The truth is, when you are a blogger, anything you come across online and offline can be a new post inspiration. It’s then left for you to decide if it’s something you want to spend time developing or not, something worth sharing with your audience or not.

I am a huge fan of the boss comedian, Alibaba GCFR and I follow him religiously on Instagram – @alibabagcfr. Oh yes! Me sef sabi famz. In fact, I turned on post notification on his page, so I get a notification whenever he uploads anything on his Instagram page and Oh! My Daddy Alibaba can post for Africa…LOL the fact that I am not tired already means I am a true fan o. Sometimes, when I get too busy for Instagram, I make sure to look through his posts to catch up on whatever I might have missed when I can.

So this morning, I went through his Instagram page and I saw the image below:

Of course I was curious. I went to the image and realised he was talking about his blog and that the link to his blog can be found in his bio. Are you surprised? Bloggers plenty oh, it’s just painful that there is no way to differentiate the gossip bloggers from bloggers like us, so at the end of it all, we all are bloggers sha…LOL

Anyways, I rushed to the blog and was going to do what I do to any blog I am interested in and love – subscribe via email! That way, I can get notification each time a new post is published. But low and behold, I found none. Another sad face.  So I went to drop a comment on his page to ask that a subscribe via email button be activated for his blog. I hope his busy schedule allows him see it sha.

Now that I have spent time to explain where the inspiration behind this post came from, here are 5 things a standard blog must have;

Do follow me on Instagram – @elsieisy , Thank you

1. Subscribe button

There are thousands of blogs in Nigeria my dear fellow blogger, thousands! There are millions in the world and we all are on this market world wide web, hustling for customers readers. Yes you will always have your unique trybe as a blogger but you need to make it easier for your trybe to connect with you when they want to. A reader might not remember the name of the blog where he or she has gotten great content from but once they see the subscribe button and feel they would want more from a blog, they drop their email and that begins a relationship between your blog and that reader. Now, for that reader to remain subscribed or not is another issue entirely.

Click HERE to subscribe to this blog via email

2. Contact details or form

I have been on some blogs and I was so shocked when I could not find contact details. I was stunned! Common! So I go through your blog, I love your content and I want to ask question or perhaps, I want to place some form of advert on your blog but I cannot reach you. Make it easy for your readers and potential advertisers and sponsors. Create a contact page with a form. Embedding your email address on your about page is not enough.

Click HERE to contact Elsieisy blog

3. Search bar

So someone whispers to a friend or family, stating that he or she read an awesome post about long distance relationship on Elsieisy blog and goes further to nudge them to visit your blog and read that post. Now, the discussion was offline and these are offline relationships, they couldn’t copy and paste link as would have been possible online but he or she provides your blog name, believing that google will do the rest. Google delivers your blog when searched, the reader gets there and realises there is no search button on your blog to find the post about Long distance relationships, what happens? Making it possible for readers to easily find and search your archives will get them more involved with your content and keep them coming back for more.

4. Easy comment procedure.

I read on some blog long time ago why we can or cannot disable comments on our blog when we want to. As much as the arguments were valid, I strongly believe the comment section on a blog should be enabled and made very easy for your readers to drop their opinion, no matter how contrary it is to your view. Some bloggers make the process very difficult because they are trying to keep spammers away. Yes spammers are annoying, I get minimum of 300 spam comments daily, it’s crazy but I don’t have to worry about that because I have a plugin that arrest all those spams in a way that it doesn’t come on my blog or affect my blog negatively. I get to see the spam comment, no one does and my blog remains safe. So rather than close your comment box or make the process difficult, I suggest you find the right plugin to secure your blog

5. Social sharing buttons and RSS feed

If blogging for you is serious business, then having your social sharing button and RSS feed is extremely necessary. If your content is funny, interesting, compelling, educating, sarcastic or whatever a good content is to you, then your readers will want to share and that is the major way a blog gets to grow. Its more like referral in business. So if you do not tell your client to never refer you in doing business, then you must never have a blog without social sharing buttons. For RSS feed, people still follow and read blogs via RSS feeds. So you might want to activate that for your blog. Its very easy.

Are you a blogger? If yes, what is that essential thing you think a blog must have? If no, what do you expect to see on any blog to make your experience better?

Image source – forbes.com