One of the first lessons that newspaper journalists are taught is to structure their content so that the most important information they have to share is first, with the importance decreasing as you read through the piece. Pick up any newspaper around you and you’ll see that the first few sentences contain the most crucial elements of the event.

This not only creates impact, but also allows editors to simply snip off the bottom paragraph of a story if they need space for other articles. As the final paragraph is the least important, their editing does not affect the article too much. I’ve already shared how I personally became a much better writer (though I don’t rate myself that highly) and now I want to get into the specifics of how to create compelling content.

Your Introduction

If the job of your headline is to get people to read your introduction, then the job of your introduction is to get people to read further into the post. I believe that if your introduction is interesting and compelling enough, there’s a better chance that people will read your entire post, rather than just skimming through or ignoring it all together.

I definitely have a lot of work to do on my own introductions, but do have some advice to share which I think can help you.

List some interesting facts: I think the introduction for this section, regarding newspaper journalists, would have been interesting for most people. The information it shares must have some value, simply because I was able to remember this myself and then pass it on to you all. If you’ve naturally remembered a small nugget of information about a topic, there’s a good chance it’s interesting.

If your facts are both interesting and relevant then it’s a great way to keep people hooked on what you’re saying.

Offer a teaser for later in the post: If you could easily work out who the killer was at the start of an episode of CSI or figure out the plot of a movie after the first 5 minutes, we just wouldn’t watch them. Smart television and movie producers “sprinkle” teasers throughout the length of the production to keep you hooked until the end where you find the answers.

Promise your readers the answer to something you know they’ll care about, and make sure you stick to that promise, but only by offering small nuggets of information as they get towards the end of the post.

Ask a question: Though questions can make very effective headlines, I personally don’t like to use them in this way. I prefer to use them in introductions. This way, you can both ask the question and answer it to offer value straight away, or you can use it as a hook.

Similar to the last point, you could answer an intriguing question and then promise to answer it towards the end of the post. A good one from the book Made to Stick is the question, “What are the rings around the planet Saturn made of?”. I’ll answer it later .

Use Reverse Psychology: I recommend you use this sparingly as too much of this tactic will annoy readers rather than encourage them to read your post. I used this tactic in my ‘most important blog post’ article when I wrote “This blog post is quite long so you probably shouldn’t read it. To the 50% of visitors who are still with me, I’ll say now that less than 1% of you will get to the end so you may as well leave now.”

I can imagine some people will take this too far and tell their readers in every post that they aren’t going to read it or they won’t enjoy it. Trust me, this tactic only works when you use it very, very sparingly. Think of some unique ways you can apply it and you’ll be on to a winner.

The Middle (The “Meat” of Your Content)

The middle of your post is where you get across your main points, provide value to your readers, and offer lessons you hope that they take away from the article. For example, in my post on How I received over 900,000 visits from Google in 30 days, I began by proving my facts and claims in the headline. The meat of the post was exactly how I was able to do that.

Although I mentioned this earlier, it’s very important that even if you have a great intro and a great headline, the meat of your content must match up to those high standards. If you have extravagant headlines and can’t follow them up with great information, you’re just going to annoy readers and they probably won’t come back.

In other words, if you’re going to offer some “secrets”, make sure they actually aren’t that well known.

Be personal: One of the best ways to get your points across is to speak about personal experiences. On the most basic level, this means that you should be open to sharing both your failures and your successes. In my article about generating more blog post ideas, I was more than willing to share that I had been struggling to come up with things to write about.

The reason that being personal works so well is because people can relate to what you’re saying. And, if people can relate to your content, they’re more likely to take your advice to heart and engage in your site. Don’t be afraid to use personal stories to help get your points across. It’s probably one of the most effective things you can do.

Provide concrete evidence or examples: I’m lucky enough right now to be in an industry where people know enough about what I’ve achieved to trust what I say. However, that wasn’t always the case, especially when I was blogging about personal development. In order to get your point across and have your ideas stick, it’s good to have enough information to backup your points so that they really can’t be disputed.

I often include images of ‘roadmaps’ when I talk about complicated subjects like my SEO strategy in big industries, and always try to include examples to help people create a picture in their mind of what I’m talking about. Evidence and examples might not help your post be more viral, but it will help solidify the ideas you’re trying to share.

List your most important points first: I can’t remember where I first read this, but it makes total sense, and it’s something I’ve tried to implement in all of my posts. If you’re writing a list post or ever just listing points in a certain order, put the most unique and/or valuable at the top of the list.

I believe the simple logic is that if you’re going to share points that are interesting and someone hasn’t heard before, they’re more likely to continue reading than if your initial points are just generic and nothing new.

