I sometimes feel lost in the sea of content.
Do you feel the same?
Ever since I have started blogging, I have come across hundreds of blogs that have awesome content but no clarity. I find it difficult to navigate from one article to another or one section to another and finally I end up closing the tab.
Your blog might be one of them!
How do you find it?
Pretend you’re a browser looking for information that your blog offers and visit it. Ask yourself, “Where do I start from? Are there specific divisions or categories where you can find posts about a particular topic? How does the homepage of the blog look? Does it have too much content and less white space?”
You need to have a plain ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and a clear call-to-action so that you can provide an enhanced experience to your readers when they visit your blog next time.
If you think your blog looks messy, you definitely need to ditch extra content from it.
Why Does Your Blog Look Messy?
Bloggers remain preoccupied with all sorts of unnecessary things. In order to drive high traffic, attract more visitors, gain more subscribers, build links and improve search engine results, they end up posting too much content on their blogs.
You don’t have to think blogging, eat blogging and sleep blogging. It doesn’t help instead it will leave you frustrated and annoyed. My idea is dedicate your time only on producing great content.
In order to get found on search engines, it doesn’t have to have too much content. Even a blog with lesser posts can easily attain a high ranking on the basis of its quality of content and highly functional plugins.
What to Do?
It’s simple! Ditch the extra content.
Be it your articles, pop ups, unnecessary adds, gift baskets and other pointless announcements. Get rid of them quickly. As a blogger, your focus should be mainly on quality content development. Here is why.
Google Panda and Penguin updates make it clear that content is the king and a great content has higher probability of being found on search engines.
Besides this, a clear and simple design makes it more popular among readers. Quick loading and fast navigation between pages are other must-haves.
Principles of Effective Blogging
1. Over-consumption is Dangerous! Brutally Honest
Remember over-consumption of information has same effects as that of overeating. It’s dangerous and leaves readers with no interest in consuming more information.
Therefore, your blog should have the right amount of content at any given time. Blogging is not only about posting content regularly. It includes syndication of information and deleting the obsolete information.
2. Allocate Time for Research
Make sure that you spend ample time in studying the trends and researching the market. This may include reports on readers’ behavior recent developments in the field of blogging, new product launches and any other thing related to your blog’s niche.
Follow it religiously and do some brainstorming before pumping out an article.
3. Keep Your Posts Short and Precise
In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, people look for information in short and precise manner. However, you can give a background depending upon your blog’s forte and kind of traffic you want to drive on your blog.
Follow these principles and try to make your blog a place-to-go for relevant, updated and precise information. Shed that extra weight that makes your blog slow and uninteresting.