A Working RSS Feed at the Top of the Page
The RSS feed is what allows readers to subscribe to your blog so that they can easily receive updates via email, Google Reader, or another reader. Your RSS feed should be at the TOP of your blog, not buried at the bottom of the page or at the bottom of your sidebar. It's okay if it's at the bottom, but only if that is not the sole place it appears.
I recommend setting up your feed through Feedburner and not using the general feed your blog will give you. There are other feed services out there, but I prefer Feedburner because it offers a simple-to-use automated email delivery subscription service (for example, everyone who has subscribed to Think Splendid via email receives an email each morning with the most recent blog updates and I don't have to do a thing to make that happen except write the posts). I also like it because it was recently purchased by Google and I love them about as much as I love Apple products and good coffee.
Post Title Permalinks with the Keywords In Them
When you click on the permalink or title for a blog post to pull up its own page, it should have the words in the post's title incorporated so that it looks similar to this:
http://www.thinksplendid.com/2009/07/how-social-media-forces-you-to-be-more.html
If your post links currently look similar to the link below, the coding on your blog needs to be fixed so that it looks like the above example:
http://www.thinksplendid.com/index.cfm?postID=627
Search engines give more weight to keywords in the title link, so make sure that yours are coded properly!
Your Previous Blog's Posts
If you are designing a new blog and are switching to a Wordpress.org (not .com) platform (which I recommend as it is hands down the most powerful blogging platform available), make sure to migrate all your old blog's posts over to the new one. Wordpress has a plug-in that makes this process relatively simple and painfree. This will give your current blog more data for the search engines to crawl, and more importantly it keeps your traffic consolidated to one site, which is important for tracking and analytics.
If your blog designer insists that any of these are not important, hire a new one. After all, if your blog is pretty but it doesn't come up until page 60 on Google, does it really matter?
What are some other must-have elements you would recommend for a blog?
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For millennials, the generation that accounts for more than 70% of today's weddings and the first to grow up with the Internet, technology has done more than give unprecedented access to information; it has physically changed their brains on a microcellular level. What worked in bridal marketing just ten years ago is no longer effective because the way today's engaged couples think is actually different than couples of generations past. In 
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10 comments:
Thanks for all of your help. Your articles have helped me understand a lot about blogging. I am new to this and not familiar with what some of this stuff is that they want you to mark when you are building a blog. Your website has been helpful. Thanks again!
Great post, Liene! For people using Wordpress (not Wordpress.com), the All-In-One SEO Pack is also essential. This gives you the ability to edit your post's meta tags, and also control which portions of your blog are indexed by search engines. Thanks for the advice, and keep up the great work!
Hi -
I' want to add 2 more *must have* items for every blog -
1) An easy way for readers to contact you - yes that means either a contact form or a working email address. If you are in business, what if someone wants to hire you? It should be super easy for them to reach out. If you are a bride, it's not as important, but there are lots of people out there who might have a suggestion that could help you save money or time.
2) Your location. The internet has made it so easy for people in Maine to connect with folks in San Diego. Be sure you have your location somewhere that's easy to find, so readers will know if you are next door, or 1532 miles away. I like to put the city where I live and work in the header of every page.
Question: Post Title Permalinks. Do I need to change the Wordpress address AND the Blog address in my backend? Thank you, as always!!
Nina, check out this link for instructions on how to change the permalink structure:
http://techtadka.net/tutorials/web-tutorials/202-how-to-change-wordpress-post-url-permalinks.html
Great post Liene. From a visual standpoint an mindful color palette and artwork/logo presence are essential to building brand affinity.
I am also a big proponent of a great head shot and short bio near the top of the page. I like to know instantly who is writing the blog I am reading.
This post is very helpful! It also comes in handy at this point because I'm trying to get a new blog Design. It is good to know that Wordpress.org is a better platform for Blogging.
Thank you Liene and all of you who have suggested other *must have* items.
On that note, do you have any recommendations for Blog Designers?
Thanks
A must have for me: an easy to find search bar. It drives me nuts when a blog doesn't have one.
I was thinking of moving to Wordpress for more freedom and veratility. I think I will be doing that soon. Any recommendations Liene?
I also think the "share" functions are important along with feedburner to collect subscribers.
I agree with Kelly on the search bar. A working RSS feed is important to me. Also, I would recommend an email address in the "about" section for blogs I read in case I want to send them a nice personal note.
And finally, the ability to comment and sign in with my "Name/URL" instead of only a Google account.
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