Keep Your message simple: In most cases, it’s best to keep the message you’re sharing simple. Or, if it is complex, at least keep it to one idea. The best blog posts tell you one thing and they tell it well. Seth Godin is a master at this. If there’s a key message that someone can take from your article that they understand fully, then they’re more likely to pass that message on.

An example of this is my post on blogging partners, which was one of the most popular on the site. I said a lot about the subject, and covered it in-depth, but I really just stuck to one idea: If you want to grow your blog faster, find a blogging partner.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo Da Vinci

Your Summary and General Readability

The summary of your post, in my opinion, is the least important aspect of your article. The hardest part of anything you write is to get people to read it, and then continue reading it until the end. Similar to what newspaper journalists learn, your best information should be in the introduction and main sections of the article.

If you rely on the summary for people to “get” what you’re trying to say then you’ve just wasted 80% of your writing, in most cases. Although the summary isn’t as important as the other sections, there are some recommended ways to use it.

End with a powerful statement: The more articles I wrote, the more I found myself trying to end them with a message that left an impact on the reader. Movies do this all the time; if you’ve seen the end of Inception then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Just because you’ve got your main message out of the way, it doesn’t mean you should get lazy with your article. On two random guest posts that I’ve written, here were two of the endings:

• “Those thousands of subscribers are waiting for you. You’ve just got to be ready for them.” from Copyblogger.
• “Now, can you please promise me you’re going to share your value with the world? Because I can promise you, the world is waiting for it.” from TylerCruz.com

Start a discussion: This will be the third time I’ve mentioned starting discussions and asking questions. I do so because I believe that conversation is really at the heart of blogs, and one of the main things that makes them so different from static sites. Often times, people will want to leave a comment, but they just aren’t quite sure which part of the post to share their thoughts on.

You can use your summary to remind people of the most important points, and ask questions around any of them. This should help to get the comments flowing.

Summarise Your Post: Although very obvious (it is called a summary, after-all), I couldn’t leave this point out of the post. A good suggestion for ending is to pick the most important advice you’ve shared and repeat it in bullet-form. Another option, where relevant, is to give people an action plan as to the steps to take next after reading your advice.

My final suggestion, which is not directly related to making your content viral, would be to offer links to other relevant posts on your site. If people like what they’ve just read (and they probably did, if they made it to the end) then they’re likely going to want to see other articles you’ve written.

Readability

I generally break many rules when it comes to readability, but I still try to include the basics when I can. Even if you write the best posts in your industry, nobody is going to take the time to read them if you just list paragraph after paragraph without any formatting or line-breaks.

There aren’t many things to remember when it comes to making your posts scannable. Here are a few things that I think you should:

• Use Bullet Points: Just like I’m doing here, separate some lists into bullet form which not only breaks your post up into sections, but helps people skim your ideas if necessary
• Use Section Headings: I often use H2 and H3 tags to define different sections of my posts. This way, I have a clear outline of my beginning, middle and end, so visitors can decide to read just one section or all of them combined.
• Bold important sentences: If people are going to skim your posts, make it easier for them to take value from it by highlighting your most important points
• Use clear sentences: Unless you’re trying to appeal to English literature graduates, you don’t need to use fancy words or complex-sentence structures. Keep your sentences simple. And remember: What you say is far more important than how you say it.
• Break things up with images: Another good way to structure your content, without using headings, is to use relevant images to break things up. I like to have one in the introduction, as do many other bloggers, and more throughout the post, depending on the length of it

Many of these suggestions are aimed towards people who aren’t going to take the time to read every word that you write, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The whole point is that they’re reading your content and enjoying it in their own way, and then sharing it if they like it.

Many people will also skim an article first, and if it looks interesting, go back to read the whole thing in detail.

Next Update

In the next update we’ll be looking into ways you can engage with your niche and some other traffic strategies so you can start getting readers to your blog. And remember, we’ll be revealing Andrea’s site on January 1st so don’t forget to check back here in the new year!

Once you have a domain name, you need to set-up hosting so that people can actually view your website and its contents online. I personally started out with Hostgator, who host millions of websites and are the cheapest offering out there. Depending on how long a plan you initially sign-up with, you can get hosting for as little as $3.96 (£2.50) per month.

Other popular options out there include Dreamhost and Bluehost, though I haven’t used them personally. Since I have used Hostgator, I’ll be using them for this example. If you do want to try another host, make sure that you get an Apache server, and that you can run the WordPress.org blogging software. Your host will know if they can do this.

If you want to use Hostgator, then head on over to their website (no affiliate link) and click on the ‘Shared Hosting’ menu option. From there you’ll be presented with a number of plans. Any of them are fine, though do note that the Hatchling option only lets you host one domain, but the slightly more expensive Baby option allows you to host an unlimited number of domain names. With Hostgator you can easily upgrade if you need to at any time, though these options are more than enough for sites which get a few thousand visitors per day.

