What Makes a Blog Successful?

It’s a question that many people would like to have the answer(s) to.  After all, the proliferation of blogs—giving way for an entire new cyber-term, the ‘blogosphere’—is one of the main engines for the expansion of the internet itself.  In this context, there are obviously going to be more and more people searching for the ways and the means to turn their ordinary blog into a successful blog. 

At the most basic level, creating a successful blog is much the same as creating any kind of successful website, though there are certain special considerations due to the niche that blogs occupy and the purpose which they have. 

Let’s delve into some of the finer details, then, that can help you achieve your blogging goals:

For starters, don’t try to create a mega-blog that covers any and all topics, but rather curtail the focus of a given blog (and, if you really want to blog about other topics, create separate blogs for each).  This is basically an issue of avoiding biting off more than you can chew—a move that will most surely prevent you from achieving a successful blog. 

Highly-ranked blogs are inevitably those that focus in on something quite specific and offer highly relevant information on that topic and only that topic; follow this model and you will be setting up the right kind of framework for your blog.

Secondly, make sure that you’re aware of the general buzz in your particular area/topic when you start writing your blog entries.  A blogger that knows a lot about their particular topic is going to be the blogger that can actually pump out the kind of highly relevant information we mentioned above, so don’t just start rambling before you’ve done a little reading and researching. 

As a part of this process, it is a good idea to go ahead and subscribe (RSS feeds, etc.) to a few different blogs, something that will help you stay updated.  At the same time, as you go about discovering all the different voices of the blogosphere that pertain to your niche, you’ll want to try to get the word out about your blog in particular, and whenever/wherever you can drop a link back to your page (and have the owner of that other blog approve it and post it to their blog) you’ll be doing yourself a solid.

Then, there is the simple issue of the actual written content you post in your entries: perhaps nothing will be quite as important for achieving success as this.  Not only are you going to want to post new content to your blog on a regular, vigorous basis, but you’re going to want to make sure that the content is quality: well-written, truthful, and relevant to your blog’s topic. 

You’re going to need to weave a few keywords in there and use labels/tags in order to further enhance the visibility and quality of your blog. 

And don’t forget: you’ll want to always make your entry titles as catchy as possible, and to include keywords in the titles and in the first few sentences of each and every post—that’s where they really, really matter!

Image Credit Acme Photo