What Makes a Succesful Blog?

What makes a successful blog? The answer to this question is as varied as the bloggers who write them. For some, a successful blog is simply a place for them to put their thoughts and for others a successful blog is one that makes their creator a great deal of money. The primary answer to the question of what makes a blog successful really comes down to what you want to get out of your blog. While determining the success of a blog is by and large up to the people who write them, there are certain qualities that all successful blogs share.

For a blog to be successful it must have high quality content. Without content it is impossible to have a blog. It doesn't matter if the blog is a series of pictures, one sentence slogans or dissertation length rants about Nazi war crimes, everything is content. If that content isn't of decent quality, then it won't retain readers, won't attract new readers and will be little more than a personal space for a blogger to keep his thoughts. While there are some bloggers that want a personal journal, most of us want to increase and keep readership and this starts and ends with content. While there is no single answer to what makes good content, the following points are a good guideline to follow.

Relevance

The content of a blog absolutely has to be relevant. It doesn't matter if a blog is about professional sports or little green men, if the content of the blog is not relevant to the desired readership, then it will fail. Relevant content means that the blog in question has posts and links that are relevant to the information the blog wishes to spread. For example, if you want to write a blog about liberal politics, then you want to create posts that are relevant to that subject.

Easy to Read and Understand

The biggest mistake a lot of bloggers make, specially those new to blogging, is making their content to "thick and muddled". Thick and muddled content is a post that goes on for to long and doesn't seem to make a point. The reason this is not good for a blog is because this kind of content seldom maintains a readers interest. A good blog post should be between 500 and 1500 words long and use a clear easy to understand language. By keeping the blog length fairly short and the content simple you keep the attention of the reader and have a better chance of them coming back to your site.

Visually Appealing

Finally, a blog needs to be visually appealing. Visually appealing isn't just about putting up pretty pictures, its about creating eye pleasing content. If you have the time, go take a few pictures that relate to your blog and put them in your posts. If you don't have the tie to take pictures, don't worry about it, a blog can be successful without pics. In fact some of the most successful blogs on the Internet have very few pictures, but they are designed in an eye pleasing way by using a pleasant background, and other similar tricks.

The above three points should get you started on creating good content, but don't stop there. Make sure you keep your eyes open and look at what other blogs do. When you find a blog you like ask yourself what they do that makes you like it and try to incorporate that into your blog. In the end, blogging is a constant learning process and the best bloggers keep working on their skills even when they attain success.

Why Blogging in the First Place

My entire life I have wanted to be a professional writer but always kept myself from actually trying to achieve this dream. Finally one day I decided to get serious about it and started looking for paying work and before long I had my fist paying position working as a blogger for a technology blog called the Tech Brief. Since then I have gone on to learn and understand the way professional writing works. I have had graphic novel's published, sold several short stories, written hundreds of thousands of words for various Internet sites, but through it all I have always returned to blogging.

The reason why I love blogging is that out of all the available ways of making money as a writer, it is the one that allows me the most freedom as a writer. I can write about everything and anything I want and put it up on the Internet and have a chance of making money at it. Admitted I probably won't ever make millions of dollars as a blogger, but I can make enough to afford a few of the things I like in life.

For me, blogging isn't about the money, it's about the chance to explore my creative potential in a way that provides some income. While I know I could make better money working a "grind beat" or whoring myself out to various ad copy services, I never feel happy doing this. I find the traditional ways of writing professionally to be a bit stifling and so I choose instead to blog.

Does this mean I will always blog? I have no idea at this moment in time what the answer to that question is, and frankly not sure I care. I actually have a full novel done and am slowly getting it ready to sell on Amazon. If that project takes off, I wouldn't be surprise if I all but quit blogging and focus instead on writing fiction full time. However, for the moment blogging works for me and that is what I will focus on until I have a reason not to.

This blog is going to focus primarily on the "profession" of blogging. It will discuss the various income strategies bloggers use, tips and trick on getting traffic to your blog, and more. Basically if it's about blogging in some way I am going to be putting it here. I plan to update this particular blog at least once a week if not more and hope some of you enjoy the journey with me.