I’ve been blogging for two years – you might not know that when first visiting this blog – I have visited quite a few blogs in my day. In fact, by running a blogroll I have become acquainted with more blogs than I can possibly read on a daily, weekly, even monthly basis.

When someone requests that they be added to the blogroll, my first step is always to visit the blog and make sure that the content truly is family-friendly. Now that the rules are the blogroll should be displayed in the sidebar prior to contacting me, I also look to make sure that it is.

In that first visit I usually make a quick assessment as to the viability of the blog. I don’t do it on purpose, I can’t help it. I look at the blog and imediately know whether it will become popular. The content is obviously important but it’s not the only thing that is critical to popularity. There will always be a segment of the population in the blogging world that will read you no matter from what perspective you write.

What’s even more important than content is your design. If people don’t like your look they usually won’t stick around to find out what you have to say. You need to pick a design and colors that are pleasing to the eye. At least to the eye of the type of people to whom you write. If you’re Goth, by all means choose black and red as your color scheme. But a white background and dark type proves to be, in most polls, the preferred choice of readers. Use this information, it will help gain readership.

Another problem I see is the use of free blogging sites that fill the top of your page with their own advertisements. It’s annoying for a reader, especially if it makes navigation confusing. If you must use a free service choose wisely. And make sure the free service allows comments without registering for an account. Also try to use a service that allows javascript so that you can join blogrolls and promote your blog.

One more thing about the free blogging services, no one who is promoting a business or attempting to start a business should use these free services. From a customer stand point – and I’ve heard this said more than once – it’s tacky. If you don’t believe in your business enough to invest $9.00 a month to run your own blog/website no one else will either. At the very, very least, you must begin with purchasing your own domain name. Many have found that after spending hours upon countless hours building recognition and links that they have to start over when they finally decide to purchase their own name.

We like to think that in life, looks don’t matter. The thing is that they do and people make a snap judgement based on looks even more so in Bloggityville. So take a look around your blog today and see if a little sprucing up might be in order.

Like my kids always say, “You’re cleaning? Who’s coming over?”

Because in bloggityville, company is always stopping by.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Design, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.