Blog Archives
Blog Archives
Your blog will feature at most a dozen articles on your front page, and when users pay you a visit, thats all theyll see. But once youve been blogging for a few days, youll have written posts that begin to scroll off the page to be lost to your readers and history. Or are they? Theyre not lost if you have an easily-accessible archive.
An archive is simply a collection of posts that are no longer displayed on your main page. When someone comes to your blog, they are generally greeted by a page with the name index.html or something similar. The index page displays the content of some of your recent posts, but each of those posts also has an individual name. When those posts are archived, they are available through search engines either on your site or across the web so readers can find what youve written or presented in the past. As your collection of posts grows, youll need to ensure that your readers have a way to easily find those prior posts, either through a search box on your site or through an object that allows the reader to browse either by subject or by date.
With your information and pictures archived, your site will be well on its way to being the kind of reference that people will read, not only to find out what youre saying today, but to search out information youve shared since the first day you began your Blog Empire.
Blog Artwork
Blog Artwork
As much as your blog resembles others, there are ways in which your blog will be must be unique. The first is, obviously, your title. The second is going to be artwork that complements it. On a blog titled, The Privateer, a ship would be a complementary masthead. A German shepherd dog would not. But whether your title is relevant to your content, your artwork should be relevant to your title if possible. The image and title are part of your brand, the image you want your readers to remember and come back for more of. They should send a single message to your reader at first glance.
That means professional quality artwork. It does not have to be professionally created, but it must be of high quality. Create it yourself only if youre good enough at it that people would pay you to do theirs.
A couple of examples from political sites will illustrate:
Power Line has its name, literally in lights, with lightning striking from each end. Could it be any more powerful?
Red State shows a map of the United States with red from sea to shining sea. Its not only their masthead, but their goal.
Daily Kos goes for a more artistic look, with an orange-and-black picture background and the name in bold white. The picture need not relate directly to the title because the title is a personal name, but it must (and does) look professional.
What they have in common is professionalism and uniqueness. Your Blog Empire should exude the same professional seriousness as the best blogs. After all, youll be joining them!