Simple But Effective Steps in Improving Overall Blog Design

                                     

                  

Blogs today are large places where multiple topics can be stored, including its own display, which is also known as the blog’s particular design. There are a lot of things that have changed in the world of blogging over the past years that has made the activity easier to do. Good examples such as Blogspot and WordPress are excellent platforms where the themes already make designing blogs faster, but if you want a more personalized approach, there are some things that you should consider and keep in mind. A good way in order to start honing that perfect design is to take a series of steps, slowly but surely.

That is why if you are looking to edit the design of your website, there are some things that you will need to keep in mind in order to do so. Here are some techniques that you can use in improving overall blog design.

Select a More Appropriate Theme - Once you are using a blogging platform such as WordPress or Blogspot, then you can start using the hundreds of pre-made templates for blogs available. But instead of going for an old theme that has been used by other people many times, start investing a small amount of time on one that will be the best for your niche and will appear professional and organized.

Have a Banner Image Included - Zest up your blog by designing your own banner image which can be found on top of the page. Since it will be one of the first things that people will be seeing on your page, you would want to take advantage of giving them a good first impression which will be beneficial to your blog if you do. This will make them stay longer and will have a higher chance of being able to read your blog more clearly.

Customizing Themes - If you have chosen a pre-made theme within your blogging platform, it is possible to customize this easily and make it work better for you. In blogs such as WordPress and Blogspot, users can have the templates customized from the admin panel. This could include having things changed such as redesigning the sidebar or including widgets or gadgets which will monitor the progress of your blog. There are other changes that you can do as well such as limiting the amount of posts that will be shown in the home page or change if you want the public to see comments in your blog or not.

Be Sociable - One of the significant steps that you can take is to start integrating social media into your own personal or commercial blog. If you allow people to easily acquire content that is useful in your blog, then they will know that you are a useful resource and that they can refer your blog to others as well. Start placing your social media icons within your blogs whether you use it for your for own or money-making purpose as this will improve its performance as a whole.

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Ways to Increase Blog Comments

                                           

Comments are very significant to a blog for these are also indicator of a blog’s success. If a blog has many comments, be it positive or negative, it only means that in one way or another it has an impact to your readers. In addition to that, you generate more traffic to your blog since a certain comment may ignite different reactions from other readers and this may lead to a series of conversation or argument for that matter on your blog itself. 
  
Blog comments may reveal the level of engagement between the blog author and the avid readers. From these comments, you will get more ideas and learn from the experiences of other members in the online community resulting to an accumulated wealth of knowledge generated because of your blog. To experience how it feels having a lot of blog comments from readers, the following tips may help you how.       
 
1. Encourage readers to give comments. You may do this by including in the last part of your post an invitation to the readers for them to share their thoughts, reactions or experiences related to your post. Certainly it is a good avenue to learn something new from your readers and vice versa.

2. Give feedbacks too. As we all know, the Golden Rule states that you should do unto others what you want others do unto you. If you wish to receive feedbacks, then you should give comments to other’s post. Even a single comment can make a difference.   

3. Interact with your readers. How would you feel if you ask someone a question and you were just ignored? That’s precisely the feeling of one of your readers when there’s a question raised but you don’t give a reply. To ensure that your blog will continuously receive feedbacks, then you need to interact with your readers.

4. Acknowledge all the comments. As a courtesy, give thanks to those who spent their time reading your blog post and commenting on it afterwards. Perhaps you may send a thank you email to your readers for giving their valuable comments and invite them to connect with you at your personal email address. With this, they will feel a sense of belonging and the freedom to connect with you. For your part, you win their trust and loyalty.

5. Make things simple as to the commenting process. If you want comments to keep coming, then simplify the procedures and let your blog open to any comment. Sometimes readers get irritated when they try to comment but they need to fill up a captcha form. It also annoys them if they are asked to login first before they can post a comment.

6.  Give incentives to your commenters. Doing so will help increase blog comments. Maybe a page rank will do, promotion of their recent blogs or even their social media accounts. In this way, they may reciprocate your action.

7.  Display the top commenters. Use a widget that features the names of those who exerted efforts to give comments for all your posts. As a way of appreciating their involvement in your blog, you can display the names of the top commenters. This is the best way to puff up their pride and they will most likely continue supporting your blog.        
    
8.  Think outside the box. Be unique in every way you can. Try to do something that will incite readers to give their views regarding your blogs. You may hold a contest for the best comment and offer an exciting prize. 

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Making Your Blog Interesting to Target Audiences

A lot of people ask how they can keep their blog interesting to their followers and readers over and over again. Whenever a blogger creates a blog for themselves, a lot of them just tend to go deep into the technicalities of how to blog rather than content. Content is very important but instead of focusing on this, most bloggers just dig deep into inserting videos, blog design and creating links. The backbone of every blog is its content and without it, everything will not fall into place as you have planned for your blog.

Even though I have given due importance to how content is critical in keeping readers interested in coming back to your blog, any kind of content will not work out. That is why I have prepared for you tips on how you can start getting the right content into your blog now.

