Components of a Successful Blog

To see my Grow Your Blog post, click here.

With a cup of tea in hand, I spent many hours yesterday visiting some of the blogs participating in the Grow Your Blog event. It was too blustery and cold to venture far from home anyway. I made some observations along the way and have composed a list of some of the components that I think are necessary for a successful blog. This is not a comprehensive list, just my personal reflections on the subject.

Let's first discuss FONTS. While some of those fancy fonts are quite artistic, many of them are extremely difficult to read, especially for anyone who is visually challenged. I understand that you want to express your individuality and creativity but, seriously, I simply navigate away from a blog that I have to strain my eyes to read.

With an aging population, and many of us baby boomers reading blogs, you want to make your blog as appealing as possible to keep people coming back. A lightly coloured font on a light or white background, white lettering on a dark background and type that is too small are major issues for me and most likely for others as well.

Keep your paragraphs short and sweet. Long rambling blocks of text that go on and on, seemingly forever, are difficult to follow along with. Set aside a lot of the flowery adjectives too. Minimize your words for a greater impact.

And don't forget photos, lots of photos! Human beings are visual creatures. We need the constant input to keep our interest. Using original photos you've taken yourself is the best option. You avoid any copyright issues that way. With a bit of practice and some rudimentary editing skills, you can create a visually pleasing blog experience for your readers.

Frequent posting is important. Twice a week would be the minimum I would recommend. I understand that 'life' happens sometimes but having weeks or months between posts is not good. You will quickly lose followers that way. Your posts don't have to be long, just interesting. You want your readers to look forward in anticipation to your next post.

Now comes my pet peeve for the day, people who sign up for a blog hop and do not follow through. I can't tell you how many blogs on the list I visited yesterday, that not only did not have a Grow Your Blog post up, but some had not posted ANYTHING for a long time. Why did they bother signing up in the first place? Kind of pointless, in my humble opinion.