Blogging Elements

5 ‘Nuts and Bolts’ Every Blog Must Have

Posted on 02. Mar, 2009 by Ashwin in Blogging

When you are new to blogging, everything about it can be over-whelming. Information is thrown at you each passing day and at times you might just suffer an information overdose. However, there are 5 elements every blog must have and here they are:

1. Personality: One of the biggest differences between a static website and a blog is that the latter is all about what an individuals (the bloggers) think about whatever it is that they blog about. You see, if your blog reads like an academic journal, it won’t cut the ice. A Blog must have a personality of its own. Some blogs, as you can see, are humorous; some critical; some serious and some of them can be contradictory. All of them go on to re-emphasize the importance of a personality. As they say ” 75% of success comes from your energy; if you don’t have this, be nice “.

2. Uniqueness and Focus: One way for people to get talking about your blog is when you give it some unique angle. If everyone is talking about Internet Marketing, you can be unique as you just blog about Internet marketing with a major emphasis on “Internet Marketing” through blogging; or marketing using web-content and articles. As yet another example, don’t just blog about business . Instead, blog about “personal finance for seniors” or ” Investing Ideas for Women”. Laser-like focus gives your blog special significance and allows you build a dedicated readership — much like a magazine.

3. Consistency: Can you guess what one of the most common reasons for blogging failure is? It is the fact that most bloggers don’t blog consistently enough. I have been a victim of this myself and it is human. But then, success only comes when we stick to this point. I learnt it the hard way when I first started out by losing my readers and subscribers rapidly. Your blogging frequency doesn’t have to be “daily”; but whatever the frequency is, make sure you stick to it.

4. Content: They say “content is king” and nothing can be farther from the truth. As long as you produce relevant, engaging and interesting content, your blog will be visited pretty frequently. Remember that your content gets a punch when you make it all opinionated. “ I feel that all this hype about blogging is letting people believe that it is an easy thing to  become a successful blogger…” or something like  ” Personally, I think that the ability to sell is the most important skill to succeed as a small business owner…”

5. Linking: This part of the post,should be made into a page, perhaps. It is that important.I couldn’t figure out how to start with linking and I spent much time writing away on my blogs but I couldn’t place my finger on Linking. Obviously linking to and getting linked from other sites is the best thing that you could do to improve your blog’s  popularity; bring traffic to it and increase its importance. Your blog can be isolated without proper linking strategy.

Each of these points will be discussed broadly later in the form of detailed posts, but for now, learn that these points are critical and without any one of these ” nuts and bolts” your blog can just get flooded under the strong currents of millions of blogs that are started each day. One great example of a blog that has all of these elements in it is one that belongs to Naomi Dunford of Itty-Biz ( Please read with caution because she is somewhat edgy and uses “inappropriate” language — not for the faint hearted).

Tags: Blog Personality, Blogging Elements, Blogging essentials, Blogging Secrets, Blogging Success, linking