When the blogs started in the online world, they were meant to be an online personal diary.
With the help of it, you can write and share your thoughts with the others who can be anywhere across the globe.
Over a period of time, blogs have become an intensive marketing tool for companies and individuals.
Through it, they can connect with the customers and audience to share the latest happenings within the company or around the world.
The important aspect of blogging is that it requires consistent efforts and time to deliver the results.
But to have a successful blog up and running requires more than just writing. It requires some essential components that should be added to your blog.
Below we will discuss 14 basic elements of blogs that are required to a blog:
Blog Post Design: Important elements of a blog:
1. Content structure:
While writing or creating the blog, the foremost requirement for it should be the content structure.
Before writing a post, do thorough research about the content, plan what you want to write and how you would like to write it.
Also, don’t forget to add some interesting and relevant, high-quality images in your blog.
Ultimately, your blog is content dependent and having the right content is what will keep your readers on your blog.
Use simple and clear language, with which your audience can connect with.
Depending on the target audience of your blog, know what kind of language they read or speak.
For example, if you have a fashion blog, then keep your language simple and free of jargons.
Also, try incorporating interesting and trending topics for your readers to read and maintain their curiosity.
2. Comment section:
The comment section is one of the best ways to connect with your readers.
It lets you know what your readers think about the content, how do they feel and allows you to get a chance to improve on their feedbacks.
Another benefit that a threaded comment section brings to the blogs is, it allows to have additional texts on your page. Which in turn generates long tail keywords, leading crawlers to browse your page.
This leads to better search engine ranking.
Having a comment section is a must-have on your blog. Even if you have a presence on your social channels, don’t depend on them solely, because that won’t be considered a content for your website.
3. Snippets:
Snippets are short 2-3 lines about your page or article of your blog.
These give a fair idea about the content topic to the reader, from where they can choose to click on it, as per their choice.
Snippets are an efficient way to allow your reader to choose the topic, it saves time to go through the entire post and then leave the page.
Snippets also helps reducing the bounce rate of the page.
Below are a few reasons as to why using snippets are an advantage to your blog:
• The reader gets to see various topics in one go.
• The reader then can choose the content they would like to read.
• Snippets help in reducing the duplicate content on your blog, which helps in maintaining the good SEO and search engine ranking.
There are different types of call to action lines that you can use on the homepage and see which one works for you. Few of the most popular call to actions are given below:
• Read more
• Continue reading
• Click to continue
4. Social buttons for sharing:
Having a social sharing button allows your reader to share the interesting content from your page to their social channels.
This helps in getting more traction to your blog.
Having a social sharing buttons also allows your content to move across the web, and increase the reach of your content.
It is advisable to use 3 social sharing buttons rather than using everything. Know which are the best three social channels that works well for you and stick to them.
The placement of the social sharing button on the page is equally essential.
As per a study conducted by Coschedule, placing the social sharing buttons on the top or to the left of the content works the best.
5. Search box:
A search box allows your reading to look for a specific content or the topic within your blog.
It is convenient in saving time rather than going to the Google page and then searching for it.
If you are using WordPress, then it is easy and free for setup and it does not take more than 10-15 minutes of your time to work on it.
Ensure that your search button works effectively and provides the right search content to your readers.
If your search box is not functioning properly then is it good to get it fixed by a developer, otherwise, an ineffective search box may lead to a disappointed reader. Which will give a bad impression about your blog.
6. Font size to be 11 or larger:
Readability is an essential factor while writing a blog.
If the font size is too small and your reader is finding it difficult to read then they might not come back to your blog. If the font size is too big then it may look inconvenient to your reader.
Therefore, it is important to know the right font size to your reader. The best font size that you can use is 11 and font type can be Arial or Times New Roman.
But depending on the content and design of your blog, you can choose the right font size and type.
Ensure to avoid using too much cursive fonts or too fancy fonts as they are hard to read for a longer period of time.
7. Social media follow buttons:
Having social media follow buttons is another thing that should be added in your blog.
