Don't hit "Publish" quite yet! Still much to do...
[This is part of the Developing Great Blog Content Series. Check out the other posts!]
Great content has to start somewhere, right? Well, it actually starts way before you even sit down to write and I want to explore these important elements before you get too far down the wrong path.
In fact, some of you will feel like you are but worry not for nothing is irrecoverable in the blogging world! re-branding, re-working, re-designing, re-architecting your blog is going to be a part of the lifecycle for as long as you’re a blogger so better get used to it!
You see, content is much more than just your writing – it’s the entire user experience and most people forget these things and instead just jump right into writing! I counsel people to start with these 5 elements and then work your way into writing.
Planning your content begins with these 5 elements and you must consider them seriously if you want to succeed long-term.
So let us begin!
1. Domain Name
Great blog content starts with a great blog name. There are a number of reasons for this and I go into great detail on this blog post on how to choose the best domain name for your blog. This is a must-read for you and you’ll want to revisit it again even if you’ve read it already.
Here’s the bottom line though: Your blog name will help you focus your content and will help establish your brand which will speak highly and directly about the content that you’re writing about.
The fact is that your domain name is the first thing that your readers and new visitors see and it is truly the first piece of content that they access and view. A great domain name communicates the type of content first and so you had better make it good!
This is why I highly suggest not using your own proper name as your blog domain because your name doesn’t say anything about the type of content that the blog will be covering (except if you’re an already established personality with a very strong brand). For example, what does “John Saddington” really mean to anyone? That’s right, nothing.
Let your persona shine!
2. Your Blogging Persona
Although this is less tangible than the previous suggestion it still proves to be exceptionally valuable: Figuring out what Blogging Persona you have, both naturally and the one you want to develop, is vitally important.
You’re definitely going to want to read this post that I’ve already created for you!
The point here is that this will help you clarify what types of content you’ll most likely write about as well as what generally works for the type of style and persona that you are. It often times helps me to see what’s “worked” for others generally speaking so I can either copy and/or improve on the model.
The more specific you can be the better and the more you generally stick with your persona the “deeper” it will be as a brand and impact overall.
Your challenge will always be to not dilute your coverage with your content and your persona can be an internal check-system to keep you on your game.
3. Blogging Platform
Your blogging platform is a piece of content as it determines to a large extent what you’re able to write about, how you write it, and how your readers read it, especially from a design perspective.
For example, a microblogging service will generally not let you customize the user-experience which directly impacts the content experience. Choosing the right blogging platform is crucial!
As you already know, I’ve chosen WordPress as I generally think it’s the best blogging platform out there today but if you need to look into some other choices here’s a insanely-large list of blogging platforms as well as how you should go about choosing the right one for your needs.
The point is that your blog content includes the right blogging platform and you’ll want to choose the one that’s going to create the most success (and freedom for success) as possible!
Your blog design is part of your content!
4. Blog Design (Theme), Features and Functionality (Plugins, 3rd Party Scripts)
Many of the blogging platforms out there allow you to customize the look and the feel to your heart’s content! And to be sure you’re going to want to do just that!
But the design includes not only the outward appearance but also the internal mechanisms and the quality of code – your content depends on it! Make sure that you have the best theme for your needs that you can possibly get your hands on as it’s part of the content experience that your users will engage with.
As you know, I’ve created a handful of WordPress Themes that you can take a look at if you use self-hosted WordPress as your blogging platform of choice. Choose wisely and it’ll pay you back in spades. Choose poorly and you’ll probably suffer and not even know about it (which is sad!).
In addition, great blog content can be made much better with the right user experience and many people choose to add on to the native experience from their blogging platform with 3rd party scripts and possibly plugins.
I’ve written about this previously but you’re going to want to always remember to keep your blog as “light” as possible so that it loads fast and efficiently for your readers. Review this post here about keeping a blog light and not heavy.
