5 Irrefutable Qualities of Successful Blogs
Awesome Content: Set Up For Online Success
Do you want a blog that is highly successful? Do you want visitors to flock to your site, readers to leave comments, and advertisers to fill your wallet? I know that I do!
A few years ago blogging was a brand new art. People were wading through dark jungles of unknown territory trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Those first bloggers were pilgrims in a sense paving a way for the rest of us.
We now have the luxury of sitting back and learning from those bloggers who have made it big. I’ve made it my goal to do just that.
I spend a lot of time examining successful people. I believe that if certain principles worked for them then they can work for me as well. I’ve examined some of the most successful blogs on the internet and as I’ve searched I have noticed that the most successful blogs have most, if not all, of these five dynamic qualities.
Successful blogs have amazing designs.
Average bloggers tend to fail on this one…a lot. Most people get into blogging because they have a passion to write about something. The majority of bloggers assume that as long as they write about what they love then they will be successful. Instead of ever beautifying their site they just plug away creating articles.
The problem is that every visitor that hits a less-than-amazing blog ends up leaving before even looking at the first post titles. Visitors never even makes it far enough to see the ‘amazing’ content that the blogger has put together. First impressions are, after all, lasting impressions.
Take control of your site’s theme. Search some of the popular template clubs that are available like Elegant Themes and Theme Forest. Google search for unique themes. Stand on the corner of the street and shout if you have to but find a beautiful template for your blog.
Don’t be afraid to spend a few dollars to make your site into something amazing. You can buy templates for less that $20 that are absolutely inspiring. Take your time. Look around. Find the theme that you need to drive your site to the next level and then go for it.
Remember that blogs are like babies. Nobody else thinks yours is as cute as you do. You’d better give your readers a reason to stick around because they aren’t going to do it on their own.
Successful blogs offer a unique experience.
According to Technorati, a new blog is created every second. There are literally millions and millions of blogs competing for traffic and if you want to succeed then you have to find a way to set yourself apart from the rest!
If you want to propel your site to the top then you need to ask yourself these questions:
- What do I offer my readers that they can’t get anywhere else?
- Are my posts creative and original?
- Is my design a popular template or a rarer, more unique layout?
Successful blogs provide well-written content.
I’m sure you’ve heard it said, “If you build it…they will come!” Well that’s not exactly true. You not only have to build it, but you have to build it well. Take the time necessary and develop some amazing articles.
Before you hit the publish button you need to put your post through the following series of questions:
- Are there spelling errors or grammatical mistakes?
- Am I staying on topic or do I ramble?
- Is my post a comprehensive look at the topic at hand?
- Is my post inviting to commenters?
- Is my post broken up with sub-headings, bold content, bullet points and quote blocks for post skimmers?
Successful blogs connect with their readers.
Comments are the life-blood of a successful blog. Stick around and you’ll hear me say that a lot.
I believe that comments are vitally important as they are the identifiable marks of the connection between blog authors and blog readers. That’s why I’m willing to do just about anything to get people to break away from being passive readers and become active participants in the conversation at Site Sketch 101. I want to connect with my readers and I want my readers to connect with me.
Invite feedback in your posts by asking for thoughts, opinions and even disagreements. Let your readers know that you want their feedback.
Make your comments section open and inviting. It should be your goal to respond to every comment with a meaningful, personal communication. Try to become friends with every person that comments on your blog.
Successful blogs offer easy subscription options.
RSS and email subscriptions are the absolute best ways to create repeat visitors. These outperform just about any other method that you can think of when trying to get your visitors to come back for more. Make it your goal to get as many people to subscribe as possible to your RSS and email updates.
Here’s a few ideas that I practice on Site Sketch 101 and I’ve experienced amazing growth in my subscribers since the start of this blog:
- Place large RSS and email icons near the top of each page.
- Place subscription options at the end of each post.
- Email first time commenters and include a link to your RSS and email subscriptions in the email.
Conclusion – The Law of Multiplication
Do you want to add readers to your blog? Pick any one of these five principles and put it to work on your site. You will be amazed at how fast your readers will add up.
Do you want to multiply the number of readers at your blog? Pick any two, three, four or even all five of these principles and put them to work for you. When these blog qualities are combined in the same blog then you will begin to see growth like you have never experienced. It works for the professionals and I guarantee that it will work for you.
GenuineWoman said:
Interesting advices. Especially the last one – act upon the knowledge. =P Thank you!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
GenuineWoman » You’re welcome. I’m glad that you enjoyed the article and I hope that it was useful for you. There’s more to come!
Satkrit » I hope that it does come in handy for you!
George Serradinho » I think that it’s good both that you added those boxes (they look really good, by the way) and that you are taking open suggestions from your readers like that. It’s so important that we cater to our readers tastes in order to gain and keep them.