Follow their step-by-step process, making sure you enter the domain you have purchased through whichever registrar you used. Within 24 hours you’ll receive an email from Hostgator with your account details and your hosting nameservers. You’ll need these nameservers in the next step of the process.

If you’re using Namecheap, then head to their website and select the ‘My Account’ >> ‘Manage Domains’ option on their navigation bar. From there, click on the domain you’ve purchased and select ‘Transfer DNS to Web Host’ from the left navigation options. You’ll then see room to enter your nameservers, so place the ones you’ve received from Hostgator into these boxes.

If you’re not using Namecheap, you’ll have to ask your respective registrar on how to do this. Once you click ‘Save Changes’ it can take up to 72 hours for your domain to ‘propagate’ around the world so that people can actually see your website when the type your domain into their browser address bar.

Installing WordPress

The final section of this update is going to show you how to install WordPress, the most popular blogging software available. Not only is it the most popular, but it’s also 100% free and if you’re using a host like Hostgator which gives you access to a server admin interface called Cpanel, it can be installed in minutes.

If you weren’t provided your Cpanel access details when you signed up for your hosting account then you’ll have to ask them for these details. Companies like Hostgator have a live chat feature available 24/7 on their website so you should be able to get these in a couple of minutes. Once you’re in Cpanel you’ll see hundreds of options for lots of different things, but don’t let that overwhelm you.

You’ll only need to do this once, and then you’ll never have to look at this interface again. Scroll down to the third quarter of the page and look for a blue smiley face labeled ‘Fantastico De Luxe’ and select that option. On the new screen that appears, select ‘WordPress’ on the left navigation bar.

You’ll then be presented with options for your username, email address and preferred password for your new WordPress installation. Follow the step-by-step on screen options and finally click ‘Install’. You will then be presented with a confirmation message that your blog software is now ready. I told you it was simple!

To log into your WordPress admin area, simply go to www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/ (substituting yourdomain for whatever domain you purchased) and entering your chosen username and password.

There’s a common concept online, made popular by the likes of Seth Godin, that everyone just needs their “1,000 true fans” to make a difference and make money. I actually think this number needs to be raised a little. To know if your niche idea is something you should pursue, make sure there are 5,000 people who care about your topic.

Big numbers aren’t everything. The Huffington Post is the biggest blog in the world with over 30 million monthly pageviews, yet they’re (reportedly) not even making a penny in profit. 5,000 isn’t an exact figure, but just a rough estimation to help you know if you’re on the right track. The reason I expanded on the 1,000 true fans figure is because no matter how “true” a fan is, they’re not always going to buy your products, click on your ads, give feedback and share your content.

If you want to start a blog around your favourite football (soccer) team – mine’s Newcastle United – then there’s no doubt that at least 5,000 people would be interested in what you have to say.

Want to teach a language? There’s 5,000 people who want to learn. If you want to talk about Tennis, then there’s at least 5,000 people who’ll listen. Are you a keen fisher? There’s 5,000 people who are too. You get the idea.

Is There Money to Be Made?

There’s a lot more to cover before I get on to talking about how you can actually make money from your site later in the case study, so I don’t want to talk about it too much now. However, the last thing I want people to do is to spend the next few months writing about something and realise they can’t make money from it.

In reality, if you’re getting traffic, you can make money. But not all niches have the same income potential. Going back to the sporting example, let me pick a basketball team like the LA Lakers to use as an example. Let’s say that the LA Lakers are what you live and breath. You never miss a match, watch all of the latest news on the team and could tell me crazy statistics about them from back in the 80′s.

There’s zero doubt that it’s your passion. As far as ‘helping others’ goes you aren’t totally sure how it fits into your passion but you decide to build the site anyway. You start writing about the team, sharing all of your knowledge, and then get to the part of the case study where we look at monetisation options.

Which one do you choose?

Here’s a little confession: I have no idea.

There are a lot of things you could try. Maybe advertising works best? Maybe you could sell memorabilia or match tickets? Maybe you have a premium guide which teaches people how to become a professional player?

If you asked me how I would monetise a blog that talks about environmental issues then I would know, as its an industry I’ve researched. On that note, I have some homework for you to do until the next update. (By the way, I go into this in a little more detail on the video here if you skipped it).

The homework is this: Go out online in the niche you’ve decided on and find blogs that talk about what you want to talk about. That help people how you want to help them.

There’s a big list of top blogs in various categories over on Technorati, though do note that most of them are multi-author blogs and not always the best representation of a niche. Simple Google searches like “[niche] blogs” or “top [niche] blogs” will likely find you what you’re looking for.

