It's all about Presentation

They say you only get one chance to make a first impression. I think this hold true to blogs and websites alike. I read a lot of blogs and visit a lot of websites that deal with preparedness and survival. Not only survival blogs but other blogs in other genres. The blogs that are most popular bring something to the table others don't. We're in competition with other survival blogs for readers. As a moderator you have to provide the reader with a reason to visit your blog, and not only that but return to it for more content. This is where your first impression comes into play.

You're content and appearance go hand in hand. Ultimately the content is most important, but appearance is more important in the beginning. A visually appealing blog will give readers the impression that you're professional, and serious about the site or organization (APN). This is where you hook the reader. Keep the reader coming back with desirable content. Make your blog flashy also. People love pictures, lists, diagrams, and colors. Look at Kellene Bishop's blog Preparedness Pro. She has a great looking site and always puts images in her posts. Her site is very popular and I'm sure gets a lot more hits than we do.

When I say we're in competition I don't mean that in a sense what we're out to steal others traffic. We're all working together with a common goal, but in reality we are in a race to get the traffic to us. To do that we must provide visually appealing blogs with daily (at least 1 good post per day) content that is going to benefit people. Most of us follow other blogs. Look at the popular ones, take notes on what they do, and apply that (with your own style) to your network.