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There's more to a blog than just the blog. Here are some additional things you should include as well as the blog.About page
All blogs and websites should have some kind of about page. The purpose of this is to communicate the following things to your target audience:- Who are you?
- What is your blog about?
- Why should readers be interested in what you have to say?
Some successful bloggers have personified themselves with caricatures instead of photos, whereas others have just included an image of an object or character that bears no resemblance to the real life person behind the blog. Doing this doesn't mean you can't be successful, but many people may prefer a blog where the author is open and honest about who they are.
Easy links to your best content
New readers may find your blog well into its life. You can't expect them to go and read everything in your archives, so give them an easy way to find some of your most popular and useful posts.There a few ways you can achieve this:
- A "top posts" page providing links to your popular posts.
- A "most commented" or "most viewed" list of posts. This doesn't have to have a separate page - it can be displayed on your main page. I have lists of popular content on my home page.
- Subsections within your site. For instance, if you wish to keep all posts of a particular type in one place, or if you've written a series of posts. I have my Tutorials section, along with Random bits and pieces.
Contact form
Sometimes, people will want to contact you privately. Don't display your email address on your site, especially not as a clickable link, but not even if it's written like this: yourname AT yourdomain DOT com. It might get less spam than if you wrote yourname@yourdomain.com, but it could still be picked up by people who want to send you junk mail.It's much better to use a contact form. This allows your readers to contact you privately without needing to know your email address first, and it reduces spam - especially if it uses a CAPTCHA, as you can see on my contact form. If you're not sure what this is, click on the Contact link on my site and you'll see it at the bottom.
Also, if you decide to change your email address, you don't need to tell everyone your new address. If you get into the habit of encouraging people to use your contact form, they'll know where to go if one day your email address doesn't work anymore. (They'll see your email address if you reply to a message sent through the contact form.)
What do you think?
Do you have all of the above on your site?How important do you think they are?
What else do you think every site needs to have?
Comments
I have about pages and contact forms, and they have been very important! Well, at least the contact form has been. I'm not sure how much my about pages have done, but I do get noticeable action from my contact form (and no spam, hooray!).
I need to develop a top or popular content section for each of my blogs. I have always been on the low side of traffic so it hasn't been that important, but as I have been developing better flagship content I really need to put it forward.
Ben, as usual you are right on the money. There are some things I need to change on my site and reading your blog gives the best tips. Thanks
I used to have a contact form on my site, but I used to get way too many emails from creepy people or just blank emails. So I gave up!
But I agree you're right on all three counts of course!
But of course, I don't follow any of these because I'm not trying to make money using my blog... I'm just writing for me (and for those who chose to read) hehe
Thanks for all the comments. :)
Clement, Chris, ettarose - good to see you're taking the ideas on board for your sites.
fragileheart - did you have any kind of anti-spam protection on the contact from? I can't help wondering if this might be something to do with the issues you mentioned. Also, this isn't specific to money making, which isn't the point of my blog anyway. All blogs that want to get other people reading them should aim to do these things. :)
Simple must haves...and I couldn't agree more. I see so many sites where I'd either like to know more or I know too much. Nice post for new and old bloggers...
- I think every site needs to have less clutter...*Starts with the man in the mirror*
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Thanks for commenting, Ohio Realtor. I actually have another post entitled Reduce your clutter, maybe you'll find something useful in that one too. :)
Yup, I have a bit of work to do. out of all the things you have listed, I only have a contact from up on my blog. Does a profile link work as an about page?
Hi gerri, thanks for the comment. A profile link isn't ideal, because it takes you away from the main blog.
A good about page should be part of the blog. I believe on Blogspot the easiest way to do this is to create your About page as a post with a date that's older than the first post on the blog, then link to it from your sidebar. I'm not sure of the exact process you'll need to go through to do this though as I don't use Blogspot. Hope this helps.
I like the idea of top X the only one I have a problem with is the most viewed. Once a list is set it routinely gets viewed more then most so it almost stays the same indefinitely on many blogs.
Great bloggery though enjoyed the read.
Hey Bloggeries, thanks for the comment. I do see your point and I often think that myself when I see "top content" lists - once the blog's been around for some time, how can you possibly make a dent on those top items?
There are some ways to keep the stats useful. Some sites list the people who leave the most comments, but it resets at the start of each month. I don't do this but I might at some point in the future. You'll see I also have a total number of comments on my home page - "comments in February". This will stop going up once we get into March and then I'll put up a counter for March.
With the system I use for my site (which is a system I wrote myself, in case you don't already know), I can have stats for the whole site or just for specific areas. For instance, on the home page I only list the top content on the blog. The most commented post is actually my Entrecard competition that I ran in December, but I moved it to an archive section because the competition is not running anymore. One of the most viewed pages on the site is "Three killer tips for getting your music heard", which is now under Music - Music Blog. The most commented article on my site is "Reduce the clicks", which I posted on February 2nd and it jumped to the top very quickly in the last few days.
So it's still possible for a new post to make a big impact, and there are ways to keep the top content fresh. :)
The only thing I'd quibble ever so slightly about would be the top commenters list. It makes a newcomer feel an outsider in my view, or that there's a clique of commenters who all know each other. They probably do but ...
Atms - you may be right there. I think it might be better to have a monthly top commenters list as some blogs do - that gives everyone a chance. But then it might upset the people who were at the top before! I guess you can't please everyone...
Hey, thanks for these great tips.I have to put up a contact form on my blog right now.Thats the only one that was missing out of the three.