What in my opinion is a good blog
Generally, its very useful that you start a blog on subject that is close to your heart or you are the subject matter specialist. Don’t blog for the sake of making money. I started like that. I started with something that was close to my heart and ofcourse, I was a subject matter specialist on that. I did not do it to make money.
let me begin by saying that blogging is going to cost you. Blogging cost will include money, time and emotions, atleast these are the biggest cost in my opinion. On the other side, blogging can be fun, emotionally satisfying and if lucky, you will have traffic and some money. Having defined the “whats in for me” of blogging, lets get to basics of blogging.
Free blog vs Exclusive blog
If you are a beginner, you must start with a free blog like blogger or typead or wordpress to get the hang of blogging. The money cost is not much, the other costs described above may be much more. If you manage to grow your blog, then its fantastic. I know atleast Google Adsense and Amazon, which have monetizing opportunities for free blogs.
An exclusive blog, in my view, is characterized by exclusive domain name, a rented server ( a guide to buying a server “Search for a perfect webhost” ) and a content management system. This is preferred by most advertising networks. I will strongly suggest this method.
Which content Management System?
I am sure, that you will be struggling with this decision. I wrote about in the previous post “Content Management System for a beginner.” Let me tell you that I stand by WordPress. If you cannot handle it yourself, you could use a professional help or a free lancer. You could also contact me via the Contact Page. A lot of providers do it for various fees. Some are expensive and some are not. I am one of the expensive ones, but, at the same time, I have clients staying with me since 2006.
Design
People have an idea that the best design or the best home page will attract most users. so, they add flash and other stuff on their blog. I have written about it in “To Flash or Not To Flash‘. Please keep your blog simple. Design should mean that your blog and articles are more accessible. A “very good Design,” in the sense flash, heavy banners etc should be avoided. The people come for your content, remember that.
Content
You must have heard that “content is the king.” Please keep it as a thumb rule. This is why I told you that you should “start a blog on subject that is close to your heart or you are the subject matter specialist.’
You just cannot make up the content. Copying someone else’s content is not a long term strategy. Some of the best content’s have following characteristics:
A) Self written
B) Emotional (humor, anger etc)
C) Fact file
D) Controversial
I will write a separate post on what makes good content for a blog
User Involvement
It’s very good to keep user involved via your comment box. Some people have turned comments off. Whatever you do, see to that the comments are clean and there are no spams.
These are the very basic minimum which I personally think a good blog should have.
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