Blog Layout

In the blog world, your aim is to get readers to return to it again and again. Creating uniqueness in layout and content will create path towards your empire establishment. However, if you are a beginner to blogging, in certain cases it is wiser to follow the well-worn path used by full-time and professional blogger who have been successful with their method. Blogs that are in many ways has measured top in traffic, links to other blogs or even by awards. Now that you've chosen the kind of empire you'll build, it's best to study on what will make it sustain.

Get yourself to explore the blogsphere, focusing mainly to blogs that resemble yours in content. Check out their arrangement of layout and colors, posting, images and linkage. There are certain layout standards your readers will expect to see. Your readers will relate to your presentation with all these factors, and satisfying their needs will provide you with traffics.

Once you had the idea on how your blog should be, you need to get yourself standing on the path, ready to make your first step. There's nothing wrong following trails of others (especially those who are successful) to get started. Even though you're creating something that thousands of other blogs doing as well, there are many ways in which your blog could be (and it has to be) unique. Even if your title are used by many others, your blog description should differentiate you from the rest. Or, the worst to be, you have it same in both area (which should be avoided at any cost), your masthead should provide something.

Your masthead image and artwork should be relevant to your title, if possible providing direct definition of your blog. Image and title are part of your brand, as most of the time, it will be the first thing your readers will notice when they visit your blog, unless you're setting it to be smaller than your posting font. Your blog should exude the professional seriousness as the best blog, by providing a high quality artwork and uniqueness. Throughout the establishment of your empire, you might gradually find newer and better path and possibly later you’ll be setting your trail for others to follows.

Blog Branding

Now that you've decided what theme and contents you'll have in your blog, it's time to give it a name. Branding your blog can be a difficult task, especially when you are looking for something that will stick to your readers mind. People will generally think of McDonalds when they want a burger, Dell for new computer, or Google when looking for something in the net. This is just an example on how your readers will relates to you when they want something that falls under your subject(s).

However, your name doesn't have to be descriptive enough for your will be content. Will you be thinking of burger if you'd never heard of McDonalds? Or, will you be thinking of internet search engine if you'd not known of Google existence? Many successful blogs have names that are simply memorable, such as Boing Boing. But then, it does help when you have a name that capable of describing what your blog is, like "Great Wall of China" which will make your readers visualise a megastructure with lots of impressive facts and figures.

I'd came across an article by a Chris Garrett, titled as Better Blog Branding: What’s In a Name?. He highlighted on how important a name can be for your blog, and how it should be to stick with you readers. It is something that comes fairly naturally to some people, and others really have to brainstorm to produce. In short, this post can be summarized as tips and factors involve when you are to decide the name of your blog. Chris Garrett has put up a post on his personal blog about blog branding, talking specifically about the name of the site and domain and how that reflects on the overall site in the mind of the readers.

Once you're done reading that article, you might want to continue with another one from Craig Childs on 10 Ways To Good Blog Branding. He listed consistency, focus and contents among others, as steps required in establishing your brand. It is a great article, and definitely worth a read.

Whether or not your brand is the the right name for your blog or relevant to your content, it's up to you as you have to live with it. Whatever name you'll choose can be the most valuable asset for you. Some physical brand name are built carefully for more than century. However, the globalization of internet might be able to help you build your empire within shorter time period.

Blog Theme - Part 3

Theme in many ways will show your readers how interesting your blog is and going to be. Your arrangement of layout and content should be able to attract new readers coming in and existing to come back. If you're familiar with Html, Css, Xml or other web publishing knowledge, you have the advantage of creating your blog according to your needs. You can set your layout to be in parallel with the theme and topics, maybe with some inclusion of images and other widgets for more attractions.

However, those without these advantages wouldn't have much problems as there are practically hundreds of thousands themes available from the net. And if you are creating your blog within the free service provider like Blogger.com or WordPress, they have numerous theme templates available for you to start with. Choose the one that suits your need and your contents, and with some exploration within the site, you might be able to customize it using any interface built-in inside it.

