Blogs can be categorized in many ways, and their interpretation is different for different individuals. Some blogs are created by hobbyists, some are company blogs to promote their businesses, and some are professional niche blogs made solely for the purpose of making money out of it. If you fall in the latter category, you need to give a thought on the landing page of your blog to retain the first time visitors on your blog. In case of blogs the difference between home page and landing page has been blurred. The landing page of blog is quite different from that of a web site. A web site landing page is much more stagnant in terms of updating of content, while a blog landing page is much more vibrant and dynamic and gets new fresh content at fairly consistent pace.
Header (Banner): The first impact on reader
If your blog header is appealing, half the battle has been already won. The header of your blog is the first element that the potential subscriber first see when visiting your blog. If your blog has a vibrant theme, make sure your blog header gels well with that theme. The header tag and description of your blog also comes in the banner, and it is the most critical part to attract visitors and give crawlers the accurate summary of your blog. If you have any logo associated with your blog, make sure to put it prominently in your blog's banner. Spend some time on keywords related to your niche, and stuff them in header and description.
Post Structure: Add that spark to it
Often it is argued that, whether home page should contain excerpts of posts with "Continue reading..." links or full expanded posts. Well, it depends on many factors. If your blog is new, it is always advisable to expand full posts on the home page. A popular blog with large readership can afford to give teaser excerpts to the readers. The logic behind the two approaches is quite simple. The probability of clicking the "Continue reading..." link is much higher in case of fairly popular blog as reader is already convinced about the content's worth. But in case of new blog if you do not give full expanded posts, your visitor may not take the pain to click "Continue reading..." link and may leave the page immediately. The number of posts on landing page can vary from 4 to 10, and can be changed depending on the length of posts.
If your posts are expanded make sure that every post has social bookmarking buttons or links at the end of each post to propagate the post visibility across the web. A subscription link along with social bookmarking buttons increases the chances of getting a new subscriber.- Post Categories
- Recent Posts
- Popular Posts or ( Best of 'Your blog name' )
- Subscribe to posts
- Feed count
- Contact Me
- Archives
- About
The three most important elements are Post Categories, Recent Posts and Popular Posts. Categories gives the glimpse of topics on which the blog is all about and reader can quickly access the relevant content from it. One of the most rewarding section that can reduce the bounce rate of your blog significantly is 'Popular Posts' section. Put the best work of your blog in this list and see the difference. Not only it will reduce the bounce rate, but will also help in increasing the subscription count. When your feed count reaches in 3 figures, you must display it in your sidebar to add credibility to your blog. Archives section is another extremely important section of the sidebar. Some readers wants to access the older posts in reverse chronological order to assess the blog content's relevance and quality. Needless to say, 'Subscribe To Posts' section is the third most important element in the blog's sidebar. Make sure you give subscribing option through E-Mail as well as option of pulling feed from different third party feed fetchers like Google Reader.
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