On the Key Components of a Successful Blog & the €œPromotion€� of a blog once it is developed - Research Paper Example

The Key Components of a Successful Blog Blogging has become one of the most important communication tools for the last few years. Blogs create virtual communities where individuals with similar or varying interests can read and interact through comments and feedback. The popularity is attributed to its simplicity, effectiveness, and feasibility. However, there is no unanimous opinion regarding the key components of a successful blog. Despite the varying opinions, there are some essential ingredients that are required for developing and marinating an outstanding blog.

Essential Features Initially, a blog, in order to be successful should have sufficient aesthetic appeal with descriptive and stimulating content that is updated often. However, as Sexton (336) suggests, the graphic design should not be a cause for the visitors’ distraction; and there should be something new with the blog regularly so that it would retain visitors. The voice of the blog also is an important factor because only a blog with authentic voice can retain the visitors for future sales (Webber and Webber L: 20).

It means, if the blog does not have a personal feel, it will not succeed in building social networks. Furthermore, it is advisable to attach RSS feeds (Rich Site Summary) to the blog so that the visitors can know whenever a new post is published; and also the RSS feeds allow the blogger to post content from any website with RSS feed (Michie: 268). Another essential feature the blog should have is the guiding links to other sources and older posts of the same blog. Finally, the front page of the blog should have various blurbs that would lead the visitor instantly to any information regarding the content of the blog and about the blogger.

Blog Maintenance The networking and the community building is the core component of a successful blog because it will open up new opportunities and relationships which will enable cross-promotion through guest blogging (Gunelius: 471). Guest blogging is an effective alternative to ease the tension on the paucity of ideas for further posts. Moreover, it would make the blog more attractive and effective as it maintains diverse posts from guest bloggers. As mentioned earlier, in order to maintain a blog reader friendly, it should be updated frequently with new posts and necessary ingredients.

It is always better to avoid ghost writers for creating new posts for your blog; and in the same way if the blog allows user’s comments there should be provision to prune the unfavorable comments and spam messages (Webber and Webber L: 20). Promotional Tactics The success of a blog depends on the time and effort spent on its maintenance and promotion. It is not easy for a blog to obtain visitors since there are hundreds of sites and blogs which use the virtual space for marketing their own products, services, or ideas.

Therefore, the promotional tactics should be effective enough to gain lots of traffic. For instance, the blogger can utilize social media and search engines like Google or Yahoo to attract readers to his/her blog. Facebook can be the best network option through which blog can be introduced to thousands of readers. In other words, the more a blog optimizes the search engine, the more traffic it gets everyday. Gunelius (183) points out certain long term and short term goals for the promotion of a business blog, according to which the long term goals include building brand loyalty, achieving specific traffic volume, reaching specific numbers of published posts, and achieving specific numbers of subscribers.

The short term promotional tactics intend to achieve immediate traffic which might help achieving the long term goals. Some of the tactics that the author suggests include conducting blog contest and inviting guest blogs through incoming links (Gunelius: 184). In addition, the common promotional strategies that blogers implement include adding social bookmarking widgets on blog or encouraging visitors to share links with friends. In short, blogging is an art which requires frequent innovation and evaluation to ensure its sustainability and popularity.

The essential components and promotional tactics of a successful blog include rich content, aesthetic appeal, community building, authentic voice, on time improvement, guest blogging, incoming links, and many more. Works CitedGunelius, Susan. Blogging All-in-One For Dummies. Hoboken: Willey Publishing, Inc, 2010. Print. Michie, Justin. Street Smart Internet Marketing. U.S: Performance Marketing, Inc, 2007. Print.Sexton, Don. Trump University Marketing 101: How to Use the Most Powerful Ideas in Marketing to Get More Customers. (Edn2). John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Web. Webber, Larry and Webber, Frederick.

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