Once you’ve found them, look at things like:

• How are they monetising the site? Do they have ads, eBooks, sponsored links or physical products?
• Do they have multiple authors or just one writer?
• How often are they publishing new blog posts (there should be some timestamps)?

Don’t just do this for a few minutes and wait for the next update. Actually look at them in as much detail as you can, on as many sites as you have time to look at, and write down what you’ve learned.

The aim here isn’t to duplicate what other people are doing, but just to know what is happening in your industry. Later on we can use this knowledge to find gaps in the market, cut down on the time it takes to see what works best and find other bloggers to connect with.

The fact that there are other blogs on the topic you’re researching should be a good enough idea that there’s money to be made in your niche. The most important thing is that you’re picking a topic you care about, above all else.

There’s a lot of advice out there on how to choose the niche – that is, your topic choice – that you’re going to be blogging in. Some good, some bad. The downside to all of the good advice is that most of it is contradictory, often leaving you more confused than when you started.

My own approach is not only very simple, but also very important. It asks you two questions:

1. What do you love?

2. How do you want to help people?

That’s it. Not only will these two questions help you narrow the focus on what you want to be blogging about, but they’ll also put you in the perfect position later when you pursue earning an income from your efforts.

“What do you love?”

Many of you will already have an idea in mind of what it is you want to create a blog about. If you do, then feel free to skip to the next question. If you don’t, then it’s time for a little introspection.

Since the things you enjoy are going to be different to a lot of other people reading this, I can’t just say to you ‘enter industry X’. You probably won’t enjoy what you’re doing, have little passion for growing your site and it would just be like giving you another job. Though one aim here is to make money, there’s no reason you can’t love what you’re doing and generate an income in the process.

The reason it’s so important to pick an industry that you love is because success with this medium is not going to happen overnight. You’re not going to start a blog and then have 10,000 visitors landing on your internet doorstep the next day. The love for your topic is going to help you through the periods when you’re starting out and growth can be slow.

It’s going to help when you need to come up with blog post (article) ideas or research different aspects of the subject. And most importantly, it’s going to give you a reason to wake up in the morning and continue sharing the things that you’re passionate about. The things that make you come alive.

To begin, ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of books / magazines / blogs do I read the most?
• What do I talk to [your best friend] about?
• If I had to walk into a classroom and talk about a subject on which I’m knowledgeable, what would it be?

I’ve gone through this exercise with dozens of bloggers and in many cases, they actually haven’t had to write down the answers to the questions. The questions themselves instantly brought up a number of ideas and they could move onto the next question.

If that didn’t happen with you, actually write the answers down. It’s old school, I know, but it gives your mind space to be creative. Most people will have one or two topics that they’re more passionate about then others, but don’t worry if you’ve listed quite a few. You don’t have to finalise your decision on a single topic just yet.

“How do you want to help people?”

Blogs that make money give people something that they want. They help them fill a need and desire. For that reason, though we’re trying to find a niche for you to blog in, what I really want you to look at is how you want to help people with the topic you’re passionate about.

Do you want to make them laugh? Do you want to teach them something? Do you want to give them the latest news? Do you want to inspire them?

The reason I ask this question is because for too long I think bloggers are caught up on defining their niche as a broad category. Whether that is celebrity gossip, travel, technology, design or even marketing.

The problem with this approach is that when you try to monetise your efforts later, there’s a good chance that you’ve spent time attracting visitors who aren’t going to make you any money. And, you’ll probably get to the stage where you’re not sure if you should write about something because you don’t know if it fits in that category.

Knowing how you want to help people gives your site a focus, allows you to attract the right people to your site, and constantly keeps you on the right track when it comes to creating content.

If you’re like most, then this question should have helped you narrow down the list of things you love and left you with a topic for the next update (when we start building your blog).

A Quick Example

Just in case you’re still a little confused, I asked my friend Dirk to go through the process. Here are his answers:

What do you love?

• Partying
• Online marketing
• Personal growth
• Forex / Stocks
• Girls



Keeping those subjects in mind, how do you want to help others?

Partying: I love going out but this isn’t something I would want to help people with or blog about.

Online marketing: I could show people what I’ve learned on my journey so far, as I do enjoy internet marketing, but not enough to dedicate a blog around the topic.

Personal growth: This is something I focus on and read about a lot, and I think I can help other people improve their own life situation.

Forex / Stocks: I’m fortunate to make my living from this, and I believe anyone can learn how to do the same with enough time and dedication. I definitely want to help people make money with this at some point.

Girls: I used to be shy and bad with girls, but thanks to the my focus on self-growth I wouldn’t say I have a problem with that area of my life. I see a lot of guys in the same situation I used to be in, so it would be nice to help them as well.

