Today, bloggers both new and experienced are busy doing everything to improve the visibility of their websites on search engines so that they can get more search engine driven traffic. The market is full of both free and premium SEO plugins for this. Some webmasters combine several plugins to improve their search engine rankings while others build backlinks to the same end. While there is no doubt the search engine optimization is an essential part of creating and keeping a blog successful, the process will be ultimately futile if the website isn’t populated with high quality content presented in a visually stimulating format, among other basics.
Many bloggers focus most of their energy on search engine optimization till it finally pays off, but since other parts of the website didn’t enjoy the same attention; visitors end up navigating away from the site before being engaged in anything meaningful. This article is going to show the components of a blog that are key to its success:
1. Share buttons
Today, readers often look to share blog posts, comments and reviews that they find interesting. Due to this reason, adding social media sharing buttons at the top and bottom of each post is a no brainer. Social media is indisputably one of the best ways of increasing traffic to your blog. Visitors also develop confidence in a business when they are able to connect with the owners through social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, which makes Facebook like and twitter follow buttons indispensable for your blog.
2. A call to Action
You are blogging to share your stories but you certainly want visitors to do more than just read them. Would you prefer it if they shared the same story with others? Subscribe to a newsletter? Offer consulting services? A call to action tells visitors what you want them to do after viewing your content. You could use it as an opportunity to monetize, build a community or establish relationships that will leverage your businesses.
3. Contact Me page
This is a very important page that no website can dispense with. Readers would always want to make enquiries about your products and make suggestions. Not having this page sends a clear message that you do not want anyone to contact you. Apart from having a contact form on this page, you can also post your contact information including your physical address, email address, and phone numbers.
4. About you
Never leave the “About Us” page blank. Instead, treat it as a fabulous opportunity to introduce yourself to site visitors. Readers are often interested in knowing who the person whose website they are visiting is. The page also helps breed familiarity with the visitors, giving it a more “welcoming” feel.
5. Author’s Bio
Many readers instinctively check for the author’s bio after reading a post. There are quite a few websites where no image or avatar is provided and neither is an author’s bio. Using an author bio at the start or end of each post adds authority to the message. It also increases the author’s popularity in the blogging world as well as among search engines.
6. Search box
You need to provide your visitors with an easy and convenient way to access content on your blog. Search boxes provide visitors with an easy way to search for specific content on the site. You can place it in the site’s header or top-right corner where it visibly stands out.
7. RSS feeds
RSS feeds provide readers with an easy way to subscribe to future content or updates to present content. It is a great tool for building a loyal base of readers.
8. Use pictures
Adding relevant, visually stimulating images to a blog post helps break up the “wall of text” and increases chances of visitors actually reading your content.
9. Related posts
Do you want readers to close the tab after reading a post on your blog? Or navigate away to another website? You can place related posts below every post since they keep readers engaged with content on you blog and minimize bounce rate.
10. Footers
This is an essential feature for any blog. It lends websites a professional look and feel. The footer can consists of things like latest posts, top comments, and most popular posts among others. You can also populate it with widgets, an author’s box, etc.
Author Bio:
Jason Smith is an online manager for WebpageFX. He likes to research on testimonials pages. Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.
