Nov, 2015 : What does the Anatomy of a Successful Blog Look Like?


📅 - When you run a blog, you do your best to make it interesting, appealing to audiences and full of great content. You carefully choose a beautiful design, come up with creative ideas on what you'll talk about each week and search the web for the perfect images to include on your blog.

Have you ever actually researched what makes a successful blog? You may assume it's those attention-grabbing images or impeccable content, but there's quite a bit that goes into it. If you want to dissect what makes a blog successful, you'll find these ingredients that make up the anatomy of one.

Where to begin


First you'll want to look at what platform one uses for a successful blog. The most successful platform is WordPress, followed by Blogger, Tumblr and a small percentage outside of those. There are around 31 million bloggers in the country and profits made from blogging range from a tiny percentage making $150,000 or higher and a huge 81% making under $100. Around 8% make enough to support their family and around 9% make enough to supplement their regular income.

Blogging is so important for businesses because it generates at least 67% more leaders monthly which leads 60% of companies to have a blog. Some of the highest paid bloggers include Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post who earns over $2 million per month and Perez Hilton's Mario Lavandeira who earns $450k each month.

Dissecting the blog


A successful blog is going to start with a heading followed by a body of content underneath. The content should have elements including:

Narrowly focused
Relevant to the industry or audience's taste
Useful or interesting information that people would want to know
Unique and not a copy of anyone else's work
Answer questions that people want to know
Have a compelling introduction
Be well-cited for facts and figures

The structure needs to be scannable since 38% of people will simply scan over the title and first paragraph. This means that it should include images, bullet points, subheadings, white space and short paragraphs. It's helpful to add quotes and use bold, italics or capital letters sparingly to emphasize.

People will spend 100% more time on pages that include videos and 94% more views if you have a post with images. This is also seen with Facebook engagement rates in which the highest rates are among images followed by videos. The best blogs have an image for every 350 words, quick page loads, and file names with keywords.

What other tricks make a blog the best?


Having a section on the blog for recent posts in which each one offers a different sentiment will make you successful. For example, make sure one of the titles promises something, one poses a threat and one provides social proof.

When it comes to SEO, you need have a URL that includes a title or keyword for search engines to see. Your meta description should be a brief summary of the post and offer a reason that your blog is set apart. Your blog should have a call to action, consistency and responsive design for mobile devices.

Your marketing efforts should be to identify your target market regarding their age, gender, income, occupation and marital status which can be found on social media and networking. Posting your blog at certain times of day makes all of the difference. Lastly, your blog should have metrics showing social media activity, number of views, bounce rate and conversion rates.

Consider these items when it comes to your blog's substance, SEO and marketing strategies, call-to-action and measurement of performance in order to determine if it's a successful blog.

Reads: 970 | Category: General | Source: TheHN : The Hosting News

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