For Starters: You Just Finished Your Blog, Now What?

Jul 26th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | Scroll down for comments

This is a question I get a lot from colleagues, friends and readers alike. It seems to be the most common, and for good reason. Most people aren’t sure as to what direction to head in after successfully launching their first website or blog (I will be focusing on blogs for this example). Sadly, it’s not a relatively easy answer either. Depending on your blogs niche, the possibilities are relatively large. I’ll focus on a few general ones that should get you started off on the right foot to grabbing some traffic in the early days.

Don’t really start marketing your website until you have at least 3-4 posts. Why? Because if you have one post up there all lonely and cold on the front page, people will be more hesitant about returning to your site knowing its out of the box (new). Establish some content, get it down, and then worry about promoting it.

If you have a couple of great flagship articles, people will more then likely browse over your other pieces, be sure to start a fire with great posts and create a commotion.

Have a friend look at it. Get some opinions. Hell, post on some forums looking for website reviews without being too spammy. Some great forums I’m always on are Earners Forum and DigitalPoint. Definitely give both of these a look.

Remember that you’ve been working on your blog for the past ‘insert # of weeks here‘ and that you have grown accustomed to its look and feel. You’re viewpoint may be compromised so to speak. Have a fresh face look at it, someone who isn’t used to the site.

Alright, I had a friend look at it, but he/she didn’t tell me very much. This happens, a lot unfortunately. You need to know what questions to ask them to get the best results. Here are some common ones I use:

1. How do you feel about the overall design?
2. Is reading the content easy?
3. Does the menu make sense?
4. Do the colors play out well?
5. Is the site inviting, does it make you want to come back?

Gauge their response. Don’t just shove an opinion back down the person’s throat if they completely trash your site, stay positive. People will have different perceptions, this doesn’t mean your site is terrible it just means you should accept everyone’s point of view and give it a fair say. You’re going to have a spectrum of people, some who love it, some who hate it, your goal is to gauge which way the see-saw is balancing and correct (or improve) that weight.

Keep it ad-free for a bit. Yea, I know how this sounds but its the truth. Unless you can seamlessly implement ads without hurting the design, go for it. However, I suggest not adding advertisements until your about a month in. We all want to make that instant ‘buck’ but creating a loyal reader base first is key. It will be better in the long run.

Do a final run through. Believe it or not, we’re all human. We do make mistakes. Go through and check for common errors and silly mistakes. If you’ve been looking at your blog for too long you might not have noticed that your sidebar is completely out of wack. Take a day off and come back fresh.

Cheers :).

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Leonid Shalimov posted this article under Series - For Starters, Blog Improvement on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 11:09 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. View Technorati Linkbacks.