Starting a new blog or growing an existing one can certainly be frustrating, as it may seem like you are not on pace to achieve your goals. Like anything worthwhile, building a solid and effective blog will take some time and hard work. As Daniel wrote recently, it gets easier with time if you can stick with it.

I see many bloggers completely give up or seriously slow down their activity because they feel like they are not getting anywhere, when in my opinion they are on the right track.

Hopefully if you are doing the right things and making progress you will recognize your growth and accomplishments, but not all do. Here are 10 signs that your blog is on the right track. If several of these items apply to you, don’t give up just because the achievements are not coming fast enough. I think if you give it some time and continue to work, you will reach your goals in time.

1. Growing Subscriber Count

If your blog’s subscriber base is growing, even slowly, you are making some progress. Gaining trust and subscribers is not easy, so try not to get your expectations unrealistically high. If you have realistic goals for subscriber growth you will more likely be able to feel good about your progress and stay consistent with your blogging.

2. Increasing Numbers of Inbound Links

Links are important for any blog. They help with click-through traffic, search engine rankings, and recognition. For bloggers, incoming links are also representative of how well you are known in your industry and your number of links will grow as you start to become recognized as an authority.

3. Increasing Numbers of Valuable Comments

If your blog is receiving a decent amount of thought-provoking comments, that is a good sign that people are reading and paying attention to you. Comments are the lifeblood of blogs, and those that have a lot of valuable comments from readers become even more useful for readers.

4. Increasing Visitors, Pageviews, and/or Pagviews Per Visit

Many bloggers are stats junkies. While growth in traffic isn’t always representative of meeting or surpassing your blogging goals, it certainly isn’t a bad thing. Hopefully, over time your blog stats will increase as more and more readers visit and subscribe to your blog.

5. Consistent Posting

If you are posting consistently on your blog, you’re already one step ahead of the vast majority of bloggers. It sounds pretty easy, but consistent posting is a huge challenge for many. If you’re able to keep posting consistently, good things are likely to happen.

6. Improving Quality of Articles

Quality is always going to be a somewhat subjective issue, but I think most bloggers can look back through their archives and get a pretty accurate idea of how the quality has trended over time. I know that when I look back at my first few months of blog posts I’m kind of embarrassed at the low level of quality, and I don’t think I’m alone. Growth in quality is natural as you will become more knowledgeable about your topics and as you learn about blogging and writing in general. Take a look back at how your quality of writing has improved and I think you will be encouraged to keep going and see what happens.

7. An Ability to Clearly Define Your Niche

One of the most overlooked items when starting a new blog is being able to accurately define the audience that you will be targeting. As time goes by, you’ll learn what types of content your readers appreciate (and what they don’t respond to) and you’ll most likely get a better idea of where you fit into your niche. Knowing your place is very important for branding and creating a blog that is appealing to the readers that you are targeting. If you know precisely where you fit into your niche, you’re on the right track.

8. An Increasing Network of Bloggers

Networking is probably the most crucial aspect of blogging outside of content creation, and in some cases it can be even more important. If you are continually meeting new bloggers and strengthening the relationships that you have made, you will drastically be in a better position for the future. Building a network will help you to learn from others, gain valuable and loyal readers, increase inbound links, increase votes at social media sites, and much more.

9. A Knowledge of at Least 1 Specific Way to Get Targeted Readers to Your Blog

As you continue to blog, you will learn more about traffic generation and getting people to read and recognize what you have written. If you have even one specific method that consistently helps you to reach your target audience, you are better off than most bloggers. Maybe you have spent some time writing guest posts for other blogs in your niche, maybe you’ve had success with leaving intelligent and relevant comments at other blogs, or maybe you’ve developed a strong profile at a niche-specific social media website. Whatever the source is, if it is something that you can continue to use in the future, you are one step closer to blogging success.

10. Achievement of Goals

Many bloggers have long-term goals, such as making a living with a blog, or getting 10,000 subscribers. But what many bloggers lack are short-term goals that will help them to take the necessary steps towards those long-term goals. If you are setting monthly goals for blogging revenue, subscribers, traffic, etc. and you are achieving those goals, don’t give up because you are not getting to the long-term goals fast enough. Take pleasure in meeting your short-term goals and keep challenging yourself.

