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There’s More to a Blog Than Just Looking Good

Lisa — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:24:49 +0000

When it comes to a blog, looks aren’t everything. You have to keep your readers interested, make it simple to navigate your site and have a professional look. Easy, right? Not so much. The Social Media Examiner post “7 Essential Design Elements for Great Business Blogs” breaks the process down into seven things you should include in your blog to grab your readers from the beginning.

Graphic header with name of blog, tag line and author name

Email subscribe form

About page with photo

A variety of media: text, video, audio

Plenty of white space to make it easy to read

Links to share your content

Links for readers to connect on your social networking sites

The post includes a short video showing blogs that use these elements. It’s worth checking out.

Is Blogging Dead?

Lisa — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:02:02 +0000

Is it time to bury your blog?

Is it time to dump your blog? Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President of Edelman Digital, thinks so. In an interview Rubel did on Social Media Examiner (an awesome site worthing checking out), he explains why blogging is dead. He feels site visitors don’t have time to read and would rather watch a video instead. And he stressed that video is mandatory, not optional.

During the interview, Rubel shares valuable info about how to measure social media metrics, why you need to be on all social networks where your clients are hanging out, and more.

After watching his interview, I’m not convinced that it’s time to bury blogging forever, but I agree with him about video. It’s easier to watch something (gotta love fast-forward) than to take the time to read it. Unfortunately it can take longer to tape a video than to write a blog post.