When talking with him, it’s clear he was more passionate about the last three topics. When it came to how he wanted to help people, self improvement was at the top of his list, and that’s the direction he ended up going down with his blog. He has since given a lot of dating advice as well, and plans to talk more about Forex trading in the future.

Click Here to continue reading…

Hopefully you now know which niche you’re going to build a blog in. If you don’t, then head back to the first update and go through the steps there. In this section we’re going to be getting a domain name (bloggingcasestudy.com is the domain name for this site) for your blog, setting up hosting, and installing the software that will power your blog.

That may sound scary to some of you, but it’s actually a very simple process and once you’ve decided on what your domain is going to be, the rest of the steps don’t take more than 30 minutes of your time to complete. A lot of people following along here run blogs on free platforms like WordPress.com, Google-owned Blogger, Typepad and Tumblr. While there are people who have been successful on those platforms, I strongly urge that you get your own domain and host your own content.

This will give you full control over advertising, your blog posts, community interactions and if you were to sell your blog down the line, it would be a much easier process if you had total ownership of your site.

Keyword Research

Before I get into details about the best options for domain names, I want to talk a little about keyword research. Keyword research basically involves finding phrases that people type into search engines – like Google – which are relevant to your chosen niche. We’re doing this now because there may be a popular phrase in your industry where nobody has purchased a relevant domain for that term, and down the line it could help you get thousands of free visitors to your site each month.

Not all of you will be able to utilise this – I haven’t on my two public blogs – but there’s a chance that it will help some of you, so I do want to cover this first. Even if you don’t use this for finding a domain name, you’re going to want to pick a keyphrase later to “target” so it’s good for you to understand this overall process.

I have a huge keyword research guide on my own site which covers this in-depth, but the two main tools I recommend using for this process are the Google Keyword Tool and the Free Wordtracker Keyword tool. The Google Keyword Tool (GWT) gives you a good estimation as to how many people are searching for certain terms every single month in Google.

When you open the site, click on the small blue ‘Advanced Options’ link and change the countries option to All Countries. Then, start entering terms which are relevant to the industry you’ve decided to blog in. The first thing I recommend you do once you have your search results is to change the setting on the left under Match Types to ‘Exact’.

If I have decided to build a knitting blog, then I’ll put knitting in there. If I’m obsessed with dogs and how to train them, then I would put in phrases like ‘teach your dog’, ‘dog training’ and ‘dog obedience’ to see what comes up. Try to think of phrases that you would search for in Google to find the type of content that your website is going to offer.

Ideally, you’re trying to find relevant phrases which get in excess of 2,000 exact searches per month. Though the higher the figure the more traffic potential there is for that phrase, there is also likely to be a lot more websites competing in search engines to rank for that term.

Continuing with my theme of using examples in lots of different industries, for this one I’ll pretend that I’m building a Womens fashion blog. The way I want to “help people” with the fashion blog is to show the latest style trends and offer unique suggestions for readers.

Women’s fashion is definitely not my thing, but I did type in what I thought would be some relevant keyphrases to that industry. You can see them below, with the exact number of times they are searched for each month in brackets:

• Womens fashion (12,100)
• Women style (720)
• Female design (58)
• Fashion trends (27,100)

Since the keyword ideas shown below weren’t very relevant to what I was searching for I clicked the “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” check box and ran the query again. This time, the results back were far more relevant. Some that came to mind and may make a good domain included:

• New fashion trends (2,900)
• Current fashion trends (1,900)
• Womens fashion online (4,400)
• Womens fashion clothing (3,900)

If you happen to find phrases which get a few thousand searches and could become a suitable name for your blog, then write them down. We’ll run them through a domain registrar (the place you purchase domains) in a moment.

Finding the Right Domain

There are dozens of domain extensions available, such as .com, .net and .org. There are also country specific extensions like .co.uk and .fr. Unless your blog is only targeting the audience of a specific country, I would refrain from registering a country specific domain. The best extension is .com since it’s more memorable and people are inclined to type that into their address bar when they hear the name of a site. Since the domain you want is not always going to be available, the .net extension would be my second preference.

Though I’m not a huge fan of .net domains, I will say this: If your blog is going to be successful, the fact that it’s a .net is not going to change anything. Some of the biggest blogs in the world have .net domains.

Some people like to use hyphens (-) in their domain names but I’m personally not a fan. Similar to less popular extensions like .info, it makes your domain harder to remember and doesn’t help if people are talking about you offline.

If you couldn’t find relevant phrases that could work as your site name in the various keyword tools then don’t despair. You focus should then be on picking a brandable domain, which is relevant where possible. When I ran a popular personal development blog its name didn’t have anything to do with personal development, and my popular marketing blog, ViperChill, definitely doesn’t have a name which gives you a clue to the content found there.