It allows your readers to make a choice to follow your content on various other channels.
If there is an update or something new on your blog, they can immediately come to know about it from following the blog on social media platforms.
Another good reason is that people who may not be aware of your blog can find your content on social platforms too.
Ensure to use your social sharing buttons on the top and bottom of the page for the convenience of your reader. So that they don’t have to keep looking for it.
8. About me:
Whether you are an individual, writing a blog or a business who wants to promote their products, writing about yourself helps to connect with your readers a lot.
Have a small snippet on the right side of your blog which shares few lines about you and extends that link to your complete bio.
Mention who you are, what you do and what is your vision.
This helps your readers to connect with you and they learn more about you too. This helps to create a certain emotional bond, even in the virtual world.
9. Email subscription:
Having a substantial emails from your readers is an important aspect to grow the traffic of your website.
There are few ways of using them, for example, you can give free ebook or course for them to look forward to.
This, in turn, generates the curiosity among your readers as to what next will be there with regards to the content. Meanwhile, this helps you to get more emails.
Ensure that when you are asking for the email address, then try to make it personal.
For example, ask for their name, profession, etc and then ask for email ids. Using only the emails from your readers may lead them to skipping it rather than looking forward for the content.
10. Simple and clean website layout:
A good blog layout is essential to achieve success to generate more traffic.
Keeping the kind of content that you will be talking about, use relevant colors with it.
Try keeping it simple rather than too colorful, use the readable text colors for your readers.
Colors do have a deep psychological impact on the mind of your reader, more than that some text is easy to read.
It is good to stick to the basics of white background and black text, if you are just beginning and don’t have enough knowledge about colors to be used on the web.
The whole idea is to have a readable content for your audience and a good experience for them.
11. Responsive blog:
As more and more people are using their phones, they tend to browse or read a lot of content on their mobile.
Ensure that your blog is mobile friendly so that if your reader intends to read while commuting to work on a bus or metro they can easily do it.
It is an opportunity for your blog to reach out to your readers as per their convenience.
Do check if your blog is mobile friendly, that is, the page loads quickly, its readable and the user can easily interact with. Do keep a check by yourself. If you find any errors then it is good to get is resolved immediately.
12. Quality images:
Adding image to your content allows your readers to connect better with your content.
Use high-quality images on your blog because a good quality image brings good traffic.
It is not necessary that the image has to be clicked personally. You can use various royalty free stock images from Shutterstock or gettyimages. Ensure that the image you use is relevant to your content.
Don’t forget to use alt text in your images, if they have additional information to offer.
This ensures that your image also gets more traffic to your blog.
13. Have a blog archives:
The blog archives generally are present on the right side of the page. Where you mention the topics of all the previous blog topics along with the date.
This is a good feature as it allows you reader to browse through all the older content and let them sit directly into the topic of their interest.
Even if a new reader visits your website, they can get an overview of the topics that your blog has.
Essentially don’t forget to link these blog topics in your archive, as it also functions as an internal linking for you blog, which is good for your search ranking.
14. RSS Feed:
Don’t forget to have an RSS feed on your blog page, as it allows your reader to connect with your blog as per their choice.
Don’t forget to invite your readers to subscribe through RSS Feed, by using it in blog sidebar or any other visible area of your blog.
You can create the RSS Feed by visiting Feedburner and there get your blog registered. Further, Feedburner will provide you the code for a specific location for your blog which you can use it.
These are just a few of the elements that you can use, to make your blog effective and functional. Always keep a track of the things and changes that are happening, as to what works best for your blog.
It does not matter if you are an independent blogger or a big company who is using a blog for SEO purposes. It is still important to incorporate these small actions on your blog, as this will help your readers and audience to connect better with you and your brand.
In fact, the strategy of marketing has changed a lot over the years. It is not only about the product anymore. Marketing now has become a path to connect your customer with your brand and their benefits.
Don’t forget the importance of SEO which will bring traffic and conversions to your blogs. Ultimately your effort should not go wasted and this will help you to know as to where you can invest your money to market your blog.