The post 10 Signs That Your Blog Is On The Right Track appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

Almost every blogger aims to grow their blog and reach a larger audience. Unfortunately, most new bloggers don’t know much about promoting a blog when they are just getting started. The good news is you will learn pretty quickly if you are consistently involved and working at promoting your blog. Here are ten things that I have learned to be true from my experience.

1. Building Significant Search Engine Traffic Will Take Time

New blogs generally take several months, at least, before they gain enough trust from search engines to produce any type of significant flow of traffic. If you are planning to focus on search engines as your primary source of traffic, you would be well advised to also focus on some other sources of traffic, especially in the early months.

Building a blog that is search engine-friendly is critical if you want to maximize search traffic, so take care of that from the start and focus on creating great content that others will talk about and link to.

2. Not All Traffic Is Equal

No two sources of traffic are quite the same. I get a good percentage of the traffic at my blog through social media, and I can attest to the fact that social media traffic is generally less responsive and less likely to stick around than visitors from most other sources. Focusing on stats without looking at the true results can cause a bit of an illusion. Sure, visitors are great, but are they leaving after being on the blog for 30 seconds and never returning?

Search engine traffic is highly sought after because these visitors are actively looking for what you have to offer. But other types of traffic have strong points too. Visitors who are referred from another blog will generally be more responsive since they have been recommended by someone they trust. Every source of traffic has pros and cons, so try to take these things into consideration when you are promoting your blog and analyzing the results.

3. Consistent Posting Is Key

Most bloggers need to keep publishing new posts in order to keep traffic at a certain level. Some bloggers are able to generate large amounts of search engine traffic to older posts to the point that traffic will be fairly sustained without new posts, but this is pretty rare. New posts keep subscribers coming back, they keep social media votes coming, and they keep adding new pages to search engine indexes.

Posting consistently doesn’t mean that you have to post every day, it simply means that you need to publish content on a regular basis, whatever that may be. Almost every blog that successfully draws traffic is publishing new posts with some consistency.

4. Consistent Traffic Is Almost Impossible

Although posting needs to be consistent to keep traffic levels up, that doesn’t mean that it will keep traffic levels consistent. Every blog has ups and downs and two days are rarely the same. This is a natural occurrence and it should be embraced or else it can become very frustrating. Make sure that you enjoy the times when traffic is high, and keep on plugging away to get through the slower times. Blogging would almost be boring is traffic levels didn’t fluctuate like they do.

5. Repeat Visitors Should Be the Goal

Yes, it’s great to see an impressive number of unique visitors arriving at your blog, but how many of them will be back? Repeat visitors are the lifeblood of blogs. Subscribers, of course, are most likely to keep coming back, so focusing on subscribers is typically a good thing.

Repeat visitors will not only help to improve your overall traffic flow and stats, more importantly they will be your most responsive visitors in terms of comments, social media votes, sales, and just about anything else. As they keep coming back and reading your blog, you will be earning more of their trust and your network will grow.

6. Links Help In Several Ways

Building inbound links is a priority for most bloggers, and for good reason. They drive click-through traffic from other blogs, they increase your exposure around the blogosphere, and they help to boost your search engine rankings. Link building is often prioritized because of search engine rankings, but the other factors should not be overlooked. If you blog in a competitive niche, recognition and exposure will be critical in convincing visitors that they should pay attention to you. Getting a few links from respected blogs can help with search engine traffic, but the added credibility that you get can be just as important, especially for newer bloggers.

7. Balance Is Important

Diversity in traffic will help you to avoid losing a huge percentage of your visitors if something unforeseen happens. Search engine rankings are not permanent, especially with Google being so ready and willing to penalize blogs who they feel have violated their guidelines. If you rely too heavily on search engine traffic you could find yourself losing a big portion of your traffic at any given time.

Also, social media traffic is extremely inconsistent, so just because you have been getting decent traffic doesn’t mean it will continue. The best approach is to spread things out and focus on growing traffic from several sources rather than just one. That way you will always be safe and you won’t depend on a particular source for your livelihood.

8. Smaller Sources of Traffic Shouldn’t Necessarily Be Ignored

Not all sources of traffic will send thousands of visitors, but that doesn’t mean that they are not valuable. For example, participating in forums is likely to drive some traffic to your blog, but not tons. However, those visitors can be very valuable because they have met you or learned from you through the forum and they’ll be more likely to subscribe and become a loyal reader.