Satkrit said:
Interesting article! Should come in handy.
George Serradinho said:
You have listed some great points above. I’m using Thesis theme and have tried my best to get it to be unique in it’s own way.
I find it funny that some people buy or use some themes and just leave it at that. It’s like viewing 100 sites and 50 or more are identical in design and layout. That’s boring to me and I hope to many others.
I have just added 3 boxes below my header with one being for subscriptions. I was told by another user that they struggled to subscribe to my blog updates. I hope this has made it easier.
Website Copywriting said:
These tips aren’t only great in general but take on added urgency for bloggers that are focused on specialty niches. Let’s face it, there’s SO MANY loan consolidation blogs out there–all lustily gunning for those $4 Adsense clicks. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on whether you take Nicholas’ advice), your blog might be part of the 99.9999% of undifferentiated cr@p out there gunning for that niche.
A little interactivity and attention to content quality goes a LONG WAY in rising head and shoulders above the competition.
Thank you for the awesome tips, Nicholas. Keep at it! You’ve found a new feed subscriber.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Website Copywriting » Too many blogs are a part of the 99.9999% and the blog owners of these sites don’t know or don’t care. They just get upset about the fact that they can’t seem to grow their traffic. We have to set ourselves apart.
Phaoloo » I’m familiar with the Thesis theme but I also know that it has a lot of customizability. I contest that those sites that put in the effort to make theirs stand out will do the best in the long run.
Evan » I think that writing about what interests you is the first step to being unique. That allows you to bring your own passions and feelings to the table which should be different than everyone else’s.
Phaoloo said:
These are really irrefutable things of a successful blog. However, some now are trying to make the theme as simple as possible. You may see TheSis theme.
Evan said:
Your reply to my comment the other day was right- we think alike on this issue. I think the hardest of these, for me at least, is to be unique in content and design. There are a zillion blogs out there, so it can be hard to find a niche. I ended up just writing about what interests me, as that makes it more likely that I’ll stick with it. Regarding a unique design, that too is something I need to keep looking at.
Stefan said:
All of these are great advices. I stopped for a minute and thought how well I’m following them.
Well, it’s easy to subscribe, I’m trying to connect with my visitors and (hopefully) I deliver interesting content.
What I need to be better on is to have a great design and be unique in some way.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Stefan » Great. I think a lot of people sit back and simply think that they are doing well instead of sitting down and critically analyzing themselves like you have just done. We need to be our own best critics. I pour over this site trying to make it better every day. I think if we want to be successful then that is what we need to do.
Stefan said:
You’ve done a truly great job so far Nicholas. There’s only two very small things I can think of that would make it better.
1) Change the background colour of your comments a bit so everyone can see it’s you commenting. The “Post Author” does a great job but if you are scrolling a bit to fast you might miss it.
2) Change the title of “Visit my website” into our name, or move the link to the name. If not, you will have hundreds of outgoing links with “visit my website”. Reminds me a bit of the “click here” buttons we had a few years ago.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Stefan –> I’ve changed the url pattern to reflect that suggestion and I will do some more work to adjust the post author style. I’ll probably work on that a little bit more tomorrow. those are good ideas.
Stefan said:
Thank you Nicholas. You do not only deliver high quality content but also listens to your visitors, us, and develop your site to the better. Good work.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Stefan –> It’s all about the readers. I believe that if you don’t take care of your customer…then someone else will. I want to make the experience as good as possible on here. I’m still trying to create a solid workaround for changing the color of my comment from the rest, but I’m struggling because every time a post is added as a response to mine it becomes nested under my comment (which is good) and then it takes on the unique color along with my comment (which is bad). Soon I should be able to find a solution to that, though. I would definitely like to have it slightly set apart from the rest. I think that I’m actually going to use a textured background to represent the article author’s comments.
Jerry @ Dreamweaver Conferences said:
i think a unique experience with great content is a sure fire way. great post this really gives people chances to improve their sites.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Jerry @ Dreamweaver Conferences » Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Satkrit said:
Forgot to tell you guys, but Elegant themes is simply the best website for themes. Now if only I knew PHP to make mine unique.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Satkrit » Elegant themes is amazing. I knew very little php when I got started but I jumped in and started figuring some of it out just by trial and error. There’s a lot of php tutorials available online.
Diane C said:
You’ve made some excellent points here. I know when I visit a site one of the main things that will get me to read any articles and possibly return to their site is the site layout it’s self.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Diane C » It’s too distracting if the layout is ugly and poorly designed. I completely agree with you.
Jeff B. said:
–Successful blogs connect with their readers.–
I’m going to say this is at the top of the list. If you don’t connect with the readers, you won’t have any.