Your user experience, community, and content will thank you for it!
5. Hosting for Your Blog
Blog hosting!
To go along with your blog platform as well as keeping your blog fast you’re going to want to choose the right hosting provider for your blog as your host will determine a lot of how your blog loads and the content experience that your end user will have to deal with (hopefully very positively!).
I’ve listed out more than a few hosting providers that you can check out and to choose from. Remember, your content is depends on your readers ability to actually get the content in front of them at a very reasonable pace. Not only that but the faster your blog is the better you will rank in the search engines so this directly impacts your growth as a blogger!
Get the best stuff and it’ll pay dividends in the long-run.
And that is where we shall start!
So, let’s hear it in the comments: How many of you “forgot” that these parts of your blog are intimately tied with your overall “content”? What areas listed above do you need to work on?
Let me know and perhaps I can help!
[This is part of the Developing Great Blog Content Series. Check out the other posts!]
Awesome! These are all excellent points! To me, you could go one of two ways with your domain. A) Keyword rich B) It’s part of your Identity/persona; work on SEO in the content
For me, I have multiple blogging projects; of which, all are uniquely different, therefore it’s almost necessary to have a separate persona for each project.
I always chose WP as my platform. I don’t know of any other platform that is as extensible as WP.
Being an affiliate marketer, I have many sites, and I have chosen to go with hostgator. I have noticed that my hostgator sites are unequivocally more quick than some sites that I have hosted with a friend. To me, speed is of the essence when it comes to browsing; I don’t usually hang around too long if it is taking forever for a blog to load…
Just my thoughts, and I enjoyed reading every word!
chad, sure thing.
you have multiple blog projects? how do you keep momentum in all of them (how many?)?
Great thoughts!
(Though I already breached the first rule).
With that said, I already owned the domain and felt the need to force myself into the writing process. I had a wide range of potential topics and didn’t feel quite ready to focus on one particular area.
It’s a work in progress, but I’m enjoying it so far.
ramsey,
i’m definitely going to talk about focusing in this series!
do you have a gravatar? http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
I agree with the importance of your domain name but you really got me thinking on this one. I use my name as my domain name because I was looking to really connect my name to my writing…plus I didn’t have a name for my site at the time.
Now I’m rethinking it. What would be the hurdles I face if I decide to get a new domain name at this point? What about all the pingbacks with the old URL? How does that work?
you could redirect to the new site if you’d like! the process isn’t too hard.
I’ve never really thought about why, but I’ve always thought that your brand (your content) should start with your domain, and your domain should be representative of your content. I mean its like a book title, if a book is titled incorrectly and I start reading it, I’ll likely put it down permanently if its not what the title implies. I’ll spend several days trying to come up with a blog summary in url form before I actually purchase a domain.
Going on from there, the aesthetic aspect along with the navigation should fit seamlessly with your title and/or domain. If it doesn’t, it will give visitors a sense of inconsistency that they pick up on but can’t articulate. The inconsistency creates a bit of discomfort that could prevent people from returning.
When I sit down to design a blog/site for someone, I tend to grill them about topics, categories, plans they have for their site so that I can create their “look” to coordinate. Again, I never really thought about WHY that was so stinkin’ important to me until I just read your post.
Thanks for helping me get my thoughts more organized. Looking forward to the next post!
sure thing jen! it’s been neat to see you grow in blog design!
Aww, thanks.
Great post…I have not gotten a domain name or hosting yet. Will have to at some point though.
you will… at some point..!
Great post… I feel like I’ve done a good job on these topics. But it’s only because I ran across your site before I launched my blog. You did however come across a great point that we must re-visit these as we continue to blog. Something I will keep in mind. If I could work on one it would be my persona. I’m still new so it’s something I’m still figuring out.
great stuff joseph! glad you came around at the right time!
Here is what I did before I started my blog…
prework: i looked at the SEO keywords in my blog niche.