Likewise, leaving comments on other blogs will bring some traffic, but it is rare that any one comment will bring a lot of visitors. Still, this traffic is valuable because many times they have clicked through due to something that you said catching their attention.

Don’t simply assume that traffic is measured only in terms of numbers. Smaller sources of traffic have been instrumental in building many successful blogs.

9. Networking Is Critical

All successful bloggers are surrounded by a strong network of other successful bloggers. This is something that I didn’t really think much about before I started blogging, but I quickly came to realize the importance of networking.

A strong network will provide you with friends and colleagues that can be a help when you need some advice, they can provide links to your blog, they can give you social media votes, they can be an inspiration and encouragement to you, and they can even wind up being your partners in future projects. Being a strong networker is all about being willing to help others and being proactive in meeting others.

10. Blog Traffic Can Be Bought for Relatively Little Money

If you are interested in getting some extra promotion or growing your blog quickly, there are a number of affordable advertising options that will drive real traffic to your blog. Pay Per Click ads can be very effective and inexpensive (depending on what words and phrases you bid on). StumbleUpon advertising is another option. You can purchase their traffic for just $0.05 per visitor. Even banner advertisements on other blogs can be relatively cheap. Running an ad for a month or more will give you exposure to a new audience and if you were to calculate a cost-per-click it is usually pretty low.

The post 10 Important Facts of Blog Promotion appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

In addition to maintaining my own blog, I write for several others. Paid blogging positions are very prevalent today as the demand for quality content continues to increase. This is a great opportunity for bloggers, and your blog can even help you by serving as a portfolio for those looking to hire writers. I’ve had some great experiences and learned a lot by writing for other blogs, and I think many Daily Blog Tips readers would benefit as well.

Why Write for Other Blogs?

Income – Obviously paid writing gigs are attractive because of the financial benefits. Many bloggers are trying to earn some money each month with advertisements and/or affiliate links. Writing can easily supplement that income and make your blogging efforts more productive. The pay will obviously vary from one situation to another, but there are opportunities for bloggers at all levels.

Name Recognition – Those that do paid blogging tend to get exposure from writing on different blogs. As people see you in more and more places they’ll start to remember you as a source of information on a particular subject. Take for example Chris Garrett. Chris writes for blogs such as the Blog Herald, Copyblogger, and Blogging Tips (and more). Not only does Chris benefit financially from his writing, but thousands of readers recognize him as an authority and that carries over into anything he does.

Networking – Anytime you’re writing for another blog, paid or unpaid, it’s a great chance to network with other bloggers. Building a network is crucial, and this is one of the best ways to do it. Other blogs are looking for writers. If you can provide them with superb content that readers like, you’ll make friends very quickly.

Learning – Writing for other blogs can be a real challenge. When you write for your own blog, you decide what gets published and what doesn’t. Writing for someone else can be a little more difficult, but it will push you and help you to develop better writing skills and to gain new knowledge. When you’re being paid for an article you’ll likely have a little more motivation to do your best work, and in my opinion this is a good type of pressure that helps a blogger to improve.

Variety – If you’re only writing for your own blog you probably cover the same topics on a regular basis and you reach basically the same audience week in and week out. Writing for other blogs will give you a chance to stretch your boundaries and explore topics that interest you but just don’t fit with your blog. Additionally, you’ll reach a new audience each time you write for another blog.

During the time that I’ve been doing paid writing for other blogs I’ve learned some things that help for finding new opportunities and improve the success of the projects. Here are some tips:

1. Start Slow. Don’t take on more than you can handle. If you’re new to paid blogging you may be looking at several opportunities and tempted to take on too much at one time. Maintaining your own blog is a lot of work in an of itself. You don’t want the quality of your blog or of your paid writing to suffer, so make sure you have the time to dedicate to anything you accept. Once you get accustomed to things you can certainly add more projects as you have time.

2. Pursue the Chance to Write Free Guest Posts. I know, this article is about writing paid blog posts, but most of the time you will have to get your name out there before paid opportunities present themselves. One of the goals of writing guest posts is to build name recognition so that others will think of you when they are looking to hire a writer. Plus, you never know when submitting a guest post can lead to an offer for a paid position, it has happened to me.