Just my $0.02 tonight.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Jeff B. » That’s certainly a good point. Connecting with readers is incredibly important to me. That’s why comments are so important to me as well. I want to connect with readers and I want readers to be able to openly and honestly connect with me. Thanks for the feedback, Jeff.
lloydsbackyard said:
hi! very excellent posts. Im learning from this. I just need to implement this on my blog since myblog really needs attention to boots its traffic and earnings. hope you can help. thanks
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
lloydsbackyard » I sure hope that I can help also! Which of the concepts discussed in this post do you believe your blog needs the most right now? Be sure to devote a little bit of time developing a plan of action so that you can apply what you’ve learned.
Satkrit » I don’t think that it is a question of which one is the most important. I think that to really excel you have to have both. If you measured a site’s effectiveness on a scale of 1 to 10 and the content is a perfect 10 then your site’s effectiveness would be measured at a ten. If the design were measured at a 10 then the site’s effectiveness would be measured at a 10. If they are both a 10 then the site’s effectiveness would be measured at 10 x 10 = 100!
I think that having both traits multiplies a site’s effectiveness. But that is just my opinion and this is an art that is unique to everyone so your opinion can be different from mine and we can both still be highly successful.
Bangchoy » I’ve been reading some articles that say that it is nearly impossible to create 100% original content. After all there are millions of site’s publishing information every day on the internet. It’s hard to compete with that. But what we can do is right our unique perspective on information. We can blend the information that is being shared around the internet with our passions and opinions and create a unique experience that way.
Satkrit said:
I think well written content is the most important because it doesn’t matter if you have good design but bad content.
Maybe its just me.
bangchoy said:
i think readers will come to blog /site which have great info,interest news, not just original info..
if its original, only SE will give reward..
Arisu said:
Great article as always Nicholas!
Mmm, I think another important thing to point out is that having a lovely design and plugins is very easy, there are lots of tutorials, and if you don´t know anything about design you can get a custom theme for free… a lot of people is glad just to help or would do it for a mention on your blog, or if you let them put a little signature at the end of the page.
And unique content is what you do when you write about anything since your unique point of view, funny or sarcastic or plain crazy, the more you show your personality in what you do, the more unique it´ll be.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Those are great points. People are usually willing to do a lot for some recognition like a link at the bottom of the page like you said. I’ll post some follow-ups specifically about the design of a blog. I think it’s extremely important and it goes hand-in-hand with great content and everything else.
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Also, most bloggers are really nice, and they won´t mind doing a mini-article or doing a little advertise for you if they like you :3
And I think your articles are really helpful for novice bloggers ^^
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » That’s my main goal. I want to help novice blogger be able to take it to the next level. Most bloggers I see have lousy blogs but it isn’t because they don’t have the potential for greatness. It’s just because they haven’t gone to school for marketing or devoted the resources to conduct massive case studies. But the thing is you don’t have to go to school or do all that research. You just have to pick up on some of the basic principles and you can be a great success. I want to put those principles out in a way that brings it down to a very easy level to understand.
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Talking about novice bloggers, I decided to start my own blog… let´s called “The complete freebie experiment!” with a free host and a .tk domain… If I can make it work I´ll upgrade my account to a custom host. Now, now, the point is ¿how to name it? The brand I did in college for freelance work is called La Malicia (The Malice); but I don´t know if it is catchy enough…
Any suggestions?
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » When I’m working on names I always check out http://www.nameboy.com/ and I type in two words that are related to what I’m looking for. I usually end up going through several items before I find what I want but for every two words that you enter the generator will display several pages worth of potential domain names. You should check it out and let me know what it throws out at you.
Satkrit said:
I use http://who.is when I want to check out a domain. Thanks for telling us about http://www.nameboy.com/. Didn’t know about it.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Satkrit » Interesting selection. I like pixelhero the best. I think that it has a lot of potential. I’m glad that helped. We can do some more brainstorming also to come up with the exact name that you want. Be sure to try to get a domain name that you can use in your site name also.
The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop said:
Nicholas, you’re completely right. I’d say that design and content are the most important of the five — just speaking from personal experience.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop » I definitely agree with you. I think that they are like stones on a pyramid. Content and Success are the foundation but all are necessary to really achieve the desired success.
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Thanks for the tip!! That was a nice brainstorm ^^
I guess I´ll try to make my own template -now that should be fun… and probably it´ll end my sanity- but first comes the name! This are some of the favorites:
typecat – mindcat – pixelhero – primarycolor – aliendesign – pixiealien – hardpixels – pixelbunny – pixelsaholic – pixelsjungle – pixelsgroupie – pixelswaitress – peannutpixel – pixelvampire – designrockstar – thinkdesign – babyblog
Mmm, now, most names call for lovely blog-pet to go with them, but I feel all of them have potential
Satkrit said:
Yea, I already have domain name planned and the cool thing is its available. But what I don’t have is the money. That’s why I am desperately trying to win this comment contest.
