engaging topics –

Believe it or not, anything you write about has an audience. From planting a tree to brewing fresh coffee, there are people who are searching for detailed information on such niche topics. Choose your specialization (and if not, then go by your interests and topics that you are passionate about, or you would want to read about). The good part is, though you would do well to speak like a pro, a blog does allow you to present your personal views, and you can write about a subject as an amateur, a learner, or an expert. So just pick your niche, and write. And before you start writing, research well. More often than not, multiple essays/articles/blogs would already have been written about that topic. Just be honest your audience, and offer your perspective.

3. Writing style –

This one is tricky. And has a lot to do with your industry, the subject matter and your personal writing style. One thing that you do have to follow is be consistent with your style. Your readers will know you through your writing, and not so much from what you write about, but how you write it. Your personality is key here. Once you have a steady readership, they will be used to a certain kind of language, writing style and tone that you offer, and they will read you because they can relate to it. Don’t deviate drastically, unless you have to.

4. Link with other more popular blogs –

Be reachable to your audience. Linking and track-backing is going to bring you more readers who visit other popular blogs with similar subject matter or link you through other blogs that you may have written. This way, you share the audience with other blogs by you and your fellow colleagues. Most bloggers you link to will take notice of your page, and if impressed, will link back to your blog. One way to better this trick is by being one of the first to write about a topic (if current events are your forte). Any new announcement quickly generates a lot of interest and suddenly everyone wants to read about it to a get the first piece of news. The flip side is, you may not know any more than the one searching for news. You can still make a headline and make a statement with the latest update, and still be read by the curious lot. For other topics, just be original. And that should reflect on your Blog title.

5. Use technology to popularize your blog –

Guess we all know about it, and read it everywhere – The use of social media, emails and promotional tools to spread word about your blog. However, this is an extremely sensitive area and one should tread with caution. This single step can boost or ruin your site’s performance. It is any day advised to make the best use of the vast community that the virtual world has created through the multiple social community sites. However, mere link posting to the sites with a very high page rank is not such a good idea. Think of the sudden fall of millions of sites across the web that relied solely on link building. It was accepted and people abused it. Then it suddenly crashed. So, you want to be a little careful while taking that path again. Be responsible and use common sense. Spread word through building apps, promoting your Blog through snippets of what you are talking about, what your readers want, and in general raise awareness about your Blog and your community. Engage them on your social media pages by offering them an opportunity to present their views. Besides, RSS Feed and XML are ways you can technically promote your blog. Make the best use of these tools to penetrate your readership and reach out to more readers.

Good Luck!