If you can get a name which is fairly short, relevant and memorable then you’re onto a winner. That being said, don’t stress if the name isn’t entirely related. Being memorable and creating your own brand is more important in my experience. Some popular site names which come to mind include:

• Zen Habits – The name implies what the website is about
• The Art of Manliness – Brandable and relevant
• Fin Slippy – This is actually the name of a popular ‘mom blog’
• DeSmogBlog – A blog in the green niche
• Politico – As you may have guessed, a political blog
• Man Vs Debt – A personal finance blog
• The Huffington Post – Huffington is simply the surname of the website founder

For Andrea’s case study website, her domain name is short and memorable but isn’t totally relevant to what her site is about. In fact, when you first hear it, it may make you think of a totally different industry altogether. Since we want the site to establish itself on its own I wont say what it is just yet, but will update this section accordingly later on.

Once you have some ideas of what domain you want to use for your blog it’s time to see if the domains are available and, if they are, to register them. There are many places to purchase a domain name but I personally use Namecheap (no affiliate link) since it offers free WhoisGuard (meaning you can block your personal data from showing in ‘domain search engines’) and purchasing .com domains through them is inexpensive at $9.89 (£6.20) per year.

I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but I will be using them as an example when I show you how to set up hosting and actually get your website online, in the next step. So if you’re a total beginner to setting up sites, I recommend that you use them. Other popular domain registrars include GoDaddy and Name.com for those of you who want a few options.

None of the fashion keyphrases were available in any of the main extensions (.com, .org and .net) which may be the case for a few of you, but they do help with inspiration for other names. Things like ‘NewFashionista’, ‘Fashionaholic’ and ‘TrendingDesign’ are just a few ideas that come to mind, all of which are available in various extensions at the time of writing this.

Update Based on Reader Feedback

After each section has been sent out to the thousands of you following along I update certain parts to answer similar questions I receive via email.

What do I do if the domain is taken?

It’s very common that some of your first choice domain names will have been registered by someone else before you. Unfortunately, there’s not always something you can do in these cases but simply focus on another domain. If there is a page that shows when you actually go to the website, perhaps try contacting the owner to see if they would be interested in selling it, though don’t expect too much if the site is already established.

If the site doesn’t seem to be in use but is littered with ads, then look around the page to see if there are any ‘inquire about this domain’ or ‘purchase this domain’ messages which I’ve been fortunate to find now and then. A third option is to use a whois search engine like who.is and type the domain in there. You should be able to find an email address attached to it and you may get lucky.

As for as pricing goes, that really depends on your own budget and how good the domain name is for your blog. Some people will may ask for huge sums (thousands of dollars) while others may be a little more affordable at anything from $10 to a couple of hundred
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Welcome to the third point on your blogging success map. In this territory I’m going to show you how to make your blog look attractive and relevant to what it is you’re blogging about. We’re going to do this by changing your blogs’ theme. I’ve always tried to make my websites look pretty and different from the competition, but I didn’t put that much importance on design when it comes to the success of your blog.

After looking at my own past experiences and performing lots of researching before beginning this case study project, I’ll have to say that my feelings have changed. Having a good blog design in place, to me, is one of the most important pieces of this whole blogging success puzzle.

Since blogging is not a new concept, it’s likely that there are hundreds if not thousands of blogs out there in your chosen industry. When I started in the personal development niche I had an audience of none and just as much influence. I was also starting a blog in an industry where there are tens of thousands of other blogs competing for the same eyeballs.

Similarly, the make money online and marketing niches (where I also operate) are probably the most over-saturated blog topics out there. In both industries I went from being relatively unknown to having thousands of people come to my website directly on a daily basis. While I can’t attribute my success to one thing, I’m positive that having a unique, clean and relevant design in both cases helped me on my journey.

Don’t Follow the Crowds’ Perspective

Before I go into what I think the keys of a good blog design are, I want to give you an example of why some people just don’t ‘get it’ when it comes to your site design and how to avoid their mistakes. A few months ago there was a guest post on the popular blog Pro Blogger from someone who claimed that the blogosphere was overcrowded. That there may just be too many people blogging about the same things to stand out and have your own voice.

The post attracted hundreds of comments from people who had put a lot of work into their sites, didn’t have much to show for it, and thus agreed with the author. If I agreed with them, then I wouldn’t have started this case study or spent countless hours putting together this resource site. Since I’ve been doing this for a long time I could narrow down the main reason the site failed to one key aspect: their design. And more specifically, it did a terrible job at a number of things.

The site in question was a humour blog, aimed at brightening up people’s day. If you went through the domain section then you’ll know their own, which included a hyphen and was unrelated to its niche, wasn’t a great choice, though there’s definitely more to a blog than what it’s called.

