Thinking of starting a blog this year? The tides have shifted from just a few short years ago. It used to be that Internet users were so hungry for (any) content, a blogger could easily throw up any old junk and expect to get thousands of visitors daily, though the technical side was often easier said than done. Now, most CMSs are easy-to-use and most all hosts have newbie-friendly GUIs, but content standards among most web visitors have become ever more stringent.
Despite what anyone will tell you, blogging will never be “easy”.
Here’s a list of trends (some old, some new) that prospective bloggers need to be aware of before buying a domain and hosting:
DOT-COMs are still most valued and trusted in organic search
Listen, if you want to rank your new website in the Google search engine, you need to have a .com extension. Sure, things may start to change, but .coms rule the organic search results for pretty much everything. There are some exceptions, with .orgs and .nets still ranking for some terms. However, you’ll need to get into paid search advertising ($$$) if you want to get something else in front of Google users to get them to your site, and many users will ignore your placement because it will have “Ad” prominently displayed beside it.
WordPress is still king of the content management systems
Yeah, there are newer, perhaps more streamlined free CMSs like Ghost available for stupid simple blogging platform solutions. Try them if you like, but good luck finding the limitless functionality options and massive online support when you want to try something new or run into problems after an update gone bad, etc. WordPress will be king of the user-friendly content-management-systems until SkyNet completely takes over the digital airwaves and John Conner and his crew have to use old-school tools and weapons to take back the earth. Use it, forget the rest. Unless you’re going to pay someone to manage the framework for you.
Loading speed is critical
Your site will have to load blazing fast to keep the traffic flowing in and to keep your Webmaster Stats in line with Google’s expectations, in order to gain and maintain good rankings. You have around 3 seconds for your site to load before at least half those who click your link will abandon the connection. Remember that you don’t have a reputation yet, this is a new site. There’s nothing special to compel people to wait 10 seconds or more for your site to load. Get a VPS, at the very least (many cost less than $10 a month) and pay someone to optimize it if your going with a barebones-type host.
It’s likely that you’re not going to be able to do everything
Basically, do what you know. If you’re a terrible writer, you’re going to have to find some way to farm out the writing process to someone who can spell properly and most important — write in a grammatically acceptable fashion. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to at least be at a grade 10 level to avoid turning off educated types. Same with your graphics like the header, logo, onsite pictures. If you’re not good at it, you’ll at least need to have some people you can call upon for help and advice until you do. Don’t feel like you can do it all and learn to realize when you’re just wasting valuable time trying to do things that others can do with ease.
Being a faceless entity won’t cut it for most sites
Web users are looking for personalities. We read the paper because we like the prose of specific writers. We subscribe to vlogs because we like the way those people get there message across. Even the way we look can matter in some cases! Regardless, if you want draw in visitors, you want your site to have pictures of you, your family, your team, your dog even. Show them who you are and don’t use “Admin” for your post credits either.
Membership sites are getting tougher to pull off
If this fits into your goals, you’ll really want to consider how you plan to build your brand and gain trust with visitors. There’s so much “other” marketing you’ll have to do to support acquiring signups on your site, no matter how good you are at what you offer. Enthusiasts (fitness, MMO, digital goods, hackers, etc.) are becoming more loyal to single, large sites that offer the content they like to view and listen to. You’ll have to offer value above and beyond everyone else to become the exclusive content source your visitors will flock to day after day. Having a good social media presence on the networks your target visitors frequent is a must, not an option.
Quality will always reign
Here’s a reality check that most of you should really already be aware of: most of the thin sites in any niche online have already been relegated to the SEO boneyard years ago. Sure, you’ll hear about some guy telling you that he still makes money on his 5-page affiliate site promoting weight loss products, or how he still gets commissions from his “Make Money Online” site that he built 8 years ago and hasn’t done a thing to it since. It’s very unlikely you’ll be sharing a similar success story with your friends years down the road, if you follow such a lazy approach. Real, useful content needs to be added (in my opinion) a daily basis; at least for the first several months after launch. Once you get a following (read: social) you can ease back a bit, but not at the start.
Read this article on Forbes about how to source the highest quality content for your blog, including supporting images and videos and on-page formatting etiquette.
