Dec 3 2005
Ten Tips on Organizing the Content of Your Blog
I can’t believe how absolutely horrible some blogs are when it comes to organizing the content on them. I’ve seen many professional marketers and companies organizing their blogs in the most horrendous fashion.
Recently I came across a blog that has a giant list on the side of it with links to every single day a post was made. Now that’s okay for the last few days, but this one has over 150 dated links. And this isn’t the only blog I have seen organized like this.
Question… who is going to blindly click on a link that has no description other than the date (which is hardly a description anyway) hoping to find something of interest or relevance?
In order to help those who have started or are thinking of starting a blog I have decided to put together a list of ten tips for organizing the content of your blog…
- Before you even start your blog think about your audience. Who are your readers? How often will you be posting to your blog? How often will your average reader be visiting your site? Think about the type of content you will be writing and what the best way to organize it will be. Ask yourself if your blog should be more date oriented or category oriented. And make sure you ask these questions from your readers point of view.
- Keep it relevant. First and foremost your blog should have some kind of theme or topic. Before you post something on your blog, ask yourself if it’s relevant. If it’s not, then don’t post it. If your blog is written mainly for you and no one else (as many blogs apparently are) then it doesn’t matter. However, if you are trying to attract a certain type of reader or any readers for that matter, then stay on topic and don’t lose focus. Write for the reader, not the writer.
- Don’t be afraid to customize your template. Many people set up their blogs and end up using the default template without considering how organized it is. If you do this your blog could suffer greatly as many default templates are too general and provide unneeded organization. If you find a template you like feel free to customize it to your hearts content, it’s your blog and templates are not set in stone. Everything you need to know to customize your blog can be found online.
- To organize by date or to organize by content. If your blog is just a diary, you write about anything and everything, it’s an update, news, or latest goings on of your business or personal life then a date organized blog is usually best. If you are developing your blog into a site of resources or providing content that will be valuable weeks from now, then organize by category. Again, think about how your visitors will use your site and what will be easiest for them. If you think they may find value in your previous posts, make it easy for them to find those posts.
- Blogs have easy to plug in categories and calendars, so use them! Set up a handful of categories for your blog and don’t worry as you can easily change them as you begin to develop your blog. Also, organize your calendar. If you think people will only search by date for the last 5 or so posts then you can customize your blog to display the last 5 posts, otherwise you can use a monthly calendar with links to every date on it.
- Use a search form. Using a search form allows your visitors to easily find exactly what they are looking for. You do not want your visitors coming to your site in search of a post they saw before and then force them to wade through post after post to find it. Using a search form is easy to use and is default on most blog templates.
- Please don’t make your visitors blindly click links on your blog to find what they are looking for. Make the categories and titles of your posts as descriptive as possible. Following this single tip will make a huge difference, especially once your site has a large number of posts on it.
- Consider your overall layout and make a clear navigation for all parts of your blog. Just like a website, you need to make an easy to navigate directory of your blog. You want to make it easy for your visitors to find all the categories, as well as additional pages of your blog.
- Left or right side navigation? It doesn’t really matter. I was just reading about a study done online that said there was no great impact on whether your navigation was on the left, or the right. Placement on either side will work just fine. You can even do both, some layout on left and right. However I prefer to stick to one side or the other.
- The most important rule of all… Simplicity. Keep your blog simple and to the point. Remember K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid
. If you keep your blog layout focused around what your readers and visitors want then it will reflect a layout and organization that fits them. Remember, less is more.
Miles – I’m a little late on the comment here, given this post is dated 2005. I was led here from the google SERP (query: organize categories internet marketing blog)
I agree with the points you make, and would like to introduce another, related to the category evolution on new blogs.
I’ve optimized client’s blogs using wordpress.org in the past, first devising an optimization strategy which in part includes isolating kwds to target and creating a hierarchal category schema up front. This ofcourse defines the blog’s message and allows for appropriate kw saturating of category descriptions, etc. Because categories don’t appear until a post is assigned them, I’ve added pre-written, kw saturated posts with appropriate title tags, etc, and added them all at once, assigning them to categories appropriately.This works great, but can also work to ‘box things in’ a bit, or worst case, creates a bit of a bloated category list.
Are you a proponent of predefining categories in this manner? Or do you, for accuracy, define and assign categories ‘as you go?’
Hey, that’s excellent. I like to define all my categories first, however there is a way to display categories without putting an article in each one, you just change up the code in the template.
Thanks for sharing!