3. Post Your Availability. Make it known to others that you are available for hire. Consider posting about it at your blog or submitting your information on freelance writing sites. Blogger Jobs is a great place to post some information about yourself. I posted there and received 3 inquiries in about a week. Free classified sites like Craigslist are another option.

4. Check Blogging Job Boards. There are a number of places online where people who are looking to hire bloggers can post a job ad. Blogger Jobs, the ProBlogger Job Boards, and the Blogging Tips Marketplace are all great places to find paid positions.

5. Post Regularly On Your Own Blog. If your blog is going to serve as an effective portfolio to attract new gigs, it needs to be given the proper amount of attention. Don’t neglect to build your own blog while writing for others. After all, your blog is still your asset, while writing for others will only pay you as long as you are writing for them.

6. Build Social Media Profiles. If your paid blog posts draw a lot of traffic and generate attention, you’ll be much more in demand. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to use social media to drive traffic. Once you’ve written the post the work is not always complete. If you can submit the post to social media sites (or at least vote for it), you’ll be able to increase the amount of people that see it.

7. Don’t Always Pass On Lower-Paid Opportunities. Making money is obviously one of the primary reasons for being a paid blogger. However, there may be times when a lower paying job may have more to offer than just money, such as networking with someone influential or the chance to write for a particular blog. You may not be able to afford to take these jobs all the time, but consider the big picture. I recently took a lower paying job than I would normally like because it gave me the chance to write for a blog that is pretty well known. This type of opportunity may wind up leading to other more profitable jobs.

8. Make the Rounds. Once you’ve established how much you can handle, it’s a good idea to work for several different blogs, if possible, rather than always writing for the same one. You’ll meet more people, reach more readers, and very likely find even more opportunities.

9. Look for Regular, Repeat Jobs. Although you should look for chances to write for new blogs, it’s also nice to have one (or more) consistent jobs that will be steady income for you. Looking for work takes time, so having a regular column on a blog will often be more profitable.

Does anyone else have any tips that they would like to add?

The post Use Your Blog to Land Paid Writing Gigs: 9 Practical Tips appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

There are growing numbers of bloggers making money by writing for other blogs. With the popularity and success of multi-authored blogs and news-related blogs, this appears to be a trend that will continue as there is a considerable need for valuable, well-written content that draws attention. As a paid writer, if the work that you produce consistently draws traffic, comments, and links, blog owners will want you to write for them. You’ll have more repeat opportunities as well as more new opportunities that find you.

Social media provides an excellent opportunity for freelance bloggers to promote their writing and draw traffic and exposure. Many paid writers assume their job is over as soon as the post is submitted. However, a little bit of extra effort to promote that post with social media could make a world of difference in the success of the post and in the amount or work that you get. Blog owners are paying for results. If you can outperform other freelance bloggers by delivering some extra traffic with social media, your services will be more complete and more effective.

Why is Social Media a Great Fit for Freelance Bloggers?

1. Portability – With social media you can build profiles on various sites that will help you with just about anything that you write. You can essentially build profiles and take them with you from job to job. Whether you write for one blog or for ten, your profiles with social media can help you to promote it all. When you start a new gig writing for a different blog, your social media profiles are ready and able to produce results right away.

2. Noticeable Results – Many blog owners that are paying writers are routinely watching stats to see which writers and which posts are producing the best results. With social media you will be able to generate enough traffic to your writing that the blog owners will take notice.

3. It’s Free – Promoting your work with social media will cost you nothing. Once you have been active, learned how the sites work, and built profiles, you can quickly promote your work at no cost.

4. Exposure – There is almost no other way to get your work in front of as large of an audience as you can with social media. If you’re using the most appropriate sites and categories to promote your work, the visitors that arrive will be fairly well targeted.

My Experience Promoting Paid Blog Posts with Social Media:

5. StumbleUpon is Key – A decent StumbleUpon profile is extremely valuable. I’m not one of the top users, but my profile is effective enough that I can submit or review one of my articles and get the ball rolling. If the article is worthy, several of my friends will wind up seeing it and giving a thumbs up or a review, leading to more traffic. StumbleUpon is also very flexible. Almost anything you produce will have a place on StumbleUpon if it is high quality. Best of all, you can start using StumbleUpon and producing results amost immediately. It’s not like Digg where you have to have a very strong profile to have a good chance at drawing traffic.

