by May Monten

Created on: May 02, 2010   Last Updated: February 27, 2012

A blog is actually a collection of several different types of elements, all sitting on the same page.

• Posts 

Posts are the lifeblood of a blog.  Frequent, informative and/or entertaining posts are what your visitors are looking for and what will keep them coming back.

The rest of the elements of a blog play a supporting role.  You could have a blog which contained only posts and nothing else, but the following elements, which are common in successful blogs, add extra value to a blog:

• Blogroll 

A blogroll is a place to put links to your favorite blogs, so that you can recommend them to your readers.  If you have a personal blog, your blogroll may consist of the blogs of your friends and family.  If you have a blog focused on a particular topic, your blogroll will point to other blogs on that topic.

• Navigation aids 

The front page of your blog shows only your most recent posts.  The rest drop off, into the archives.  But you don't want to let your fabulous posts remain unread just because they are no longer on the front page.  The problem is, how do you draw your readers' attention to your older posts?

This is where navigation aids come in.  You can breathe new life into old posts by using a widget that places a list of your most popular posts in the sidebar, or a widget that lists the posts with the most comments.  You could also hand-pick the posts that you consider the most important and type them into a box in the sidebar.

LinkWithin is a fantastic widget that places thumbnails of images from related posts at the bottom of all of your posts.  My personal experience is that people love to click on these, and using this widget has increased my internal click-around rate significantly.

• Labels, categories, and tags 

Using carefully-chosen labels (in Blogger) or categories and/or tags (in WordPress) does two very important things for your blog:  It helps readers with navigation, and it helps your posts rank well in Google.

• Static pages 

In addition to posts, which travel down the page and eventually fall off, you can also have static pages, which are always accessible from tabs or links on the top (or side) of every page.  Static pages have long been a feature of WordPress.  In 2010, Blogger introduced them as well.  Common uses of static pages are to create an "About" page and a "Contact Me" page.

There are many more blog elements than the ones listed above, and part of the fun of blogging is exploring what is available for you to put on your page.  The ones listed above, though, are the ones that are probably the most crucial for making your blog successful.

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