Mukund said:
Same here! I have a plan to shift my blog from the blogger platform to my own domain. But I need money for that! If I win this contest, then that will come in Handy!!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Ok! One vote to pixel hero! I guess I´ll start to think about branding experience; for example, baby blog came out cause you could see how the blog grows ^^ hopefully into a mature-adult blog. And pixiealien could go Roswell style XD And pixel hero should do with pixel art… wich is not my forte, but we´ll start practicing.
Satkrit>> You can get pretty much any domain with a .tk extension at http://www.dot.tk/ those are free . Or if you know a little spanish, you can get a basic hosting and a free domain for 70 USD per year at http://www.pcsei.com.mx/
bangchoy said:
Nicholas note this text “Are there spelling errors or grammatical mistakes?”..
hiks..
for me from asia, only hope that readers can understand about what we wrote..
so grammatical.. hmm.. i can not promise it..
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
bangchoy » I don’t mean to sound unkind here, but those of you who have learned English as a second language simply have an added obstacle on your road toward success. If you really want to expand your readership inside of an English speaking audience then you’re going to have to take the time to get the grammar and spelling.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of any websites with poor grammar that are truly building a massive online following through real connections and friendships. It just doesn’t happen.
I hate to have to say this but you’re just going to have to work harder if you really want to climb to the top. That’s my opinion.
Arisu said:
bangchoy>>
If you have a good enough English, then you can ask someone to beta-test your articles before publish them. But poorly written stuff ain´t gonna do you any good.
Also, write in your own language is an option too.
wayne said:
Great mental fodder for a nO0b like me. Thanks!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
wayne » Awesome. I hope that it helps!
Fred Hatman said:
Invaluable advice, Nicholas. I need to act on the easy-to-subscribe point. I also think it’s important to have a “Quest”. One that you feel very passionate about. I’ve made mine telling the truth about South Africa ahead of the Football (soccer) World Cup being held here next year. But always in a “SA-positive” way. I am hoping that this will set me apart. As a journalist of 29 years, it’s not the creation and execution of content that is my greatest challenge but raising awareness and attracting viewers to that content. So I’m on Twitter, Facebook and every social networking site available. I’m finding it tough to get comments so I appreciate your tip about tempting viewers by asking them to react to questions and generally interact in some way. Thank you for the very helpful advice, Warmest wishes, Fred
Lydia said:
Hi, I was wondering what you think about the flexibility2 wp theme? I just started using it and trying to figure out how to make it my own so to speak.
akira07 said:
Agree with all point except about design, friend.
Even the design is standard, but if the content is great, i think the blog can reach success also.
Well, i’m already read your article about first impression but i think no need to use paid theme.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
akira07 –> But why not just have both and multiply your race up the hill toward success? Why can’t we have both great content and great design?
akira07 said:
Ah..! I’m understand now. I’m agree with u, but what i mean is, the good template is not a must.
Because when i’m asked, you should choose one between :
1. Good content, bad design
2. Good design, bad content
I’m sure mostly people choose the option no 1.
But i’m agree, if we can do both, why not
Mukund said:
As far as your option, I am sure every one will choose the first option. But it is important to design your site as well!!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
akira07 –> Maybe so, but that is the wrong way to look at things. And your success will always be limited if you choose on one of those two options. Tell me which option we are using here at Site Sketch 101. I’d like to think that we are putting both of them to work here. You need the total package if you really want to attract readers.
marshall said:
Good actionable items here. As a techie, I too often play down the looks of a site over the content. you are right about the looks and I’ll be theme shopping shortly!
Kok Siong Chen said:
Yes! I agree with ll the points you mentioned above. I think the content quality is the crucial thing that we need to concern about in order to build up a successful blog.
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Miranda said:
You made some amazing points about things here. I can tell you care about your readers also because of the great format and because when I scrolled down I saw that you had wrote back to everyone who commented. That kind of effort and commitment by an author of sorts is deeply appreciated, thank you and keep up the great work.
Nicholas Cardot said:
I’m glad that you’re enjoying the site. I’ve actually written here about the impact it can have on people when you take the time to respond to those who communicate with you. I don’t believe that the comment section of a post exists just to build up a comment number and make your stats look a little nicer. I believe it’s a place to start a conversation amongst your community. Often when I comment on other websites I won’t just respond to the author but also to others who have commented. I believe that the ultimate goal should be that the author communicates with the readers and the readers communicate with both the auther and each other. That is when real conversation begins to take place.