So what can you do? Read on…

Start with a decent theme – If you understand CSS etc really well you can make your own, if you’re a complete novice, shop around online for themes you can buy  and install yourself. It’s really easy to do, and there are loads of tutorials online to show you how. If you’re in between a newbie and a pro, then take the most simple theme going and adapt it, that way you wont have to write any new code and but there is a wide scope to play about. Just make sure it looks unique and memorable, brand it for yourself.

Be careful with background images – Obviously this will be determined by the design of your theme, but the best thing to remember is to keep it uncluttered and light. White or pale colours work best, there’s nothing more horrific to human retinas than white text on a black background. Don’t use photos or busy patterns with the text directly on it. If you want to use a photo or pattern background make sure the text etc has its own background so it is easy to read your content.

Stop widgeting so much - games and other widgets on a blog are all well and good until it becomes like some sort of drugs habit. Keep them and adverts to a minimum, don’t crowd your blog with rubbish, as the main focus should be the content. Lots of adverts and widgets make a blog look spam-tastic, terrible and quickly forgotten!

Content, content, content, content, content, content, content, (mushroom mushroom) – No but seriously i know we go on about it all the time, the most important thing on any site is content. Read pretty much every post we write about for tips on writing the content. As for design, make sure your content is the main focus. Don’t crowd it with rubbish!

(Text) size matters – Use decent font sizes, colours etc and make it easy to read without a nuclear microscope. No-one has one of those, and if they do they aren’t going to set it up to read your blog.

Scrolling - Should be up and down, not across. It’s a blog not the Bayeux Tapestry!

Distracting animations – should be banned. There’s nothing that makes anyone click the ‘X’ in the top corner of the window quicker than a blog full of  blinking text and ten million glittering gifs looping around. And cursors which turn into something designed by a pre-teen who’s had too many sweets should be banned on punishment of having ‘I love High School Musical’ tattooed on your forehead. You are excused if you are under-12, but then they probably know better.

Keep things tidy – Use the HMTL code to keep everything neat and tidy, make sure text doesn’t overlap out of various areas and keep everything clean. And have a bath, nobody likes an unclean blogger.

Identity – If you have followed all the other rules your blog will have one. If not you’re doing it wrong! Start again.

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Once you have adhered the the principle that you need content for your site, you now need to know what to write and how to write it.  The way people consume content depends on what they are looking for but there are some basic principles which will aid you in increasing readership and frequency of visit.

• The most important place to start is the Title.  Try to get the main keywords into the title, without it sounding overtly spammy and as well try to make it sound interesting. Some useful starts are “How To” or “Tips for”…something that is especially useful are ‘Top 10 tips”.  This is partly about consumption, visitors know then can read top 10 lists faster than reading an orthodox blog post.
• Next, make sure the first part of the blog is just one line explaining what the blog is about.  This is because some visitors will skim read and want to know from this line, whether they want to read the whole article or not.  If you do this on every blog post, then they will find your content easy to examine – if they have to read a whole paragraph they will be less inclined to read your blogs.  Why is this? Because the internet is all about speed, you can flick one from one site to another in seconds, people’s attention span is much less compared with other forms of mass media.
• Use well written english and ensure you have no spelling or grammatical errors.  Making these kind of errors will cloud your content and build an over riding opinion that will become more important to the user than what is actually written.  Think of the phrase the “medium is the message”.
• Write something interesting that people will be interested to read.  If you are writing about something that has already been published, put your own spin or commentary on it, rather then merely re writing what has already been stated elsewhere.  Be controversial if needs be, but don’t be controversial for the sake of being controversial.
• Link out to relevant sources to back up what you are writing about, especially if quoting statistics or explaining a technical term.  One of the most beneficial uses of blogging is to find other relevant blogs.  Another secondary benefit of this is that it will assist in your SEO efforts by linking out to relevant and/or authority websites.  Those sites may also be notified of your incoming link and become new readers.
• Write about a niche, if want to attract repeat visitors you will need to keep them interested. By doing this, you will demonstrate to the search engines that your site is all about “X”.  If you write about a variety of wildly different topics, you are unlikely to generate a following of readers as they will more than likely only be interested in the blog post they landed on not lots of other random topics.
• Emphasise important words or phrases that matter to the context in which they are written.  For example if you have an amazing statistic that deserves examination, embolden in.  Remember users will scan / skim the page looking to see for snappets that interest them.
• Break up content with paragraphs and sub headings.  Where appropriate and without trying to mimic a tabloid newspaper, break content into small, easier to consume parts.  Bullet points, for example, are a good way to explain statistics in a simple and easy to understand manner.

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Once you have written several blog posts, you might want to find out how effective they have been.  Here is a list of useful tips…

1. Check Google Analytics

Check your Google Analytics stats to see which blogs have had the most traffic or page views.  It is also useful to check the bounce rate, to see which blogs have lead users to visit other pages and which have lead users away from the site.

2. Comments

Which blogs generated the most interest from users? Remember to always respond to comments whith your own thoughts.  If you don’t find many people commenting, try visiting other similar themed blogs

3. Social Bookmarking

If you or someone else Sphinn’s or Stumble’s your content it means they think it worthy of synidication to other users.  Create accounts for yourself in all the major social bookmarking portals and check to see if anyone has recommended your content.

4. Check inbound links

Find out which pages are receiving inbound links from other sites. To do this use Yahoo site explorer and enter the pages of each blog, then check the number of inbound links.  If you’re not sure which blog posts to check first, try the ones with the highest traffic and/or PageRank.

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