I am sure most of you guys and girls have visited and read blogs and maybe some of you have them on your sites. Other than the content of the blog which is obviously the most important thing. What makes you want to go back and visit them time after time.

 

How much does the design and layout affect readership?

 

How interactive does it need to be apart from the obvious commenting system?

 

Do competitions make you want to come back?

 

What makes one blog stand out from the other?

 

Do adverts put you off and if so how many is too many?

 

I have already googled this and have some ideas of what it takes to run a successful blog but I was just wondering what the pros think.

 

Your probably wondering what I was chatting on at but I had an idea for a blog that I wanted to start it was about a subject that I have loved and appreciated for ever. So motivation won't be a problem either,

 

Thanks guys.

Content is king. Forget the design and layout (for me as a user at least), it's all about whether it's interesting to read. Good original writing, interesting arguments and ideally a lively comments section. If it's a favourite subject then you should already be well on your way to some good posts.

 

As far as adverts are concerned, if an article is needlessly split between multiple pages to up the ad impressions then I just close the window or hit the print-version button, it's a self-defeating tactic.

Edited August 21, 201213 yr by T-G

Make the content the dominant element on the page. I hate when I go to a blog and ads take up half of my screen width and the content is jammed to one side. I want paragraphs with an appropriate font size and meter, I don't want unnecessary pagination or interstitial ads and I don't want to be distracted with popup ads, share buttons, etc.

 

Reading the content should be the primary focus of a blog. Make reading your content pleasureable and you'll get the large, consistent visitor base that will drive monetisation, but don't focus on the money and neglect the user experience.

Thanks for both of your opinions. Just as I thought regarding the advertisements and the like. I sort of knew what you have already said I just needed abot of confirmation. The site needs to be content driven rather ad driven.

I am sure most of you guys and girls have visited and read blogs and maybe some of you have them on your sites. Other than the content of the blog which is obviously the most important thing. What makes you want to go back and visit them time after time.

Well-written, interesting and thought-provoking content

 

How much does the design and layout affect readership?

Content-focused design will definitely help readership. Even the most interesting articles will be skipped if they can't easily be read

 

 

How interactive does it need to be apart from the obvious commenting system?

Next question

 

Do competitions make you want to come back?

Only if I win

 

What makes one blog stand out from the other?

Brilliant content

 

Do adverts put you off and if so how many is too many?

Yes, adverts do put me off. How many is too many? Depends on the size and placement of the ads. Don't ever wrap your article around an ad - that's going too far imo

 

 

Just remember that loving a subject and having enthusiasm for it doesn't automatically make you the best author for a blog about it. When writing, the reader needs to be constantly in your mind. Imagine your ideal reader, and write your articles to him/ her.

 

If your blog's primary focus is to earn money from ads, be prepared to run at a loss to begin with while you build a following and establish yourself as an interesting authority on your subject. Once you've achieved this, don't get greedy with the ads. It's a tough balancing act; the net teaches us to expect free content, yet most of us don't like advertising. Striking a balance is hard.

Just remember that loving a subject and having enthusiasm for it doesn't automatically make you the best author for a blog about it. When writing, the reader needs to be constantly in your mind. Imagine your ideal reader, and write your articles to him/ her.

 

If your blog's primary focus is to earn money from ads, be prepared to run at a loss to begin with while you build a following and establish yourself as an interesting authority on your subject. Once you've achieved this, don't get greedy with the ads. It's a tough balancing act; the net teaches us to expect free content, yet most of us don't like advertising. Striking a balance is hard.

 

Thanks for that banksy. I was going to place one or two ads here and there at the start but having read what a you guys have said I think I will just develop a readership first. I am not really interested in making money to start off with anyway. Maybe down the line yes but not straight away.

 

Another thing I was thinking of doing was reviewing certain products. Say a car shampoo and use affiliate links in the blog post to say where you can buy and the cheapest etc. But I was worried readers would just think it was a sneaky way of making money.

How interactive does it need to be apart from the obvious commenting system?

It depends on the blog. Something I've started doing on my own blog (and that I've seen on the blogs of others) is to embed code examples inside jsFiddle and add that to the page. The user can then see and interact with the code being described. I think that's a pretty important factor in a technical blog, however it's pretty pointless if your blog isn't about code

I run a couple of blogs, both on fairly geeky subjects, and use google ads on them below each article. I'm averaging about a penny a day. Don't expect anything more than a little beer money unless you build a big readership!

Edited August 22, 201213 yr by T-G

How much does the design and layout affect readership?

Blogs should be easy to browse and read so presentation is very important. Make things too busy and it will be hard for your visitors, make it focussed like http://www.zeldman.com/ or http://daringfireball.net/ and you'll have happy visitors.

 

How interactive does it need to be apart from the obvious commenting system?

Blogs are meant to be read, digested and shared. Can't see what needs to be interactive?

 

Do competitions make you want to come back?

Not really, it's interesting and stimulating articles that make me return.

 

What makes one blog stand out from the other?

Subject and quality of writing is key, but also ones that are easy to browse and work well on small devices.

 

Do adverts put you off and if so how many is too many?

In the main yes, however it depends on the nature of the blog in question and how they are presented. Blogs plastered with random Google ads make me think "spam" and question the intent of the site owner (they want you to click on ads, not read their content). On the other hand ads can sometimes be worth clicking if they are on topic.

1. Newsworthy content;

2. Writing skills;

3. Hyperlinks to other content - don't always try to create a new bicycle by explaining obvious things written somewhere else;

4. Use different media (video, jpg, audio).