Blog Lingo Should Be Consistently Interesting

One of the common mistakes that people do within blogs is that they start out with a creative voice for it and then go into the more technical and preachy tone as they move onwards. For marketing blogs, this kind of technique is not going to work out very well. Blogs that are focused on businesses will want to have their site tell its visitors what their service or product can do for them instead of jumping into the technicalities right away which can bore them. Keeping a conversational tone is key and making it sound like you are telling each visitor about your product or service as if it is their first time knowing about it.

Bridge the Gap Between You and Your Readers

Avoid alienating the people who reads your blogs. You may be needed to talk a lot of things about how your product or service works and this is important but you do not have to make it sound like you are the leader and the readers are your followers. As much as possible, involve your readers in your blogs through forums and discussions. Encourage them to share their insights and opinions. This is also a great way to know what you should change with your products and services based on their feedback.

Show Readers Your Testimonials

This technique is one of the ways that brings your marketing or business blog into life in the eyes of your readers. Post stories of a person or people who have used your product or service once in a while. You can request your reader to write the story or you can write it for them instead. Anecdotes such as this found in your blog will make it more interesting for future readers.

Become Content Creative

Even if you are good at writing, going over the same topics using the same kind of lingo will eventually make your content uninteresting to readers. Make sure that the content you write are those that are unique compared to other competitor blogs. This can be done by having other writers submit content for your blog through guest posting. Aside from having unique tones and subjects, guest posting will also help you build an ideal blogging community.

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3 Easy Ways To Keep Your Blog Attractive and Interesting

What to do to garner traffic to your blog?

There are quite a few things that you can apply to your blog in order to give it a much needed interest boost from people. When you started out with your blog, your main concern at first was producing good and unique content for your readers in a regular basis. But as you progress in trying to please your readers by providing them with articles which you think they are interested in, things can get dull as there is not much variety to choose from. However, there are ways on how you can write and publish different kinds of content and formats to make it interesting. Here are a few tips on how you can do just that.

3 Easy Ways You Can Do to Create Attractive Blogs

1. Include Videos in the Blog

Blog owners who want their readers to keep coming back or have them stay in their blogs longer, can make them do so by applying videos for them to watch. You can make videos of yourself discussing the topics that you usually write about in your blog. You can immediately gauge the reaction of your audiences especially if you put a comments section below your video content. Just keep things simple when uploading videos so that you will not give yourself a hard time in putting them up regularly.

2. Interview People

The next thing that you would want to integrate within your blog is to interview industry experts and thought leaders about specific topics. Share the interview that you had with them to your readers as you ask about their thoughts on pressing issues that are related to your industry. As you conduct your interview with a person, try to avoid making it sound scripted as much as possible. Although interviews that are scripted can be produced faster, it will not sound as interesting to watch compared to a free-flowing conversation. Just be natural and avoid being stiff when talking to the person you are interviewing.

3. Spice it Up with Humor

If you have already done the two points given above, then you are almost ready to roll and would want to cap your blog off with an added bonus. Try inserting humorous blog posts that are related to the industry you are blogging about at least once every week. Funny news stories may be the ones that you should look out for and start writing a blog about it. Even though these humor posts that you publish are not focused on thought leadership, they can still be interesting to many readers and can be shared more than your regular posts. This in turn will generate new readers and traffic to your blog.




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3 Easy Ways To Keep Your Blog Attractive and Interesting

What to do to garner traffic to your blog?

There are quite a few things that you can apply to your blog in order to give it a much needed interest boost from people. When you started out with your blog, your main concern at first was producing good and unique content for your readers in a regular basis. But as you progress in trying to please your readers by providing them with articles which you think they are interested in, things can get dull as there is not much variety to choose from. However, there are ways on how you can write and publish different kinds of content and formats to make it interesting. 

3 Easy Ways You Can Do to Create Attractive Blogs

1. Include Videos in the Blog
Blog owners who want their readers to keep coming back or have them stay in their blogs longer, can make them do so by applying videos for them to watch. You can make videos of yourself discussing the topics that you usually write about in your blog. You can immediately gauge the reaction of your audiences especially if you put a comments section below your video content. Just keep things simple when uploading videos so that you will not give yourself a hard time in putting them up regularly.

2. Interview People
The next thing that you would want to integrate within your blog is to interview industry experts and thought leaders about specific topics. Share the interview that you had with them to your readers as you ask about their thoughts on pressing issues that are related to your industry. As you conduct your interview with a person, try to avoid making it sound scripted as much as possible. Although interviews that are scripted can be produced faster, it will not sound as interesting to watch compared to a free-flowing conversation. Just be natural and avoid being stiff when talking to the person you are interviewing.

3. Spice it Up with Humor
If you have already done the two points given above, then you are almost ready to roll and would want to cap your blog off with an added bonus. Try inserting humorous blog posts that are related to the industry you are blogging about at least once every week. Funny news stories may be the ones that you should look out for and start writing a blog about it. Even though these humor posts that you publish are not focused on thought leadership, they can still be interesting to many readers and can be shared more than your regular posts. This in turn will generate new readers and traffic to your blog.

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