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When you are building your website or blog, there are ten imperative parts that you must put into place as soon as possible in order to create a successful money-making blog. That isn't to say that there aren't other pieces that you can add to your blog or site that will enhance it, but these ten parts should be priority for a successful blogger or content website creator if making money is your goal.
1. Resourceful Articles or Posts
There is no reason to stop by any blog or website if there isn't anything to read or do. Start with must-have resources an you will put your user first, which means they will come back for more. This is how to get repeat visits. It really is as simple as that.
Caution, however. Your resources need to be your own. Plagiarism may be rampant on the net, but your visitors will see right through that. They would rather go where the content is original - and they will. Blogs and sites full of copied material don't last long.
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2. About Page
An 'about' page on a blog or website is imperative to be successful because after a user reads a good piece of advice, the second thing they want to know is who is giving it. Letting people know who you are lends credence to your credibility.
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3. Ads, Referrals or Direct Sales
In order to have a successful money making blog or website, you have to have a money making part. Make a decision on which ad network or sales network you want to use and make them a part of your blog or site. If you find a better opportunity down the road you can always switch or add to your current ad network.
4. Privacy and Contact Policy Pages
While these pages can be incorporated into your about me page, they are imperative parts of a successful site or blog and need to be included somewhere. I prefer to give them each their own page, that way nothing can be overlooked and you can expand on them as needed - like when Google asked every one of its Adsense users to add a blurb to their privacy page.
5. Categories
These not only help you keep order on your site, they help your users with navigation. All site topics and blogs have small subtopics. These are your categories. The more you add to the depth of your categories, the more breadth you'll be adding to your site. Users that find information and resources in one article they are looking for tend to go looking through categories for more.
It is important that you start out with your categories on your site and then add to them as you go. It is close to impossible to organize a mess of articles and resources into categories after a year or so of writing. Please don't do that to yourself!
6. Recent and Popular Articles or Posts List
You will benefit in pageviews by making your most recent articles and most popular articles easy to find. Your regular users will love being able to see what's new right away when visiting your site or blog. As for the popular list, it's popular for a reason, right? People want that information and it's good to introduce it to others who may not have seen it yet.
7. Logo
Besides being cute, a logo is a professional way to make a mark, so to speak. Visitors to your site or blog will come to know you by your logo, so get one.
8. Subscription Options
You will want to let your visitors know how to keep up-to-date with your site's information. Use all available social networking options along with offering a feed for those that use readers. You will also want to offer a weekly newsletter.
9. Effective Navigation
I have come to believe that there will never be enough navigation possible to make every user finding everything they are looking for on a site or blog if that user isn't willing to click past your first page. So don't stress yourself. Make a simple navigation style and follow it through on every page of your site. Then, use related pages links and such to link together like-minded material. Doing this will give your users what they want to read and the ability to find more in an uncluttered way.
10. Archives
This is more important on a blog then on a content website. Blogs tend to use dated information - at least part of the time. Therefore a dated archive is very important for users to be able to traverse. New, for a content website, I have found it to be important to treat categories and related articles much like an archive, being sure that everything you write is accessible from somewhere. The most important thing you want to remember about 'archiving' is that you never want to lose information, how that is done on money-making sites and blogs differs . It falls to personal choice.
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