I almost never give a thumbs up to content on my primary blog, as I leave it up to readers to determine whether or not it is worthy of a stumble. However, very frequently I’ll give a thumbs up to my work on other blogs. Submitting your own content to social media can be a sticky issue for some people. I personally don’t see any problem with promoting your own work on other blogs, but I would be interested to hear your opinions on the subject. From my perspective it’s just a little something extra that I am able to provide to the blog owner that is paying me for my work.

6. Don’t Ignore Niche Sites – If you tend to cover specific topics or industries in your various projects, niche social media sites can be another great resource. While niche sites will not be able to drive as high a volume of traffic as the major social media sites, the quality of traffic will be much higher and visitors will generally be more interested.

7. Sharing Can Help – Most social media sites allow some type of functionality for sharing links with your friends. When appropraite, be willing to share your work with friends that you think will be interested. Many bloggers do this regularly for their own work, but not too many do so for their paid writing.

Some Tips for Getting Started:

8. Start with Major Sites – Unless almost all of your paid writing is highly targeted on a specific niche, general social media sites will give you the best results. Building a profile with a site like StumbleUpon will allow you to promote a higher percentage of your work. If you are just getting started, focus on what will give you the best all-around results.

9. Go for the Most Noticeable Results – One of your goals should be to create results that will get noticed by blog owers. If they notice that your work is typically bringing a lot of traffic, your work will be more valuable to them. This is another reason to focus on major social media sites. If you’re writing for a blog that draws decent traffic, the blog owner may not think very much about a niche social media site that send a few hundred visitors to one of your posts. On the other hand, a few thousand visitors from a major social media site would be very noticeable.

10. Become an Avid User – Take the time to use the social media sites that you’ve targeted on a regular basis, not just when you need to promote one of your posts. Being a strong social media user involves much more than just promoting you own work. Get to know the site and be looking for opportunities to help others as well.

11. Don’t Force It – Not every blog post will be a good fit for social media. When you write something that just isn’t likely to draw much interest from this audience, don’t force it. You’ll have better results when you stick to promoting your best work that is well-suited to social media.

12. Build a Network of Friends – Regardless of which social media site you are using, friends are a significant part of your success. Be sure to dedicate enough time and effort to build up your social media relationships. Networks of friends aren’t only important on the social media sites themselves. Many bloggers are able to help promote their work by emailing a few other blogging friends to request social media votes when they need them. Building a strong network of other bloggers can be a big help in this way. Of course, you need to be ready and willing to help others whenever you can.

The post Freelance Bloggers: 12 Tips to Promote Your Work With Social Media appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

One of the most important decisions that you’ll will make when starting a new blog is choosing a topic or subject. You have the option of choosing a highly-competitive and crowded market, or you can select a niche with fewer existing blogs. Too many new bloggers don’t realize how much this decision will impact them down the road. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of blogging in a smaller niche.

Pros:

1. Less Competition. The most obvious advantage to being in a niche is that you’ll have less competition. You’ll have less competition for traffic, for product sales, for affiliate product sales and whatever else you do.

2. Easier to Get Visitors to Subscribe. In more competitive niches your visitors may already be subscribed to a number of other blogs on your topic. In this case it’s difficult to encourage them to add more reading to their routine. You really have to show how valuable your can be for them. But if you are blogging in a small niche your visitors may not be subscribed to any blogs of your kind. If they are interested in the subject they’re much more likely to subscribe.

3. Creating Unique Content is Easier. With less blogs covering your topic you will have an easier time writing blog posts that aren’t repetitive. Unique content is essential for any blog’s success regardless of what niche it is in, so having an easier time being unique is a big advantage.

4. Higher Value for Advertisers. Many blogs create income by selling ad space. If an advertiser is looking for highly-targeted traffic, a niche blog will be a better option for advertisers. Because of this, niche blogs can frequently charge more for ad space than another blog could with the same amount of traffic.

5. Less Competition for Advertisers. Niche blogs will also have less competition from other blogs that are looking to sell ad space for specific advertisers. Again, if advertisers are interested in the highly-targeted traffic that your blog can provide for them, they will have fewer options. This also helps to increase the rates that you can charge for ad space.

