The three steps to creating a killer blog?
Creating a ‘killer’ blog is not that hard to understand … but it is hard to do.
As the title of this post suggest, there are three things you need if you want to create a ‘killer’ blog:
- Start with a great blog software.
- Get a great design.
- Produce great content.
The list above is in order of doing, but not the order of importance: content is still king and so you must be able to produce quality content on a regular basis for your blog, otherwise it won’t work.
Let’s look at some details …
Great blog software
You must spend some time to figure out what blog software is best for you. There are many you can choose from (including several CMS’) … and you can even do it manually. This is what you should look for in a blog setup:
- Easy posting of content. The blog should be easy to use.
- Syndication – automatic RSS feed creation.
- Built in search.
- Gravatar (universal avatar) support.
I personally use Wordpress because it meets all of the above and it has a huge community of people actively extending its’ functionality. That said, there are many other good choices out there … one of them may be better for you than my choice.
Great design
When I am talking design, I am talking about both how it looks (aesthetics) and I am also taking about how easy it is (from the user s perspective) to use it. Again, you will have to investigate this yourself because many times, this is personal taste.
Great content
The first rule of web design that I learned back in 1994, was that content was king. You can have the best looking blog/web site in the world but if the content sucks, no one will come back.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Hi Stefan,
I picked up a really old book of yours that gave me your site. This week I start a 3rd year journalism unit at university on Blogging! YES … there is actually a subject on it under the guise of “Multi-Media Journalism”.
So I will be linking through to your site on my blogroll for other students as well. Your site is not up yet on it, but soon will be.
Your style is so easy to comprehend, and I will look forward to the podcasts soon
) Not too technical, yet right to the point.
My blog is still being organised (on Edublogs, which I think is tied in with Wordpress.org). I can’t figure out how to take the writing off from under the blog name promotiing Edublogs “Another excellent Edublogs.org weblog” … any suggections Oh Wise One?
Thanks for great content!
Regards
Judie Gade
July 24th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Hi,
You asked:
“I can’t figure out how to take the writing off from under the blog name promotiing Edublogs “Another excellent Edublogs.org weblog” … any suggections Oh Wise One?”
You are getting that because you are using a free service. If you get your own domain and hosting (which I recommend) then you won’t have the branding under your blog.
I’m happy to hear you like the site and the tutorials.
I should point out that though I personally have written for several magazines, have contributed to a few books … you may be confusing m e for David – the really old book you mentioned.
Regardless, welcome to the site.
Stefan Mischook
January 14th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
With regards to blog software, I think Wordpress is by far the best for SEO purposes. With very little off page optimisation, I have found my blog posts on wordpress blog to be indexed much quicker than on other blog software. Sometimes I get a first or 2nd page rank on Google within a day of posting an article.