Since the name doesn’t give it away, I had to start looking around to see what the topic of the blog actually was. Even after quite a bit of clicking I still didn’t totally get it. The second issue I noticed on their site was that there’s just too much going on. There are so many options and so many things to click on that my eyes can’t just focus on one thing and I’m left wondering what to do.

The design itself is actually quite common and fairly generic, so if I were to stumble upon the site via social media like Twitter or a link from another blog then to me it looks like every other site out there. This isn’t always a bad thing, but when the opposite is true (a design is amazing so it makes you stop because good designs are actually quite rare) then it can definitely help to grow your own audience.

Finally, the site didn’t display any clear calls to action. Their sidebar was cluttered with widgets that seemed best suited for other bloggers rather than readers and their subscription options weren’t very obvious. Irrelevant of the fact that the owner is giving no incentive for me to subscribe either. There are a few more things that I could point out (I don’t want to be too harsh), but hopefully you can start to see how my thought process works.

A Site That Does Things Right

Now that I’ve talked about a site which does a few things wrong, here’s a site with the same aim (making people laugh) that I think does things right. From the crazy header which looks like it was designed in Microsoft Paint, you can instantly see this isn’t your typical website. The organisation of the site is a lot simpler compared to that of the example above and from the offset I get the inclination that it’s a blog created with the intention of making me laugh.

This particular site is actually one of the biggest humour blogs in the internet with some posts – complete with more Microsoft Paint style drawings – getting thousands of comments from people all over the world.

Navigation is simple with just one sidebar that highlights other content and includes a unique Awesome Button which takes you to random posts on their site. There’s also very little for people to “do” besides comment on articles, subscribe to the sites RSS feed or connect with the people behind it, elsewhere.

In other words, they have all of the basics nailed down very well and then put their own spin on things. That’s exactly what I want from you with your own design. So, what are the basics exactly? Let’s find out shall we with the…

Keys to Design

Hopefully that example has helped you to see how I look at things and how you can instantly avoid going wrong with your website. An easy analogy for you to remember is that the design and appearance of your blog is very similar to the physical appearance of the opposite sex. Allow me to elaborate…

When you see someone for the first time you get an impression and make a conclusion about that person within seconds. We also make similar assumptions about websites very quickly as well. Please note the following are examples aren’t supposed to be in tune with reality, but you’ll hopefully get my gist…

• If the person is very attractive and well-dressed you’ll likely be interested to talk to them even though you know nothing about them.
• If the person is average looking, you’ll likely not be bias in a positive or negative way towards talking to them, but you won’t really go out of your way to make an effort to talk to them unless they do something extraordinary.
• If the person’s appearance is unsightly then you’re probably not too interested in getting to know them.

It’s very similar with your blog:

• If your blog design and layout is extremely pretty and aesthetically pleasing, your visitors will likely stick around to see what you have to offer, even if they don’t know anything about you.
• If your blog design is mediocre, new visitors aren’t as likely to stick around unless you’re doing something else extraordinary (for example if they already know about you and your work through guest posts or videos on Youtube).
• If your blog looks like thousands of other blogs out there and/or is plastered with ads then new visitors are going to click away from it as fast as possible, even though you might have excellent content.

Again, this wasn’t meant to be exactly like reality, but I wanted to stress how important this section is. The core fundamentals of a good blog design are:

• Simplicity
• Usability
• Social Proof
• Call-To-Actions

I’ll now elaborate on each in more detail.

Simplicity

Simple websites are just nicer to navigate. Simplicity doesn’t imply that you’ve “dumbed down” your website, but instead made the rest of the sections we’re going to cover stand out more. For example, a simple website is both easy to navigate, and easy to subscribe to. Neither of these sections should be hard to find, yet if you fill your site with clutter, that’s exactly what will happen.

It’s not only your homepage that you should keep looking minimalistic either, I personally like to simplify post (article) pages in some cases by:

• Removing “tags” which may have been included in the theme
• Removing a link to the post category (as long as they’re elsewhere)
• Making my article headlines large and centered
• Removing the top date and author information

This allows my content to easily stand out, and means that visitors aren’t being distracted when they try to read my content.

Another key place to keep your blog design looking simple is in your sidebar. Most people seem to like playing around with widgets and try to cram as much things in there as possible. Simple designs work best because you don’t confuse people with too many things to do. Having a lot of options, surprisingly or not, leads to a lot less action.

Usability

Simplicity definitely helps the overall usability of your website, but it isn’t everything. When considering this, there are just a few simple (but important) things to consider. First of all, your blog should have a navigation bar in your site header which lists all of your important pages.