6. Easier to Retain Readers. With less competition from other blogs, your readers won’t have the option to unsubscribe and get the same or similar information somewhere else. Creating and retaining loyal readers is a key to successful blogging and is much easier for specific niche blogs.

7. The Novelty Factor. Being in a smaller niche will make it easier for visitors to remember you because you will be more unique. Don’t underestimate the importance of being able to create a memorable impression on visitors.

8. Higher Search Engine Rankings. Niche blogs usually will have an easier time achieving high search engine rankings because of the lack of competition and the specific keywords and phrases that searchers will use.

9. Easier Monetization. The traffic of a niche blog will usually be more valuable than the traffic of other blogs because it is highly targeted. With highly-targeted traffic and less competition, monetizing a niche blog becomes easier because there are not hundreds of other blogs trying to earn income from the same visitors.

Cons:

1. There’s No Guarantee the Niche Will Stay Small. Some blogs start in a small up-and-coming niche and before long they have much more competition.

2. Lower Traffic Potentials. Although it may be easier to create higher search engine rankings and higher subscription rates, blogs in small niches will still have lower potential amounts of traffic than blogs that cater to larger audiences. Social media websites favor topics that are of interest to a large number of people, and links can be harder to come by for niche blogs simply because there may be less websites and blogs interested in linking to that subject.

3. Less Options for Monetization. Although it may be easier to monetize a niche blog, you may also have fewer options. If you are looking to monetize a blog by selling affiliate products you may only have one or two options, whereas with a more popular subject you may literally have hundreds of options.

4. The Niche May Become Obsolete. Depending on the niche you choose, it may not be of any interest at some point in the future. Be careful when you choose a topic and make sure that it has staying power.

5. Less Search Volume. The potential for higher search engine rankings is somewhat offset by lower amounts of searches. Ideally, you’ll want to rank highly for common search phrases, but this may not be possible depending on your niche.

My blogging experience is in the highly-competitive subject of web design and internet marketing. I’ve found that these pros and cons need to be considered by new bloggers. I’ve had an easier time creating traffic because there are so many people interested in the topics that I cover, but getting truly loyal readers is much more difficult.

Social media has been the number 1 source of traffic for my blog, and I know this is the case for many blogs that cover similar topics. On the other hand, a highly specific niche blog may have a harder time creating social media traffic, but an easier time creating loyal readers.

Ways to Check the Amount of Competition Before Starting a New Blog:

• Perform a search at Technorati for keywords and phrases related to a niche.
• Perform a Google Blog search for keywords and phrases related to a niche.
• Set up a few Google Alerts to track new content that Google indexes on the subject.
• Use Google Trends to see the search volume of phrases.
• Use sources like Techmeme to see what topics are hot.

When deciding on a topic, you first and foremost must choose a topic that interests you enough to keep you motivated. Building a profitable blog takes a lot of consistent work, and this can be very difficult to accomplish if you don’t enjoy writing, reading, and learning about the issues and subjects that you cover.

If your interests lie in a subject area that is highly saturated you need to understand what you are up against and have the persistence to stick it out. If you decide to compete in a smaller niche you need to realize that you will be targeting a smaller audience than some other sites. While you may never reach the high traffic levels and subscriber counts of some of the top blogs, you will still have a realistic chance to earn money from your smaller niche.

Do you blog in a small niche? What challenges and struggles do you face that you think are related to the topic of your blog? What other advantages and disadvantages do you see for niche blogs?

The post The Pros and Cons of Niche Blogging appeared first on DailyBlogTips.com.

Changing themes is very common for bloggers. In addition to the option of changing from one free theme to another, many bloggers develop their own theme, make some customizations to an existing theme, or pay someone else to design one for them. Even if you are paying someone else to do this for you, you should still be very involved in the process to insure that you get the best possible end result. Regardless of whether you are doing the work yourself of having someone else do it, here are 11 factors that you should consider to create the perfect theme for your blog.

