The Anatomy of a successful blog

Everyone who’s hoping to get started in the blogging world faces this very tough question: how do I design my blog’s architecture to make sure no drastic changes will be necessary in the future? Whether you are using WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, or even Pligg, you want to make sure you design your blog in a way that attracts and retains more readers. This is another place that we can use piggybacking to figure out what’s already working out there:

• Logo: your logo is your main branding tool. You should always have a logo to give a professional look to your blog. Designing a logo can cost as much as a $1000 or as low as only $20. I personally have worked with LogoYes and LogoMaker.
• Blogger Profile: in order to gain credibility in the blogging world, you need to have a compelling profile section on your blog. You should include why you are doing what you are doing, and how you can provide value to your readers. Many super bloggers put their pictures on their blogs, and that adds to their credibility. But your words are more important than your picture image.
• Posts: when you are designing a blog, you should think about what someone who knows nothing about you or your blog thinks when they get to your blog. Your goal should be to provide them with a lasing first impression, and you can do that by promoting your most popular blog posts. In addition, you should provide your users with recent posts and comments to save them some time.
• Post Information: if you are running a multi-author blog, then it’d be necessary to have an author name section beneath each and every post. Having a date section also works, but keep in mind if you use this approach your older posts may get ignored as people may deem them to be outdated. You should also display the number of comments that you have received with each and every post.
• Resource section: your resource section should be dedicated to the very best resources in your market. You should not use that to link to useless sites. Link only to authority sites and useful services for your audience.
• Social bookmarklets: with the explosion of the social media in 2008, everyone should take advantage of social media sites to generate extra, free traffic. You can only do that if you encourage your readers to submit their favorite posts to social media sites. What a better way to do that than providing them with bookmarklets?
• Squeeze Box: in order to build a sustainable business, you should focus on building a list using your blog. You can do that by putting a squeeze box on your blog’s sidebar. Provide your users with a bonus to sign up for your newsletter and you are set.
• Advertisement: if you are planning to monetize your blog with banners or Adsense, you should nominate a few places on your blogs for ads. You should always be testing to see what works and what doesn’t, but your template may limit you in that regard.

A successful blog doesn’t necessarily have to be the best looking blog. But not everyone can achieve success without a well-designed blog. You can save yourself a whole lot of headaches if you plan for the future and put some time in designing your blog’s initial architecture. Minor changes will always be necessary but a major redesign can cost you a lot of time and money and can hurt you with your SEO rankings as well. Having the optimal blog architecture can often be the difference between a very successful blog and a mediocre one.