People are conditioned to seeing this navigation bar on blogs and websites. I recommend that the first link points to your hompage, and the other links should lead to your important pages that you would want visitors to know about, for example:

• About Page
• Consulting (where relevant)
• Contact Page
• Recommended Articles
• Post Archives / Sitemap

And so on. You may also want to consider creating a “Start Here” page for first time visitors and list that page in your navigation bar. This is very good for people who need to be taken around your website in a certain step-by-step direction. On this page you could make a very clean summary of all the information you have on your site and how to find it, highlighting your best content. Look at the “New Here?” link on ViperChill, for example.

To improve the usability of your website you have to make it very clear what you want a user to do, and make it easy for them to find what they want. Because this can be a complex job, millions of dollars are spent each year by companies focusing on this.

On ViperChill I want to make it easy for people to comment on my articles and subscribe to my RSS feed. Some people come to my site though looking to learn more about me and to get in touch. I have to cater for both of these things and keep them in mind when designing the layout of my blog.

You’ll learn more about what visitors are looking for on your site as time goes on (by viewing your most popular pages, for instance). I personally like to use a tool called CrazyEgg (non-affiliate) and while it costs $9 per month, it shows me exactly how people are interacting with my site, so I can tweak my design accordingly.

One instance where CrazyEgg came in use was in the footer of my site. I have a line of text which is in bold, but not actually a clickable link. I could see through CrazyEgg however that tons of people were clicking on these words. In then made them into a clickable link, and people started spending more time on my site. If you don’t want to pay for a service like this (I don’t blame you if this is your first blog) then ask a friend to just go to your website and “do something”. Don’t tell them what they have to do. Just watch as the navigate around the site. See what gets their attention and see what they quickly ignore.

Call To Action

Your blog needs to have clear calls to action in various locations. A call to action is something that grabs your visitors attention gets them to do what you want them to do when they are on your site.

You may think that if you have a little subscribe button or a recommended product in your sidebar that people will click on it just like you want them to. The reality is that very few people actually go out looking for things that you would love them to do (i.e. subscribe or buy your products).

If you don’t make these things stand out then they’re going to go unnoticed and visitors won’t convert in ways you desire.

As mentioned earlier, I personally want people to comment on my articles and subscribe to my RSS feed. It’s no coincidence that these are some of the most prominent sections of my site. I have links to my RSS feed in my site header, in my sidebar, and even at the bottom of every single blog post. These locations allow for more visitors to notice what I have to offer and thus subscribe.

Blog subscribers are the most valuable asset to your blog, in most cases, so don’t take them for granted.

You don’t just have to have one call to action on your blog. I personally tend to have one main call to action, such as the option to subscribe, and then other links for things like:

• Becoming a Fan on Facebook
• Following Me on Twitter
• Sharing my site content

You should be aware by now that too many choices simply paralyses people and results in them not taking any action at all. Have one clear call to action and then a few smaller ones if you need. My friend Steven has put together a great list of icon sets for when you do want to highlight any social media services.

Social Proof

I’m a human being myself (really!) so don’t take offense when I say this, but us humans are very much like sheep. When we see a lot of people doing one thing, we tend to follow along with the pack. Social proof, in terms of blogging, is a very useful technique to help convince visitors that they should subscribe to your site.

Showing social proof on your site could be highlighting things like:

• Number of subscribed readers
• Number of blog comments
• How many Twitter followers you have
• How many Facebook ‘Likes’ you have

The social proof displayed by the above examples helps people to determine whether or not you’re blog is one they should continue reading. In other words, if they see that a few thousand people have subscribed to your blog, then new visitors are more likely to do the same, because if a few thousand people are doing it then there must be something good about your content.

I actually created a WordPress plugin called ViperProof which will allow you to show social proof on your blog very easily but I’ll talk about this in the next update.

If you’ve just started your blog, it’s unlikely that you have much social proof that you can show off. In this instance I would put your main focus on building at least one of them up that is easier to increase (Facebook fans, Comment count, Twitter followers, etc). Instead of emphasising things like the number of feed readers you have I would instead highlight your popular posts, and freebie’s you’re giving away (if any) — we’ll talk about those last two more in the upcoming content section, so just keep it in mind for now.

A Basic Example (Graphic)

I’ve created a small example design which you can see below so you can see the basic structure that, in my experience, an effective design should follow. The options in the sidebar of course can be tweaked based on your own niche, personal preferences, and reactions of your site visitors.

Many of the themes you’re going to find in the section on the next page wont be focused around this structure, so I recommend you find one that is or at least can be tweaked to be similar.

We’re now on the fourth blogging case study update and in this section we’re going to start putting the finishing touches on the inner workings of your blog. By now you should have chosen a niche, decided on a Continue reading →