11 Factors to Consider:

1. Complexity of the Re-Design

Do you want to completely change the look of the blog, or would you like to keep some elements of the design so that the blog is still recognizable to visitors? There is no right or wrong decision here, it just depends on your situation and what you need to accomplish with the re-design. Some bloggers are happy with the current look and just interested in freshening things up a bit and making some improvements in certain areas. Other bloggers are willing to completely strip down the current look and go for something totally new.

When Chris Garret had his blog re-designed several months ago, he kept the look very much intact and just came up with a more modern-looking theme. On the other hand, when Darren Rowse had ProBlogger redesigned, the result was a vastly different look. While there is no right or wrong method, you’ll need to decide this at the start of the design process to get things headed in the direction that you want.

2. Brand Establishment

Does your blog already have an established branded image? If so, you may want to keep enough elements of your current design to retain that image. You don’t necessarily have to be an A-list blogger to have an image that is established in the minds of your visitors. If your blog is growing and your audience has become familiar with the brand that you have established, you should at least consider how a change in design could affect this.

3. Colors

Some bloggers choose to keep the same color scheme when developing a new blog theme, and others opt for something totally different. This also goes back to a decision of staying consistent with the image that you have been building, or going for a complete overhaul of the design. If you’re not happy with your current color scheme, it’s probably a good idea to make some changes. To make this process a bit easy, you can take advantage of resources that are available like the palettes at COLOURlovers or the sample schemes at ColorSchemer.

4. Featuring of Best Content

Most bloggers like to promote their best work by making it easy for visitors to find. This helps the blogger by showcasing the most popular posts that will help to increase pageviews and subscribers, and it helps visitors by making it easy for them to find the most useful information on the blog. There are any number of different ways to feature your best work. Here at Daily Blog Tips Daniel has a list of popular articles in the right sidebar, and many other bloggers also use this approach. Others like Courtney Tuttle and Caroline Middlebrook effectively use the area above blog posts for this purpose. Which method you use is up to you, but this is something that you should think about before you start to work on the layout of your blog so that you have adequate space.

5. Monetization

Banner ads are obviously very common on blogs today, and paid text links are also pretty common. Before you develop the layout of your theme, be sure to consider where these ads will be located. In order for the theme to maintain an attractive appearance, the ads will need to fit nicely into the design. You’ll need to take into consideration the size and dimensions of the banner ads that you want to sell (125 x 125 is the most common right now) so that the design will work accordingly.

6. Readability

One of the most important factors of blog design is readability. The whole purpose of a blog is to provide content for visitors and subscribers to read, so naturally you will want to make this as easy as possible. Readability can be affected by elements like background color, text color, contrast, fonts and typography, spacing/whitespace, etc. The elements that you are adding to your blog should not detract from the visitors’ ability to read the content.

7. Subscription Options

In order to maximize the number of subscribers that you receive you will probably want to include links to your RSS feed and to your email subscription in a prominent place on the page. This is important to consider before the layout is developed. Where do you want these links and icons to be placed? Be sure there is an appropriate space allocated for them in the layout.

8. Ease of Navigation

Visitors will enter your blog from numerous different pages, and most of the time they will not come through your front page. They may find one of your posts through a search engine, through a link, or through social media.

9. Full Posts or Excerpts?

At some point you’ll need to decide if you want your front page to display full posts or excerpts (Daniel wrote an article on the advantages and disadvantages last year). While this doesn’t need to be the first decision you make, it can have a dramatic effect on the look and design of your front page. Many blogs that display excerpts use custom excerpts to really improve the look of the home page. See PSDTuts for an example of a blog that has a great-looking front page using excerpts.

10. Social Media Integration

Most bloggers really on social media to send a portion of their visitors, and many attempt to optimize their pages and posts for social media traffic by adding buttons, widgets, or links to specific social media sites. Again, this is something that you will need to consider when deciding on a page layout so that the social media elements look like they belong on the page and so they attract the attention of visitors. First, you’ll need to decide which social media sites you want to target, and then you’ll need to find the buttons or widgets that you want to use. Another option is to use a general widget like Share This .

11. Load Speed

Many of your visitors will have a short attention span, and if your pages load too slowly they may leave before ever seeing your blog. Adding too many widgets, plugins, large images, video, etc. to your blog can slow your pages to a crawl. You’ll need to find the optimal point where your blog includes everything necessary but not anything excessive that will slow down the page loads too far. Self SEO has a free page speed test that you can use.

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