1) look at domains that could represent me
2) shortlisted them
3) double checked twitter and facebook and blog world that I would have enough differentation between my proposed brand and my competitors and that there are no double ups
4) buy domain!
have you ever considered doing something neat with ‘GDB’ …? i feel like that has potential…!
i feel like there’s some “oomph” to those three letters… not sure though, haven’t done any research.
What could be done? My blog is called Get Busy Living but always like GBL from the beginning. Just didn’t know what to do.
hmmm. interesting…
Thanks for this advice.
I have a question about the domain name. I started with my own name back when I was following the advice about “branding yourself.” My blog was going in a different direction then. Now that I’ve figured out what my persona is better, my blog has changed. I’ve changed the name to “God’s Way Works.” At the time, that domain wasn’t available, so I just stuck with edwincrozier.com. Now I have been able to purchase godswayworks.com, .net, and .org. However, because I already had everything set up through the edwincrozier.com, that is the one I still use as what I market and advertise.
My feeds go through that. My analytics is based on that. My e-mail is named for that (I definitely don’t want the hassle of changing my e-mail address). What are your suggestions? Is just owning the new domain name enough or do I need to change more of my strategy on that?
Thanks for your advice.
owning is is not the same as using it… and using is is more important!
I’ve got a lot of dormant domains (some for sale here) but they are worthless unless used.
Not only do I own it, but I have it up and redirected to edwincrozier.com. If someone types it in the URL it will take them to my blog.
Is that enough? Do I need to start marketing it based on that new URL? Do I need to make that the actual base of my website and just have edwincrozier.com redirect to it?
What do you suggest?
but it’s not the master domain (or proper domain)… my suggestion is moving to that but that could take some work…!
With my latest project, I really thought about all of these…mainly because I’d been following your blog for a while already
Number 4 is the hardest for me though. I am not technical (to make an understatement) and even though I try to understand this stuff, it’s not easy. I’ve dutifully installed every plugin you’ve recommended, but I can’t say that I know for sure that all of them work!
ah! you should try to understand what you’re using at all times!
This makes me want to re-brand. It seems that I want to re-brand all of the time. I never seem to be totally happy with what my domain name says.
what would you rebrand it to?
I don’t have any good ideas right now, but I don’t know how many times I have bought a domain and then lost interest. I sometimes have problems focusing on one thing.
my next post is about focus! stay tuned………
Thanks for this one Jon… I’ve been takign on board some of the stuff you’ve been saying and what my Blog mentor has said and i just went over my total number of visit for the month. Its not even half way through the month. Thanks for this site and the work you’ve done to help me out.
Shaun
ah, that’s awesome! don’t forget to get a gravatar….. http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
Yeah, im working on it. Wanting to get a comic book style picture of me
hehe.
Confirmation! Thanks
hehe!
interesting thoughts, thanks john. never really thought about a ‘persona’ before.
you. got. me. a-thinking!
haha!
I’m pretty happy right now! I’ve been blogging for … 3 months maybe. Started a business around it, actually. And although I haven’t thought of each item straight out as you’re intending us to do, I have covered them in an indirect way. I give credit to Justin Lukasavige for helping me get started the “right way”.
I’ve never called it this before, but I need to make sure I stay true to the “blogging persona” I want to establish. It’s really just an extension of who I am. Energetic, over the top, in your face, LET’S MAKE THIS HAPPEN! is pretty much how I approach everything. It works for some and it turns others off (which I personally think is good b/c I don’t want to work with folks if I can’t be who I am).
Looking forward to devouring this!
~Ivan
cool…! i love this!
Hey suggest some good hosts other than hostgator,dream,wpengine for a wp blog. Tweet me if you can about this.
do you have your own servers?
I am using blogspot for my blog and would like to use wordpress. Could you help me with an easy way to change to wordpress. I feel like everything I do that takes a normal person 15 minutes to post takes me about 2 hours.