Your blogs' theme can be summed up as what you want your blog to be. Your idea, your content and what you contribute within it should be able to make your readers visualize your blogs' direction or at least to get their attention. You have to develop something that will stick with your readers like a brand name. You have to create something unique to differentiate yours with other blogs that might be posting on the same subject.

I would like to recommend you to visit TechCrunch, my personal favourite on how a blog should be. A weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies edited by Michael Arrington, who also writes a companion blog, CrunchNotes. By providing latest informations and review, TechCrunch generates thousands of traffic everyday, ranking them inside top 10 list of most popular blogs on Technorati.

Blog Theme - Part 2

I believe you've already thinking thoroughly about what kind of blog you will create. Be it a professional subjects or just a rambling of your every day events, you might want to look at these blogs for inspiration. You are building an empire and it should at least stays long enough to be remembered.

1. Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things = http://www.boingboing.net/

• It may sound funny, but this weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies is ranked as most popular blog in the world and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog Awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony. As of today, it has 63,852 links from 19,549 blogs. This blog illusrates that you need a well-presented good idea to build a blog empire.

2. Post Secret = http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

• In this blog, the readers do all the work, creating a picture that represents a secret the contributors wants to reveal to the world. As of today, it has more than 17,000 links from more than 10,000 blogs.

3. 43 Folders = http://www.43folders.com/

• 43 Folders is a site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better. It has 8,632 links from 3,303 blogs.

4. Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide = http://www.gizmodo.com

• This is a site that provide with lots of information and review of gadgets available in market today. It is constantly updated with new post, relevant news and links to articles, giving you an extra perspective of what you can get from gadgets that you own or before you make your purchase on specific item.

5. Daily Kos: State of The Nation = http://www.dailykos.com

• An example of successful political blog with important and timely information (not just opinion) that can be relied upon by serious political junkies. They hae high-level political connections, access to rumors, or expertise to share.

Those are few example of successful blogs available on the net that you might use as role model. There are millions of other blogs with different subjects and layouts and each one of them have their own specialties and attractions. Now, it's time for you to have your own and share it with the world.

Blog Theme

Now that you have the basic idea what a blog is, it's time for you to choose what type of empire you'll build. Unless you are someone recognizable by your reputation alone, it'll will take a lot more than a sweet words and cute interface. You are going to need a theme for your blog. It can be the one specifying on a single topic only, or it can be one topic,elaborated in more general approaches. Whatever your theme is, it have to be able to keep your readers coming in, expecting you to present them with more valuable content.

There are literally millions of blogs available nowadays, but successful blogs will touch the appropriate readers because they do it well. With multi-million prospective readers online, you might find it hard to get them to be alike with you. Everything become subjective when selecting what and how you want your blog to be. These readers might be interested when you're sharing all news and info of latest computer gaming but these same person might not even care about how you decorate your house, unless they are a close and personal friends of yours.

That means you're going to pick a subject and stick with it. To get yourself started, list down few options of subjects that you might want to post in your blog. From the list, pick out the one that will provide more focus on you. Remember, you'll be the one who'll design it, build it and you'll people it with readers who'll return to it day after day, in a sense of becoming virtual citizens of your empire and eventually your happy customers. By providing your knowledge and expertise, access to latest news and information, it'll be easier if you are being yourself in your blog.

Once you've hand-picked the subject, browse through the net and explore as much as you can on blogs that's related to your topic. You might want to study how they arrange the layout and what type of information they have inside it. Some successful blogs which are run by experts could be a very good model on how your contents should be. The entries chosen are skillfully presented, telling readers what they don't know and want to know.

There are however, successful blogs that are not run by the experts; they are run, in fact, by someone with brilliant idea. No idea is too small, too silly or too pretentious so long as you present your content in a manner that makes your blog a valuable reference. Your readers will relate to it and they might want for more. A successful blog will cover their subject so well, and successful empire will have readers keep coming back to it.