This is the second in series of the essentials of a blog. In the first part we spoke about content, layout and subscription features. There are sevral ways to increase visibility for your blog but right now let’s continue with highlighting some of the other features that are a must for your blog before you start promoting it.
1. Maintain a blog roll
Blog roll is an individual’s favourite list of blog links that you have mentioned in the side bar of your blog. Most of the bloggers exchange links in order to increase their visibility and get more readers. The blogs links could be about subjects related to what you write about or could be on your other interests you pursue.
2. Provide links in each of your blog post
It is a good idea to link your each blog post with either other blogs to some of your earlier posts. This allows the user to also get access to other interesting posts too. The links also provide you more visibility and hence more hits as other bloggers too will link their posts with yours. This is not a rule but is an accepted practice.
Whenever you provide links from your blog post to other blogs, always select ‘_blank’ option. This will ensure that a new window opens up when the user clicks on that link. The idea being that you don’t want the user to go away from your blog.
3. Categorize your content
- Various subject sections
It is possible to index your blog posts into various categories and display it in the sidebar of your blog. You must use this feature if you intend to write on several sections or genres.
This feature lists out for the user the different categories or section he or she can read on your blog and accordingly select the post of their liking.
4. Tag your posts
Before publishing of any post, mention key words as your tags. Tags are like names for your posts. You must accurately define them for each post so that those posts come up when a user is searching on that particular subject using any search engine.
- Tags for each blog post
There are other features too that one can incorporate like search box that allows users to seek out information on your blog. You can also have category or tag clouds – these highlight that subjects that are mostly written about or are being read or debated on that blog
This ends our essentials of a blog series. Do write in your comments if you would like to add more or have any queries. Having added these features, you can go start promoting your blog. Do read our series on Essentials of a Website