SafetyNames Blog

8 elements of a successful blog

Patricia — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 04:42:04 +0000

To create a successful blog, you’ll need to focus on more than just content. What you write and publish is important, of course. However, there are certain elements your blog will need to have to reach its full potential.

From design to functionality to user experience, there are multiple essential components to consider. Optimizing these areas of your blog helps you attract more readers, keeps your audience engaged, and can even improve the ranking of your articles in search engines.

How to build your blog to be the best it can be

In this post, we’ll be taking a look at eight of the most important elements you need to build a successful blog. The goal is to give you a deeper understanding of how these components benefit your blog and why they are important. We’ll also let you know the tools you’ll need to do the job.

Without further ado, here are eight elements that all successful blogs should have.

1. SEO-friendly post titles and content

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a major focus of website developers and content creators, and with good reason. If you want to have your posts reach the widest possible audience, you need your content rank higher on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

When you write a blog post, make the title something catchy that you would be tempted to click on yourself. Avoid using long titles and tell the reader what they will gain or learn from reading your post.

If you are writing a post about a specific topic, choose a keyword and focus the post around it. For example, if you are writing about which dog food brands are the best value, you could choose a keyword like “what dog food to buy” and make sure to use the phrase throughout your post. This is what is known as “keyword density,” and most estimates recommend your chosen keyword should make up around 1-2% of all content in the post.

2. Google Analytics tracking

The best way to improve your articles and attract more readers is to know how your posts are performing. Once you add Google Analytics to your website, you can track where your readers are coming from, see what they do while on your page, find the top referral sources to your posts, and much more.

This information is essential to adapting your content and blog approach. It’s also a game changer if you want to grow your audience quickly.

Our team of professionals can set up Google Analytics on your site today.

3. Mobile-friendly design

Since 2016, mobile browsing has been the main way internet users access the web. If your blog isn’t designed to be both functional and appealing on mobile, you risk losing a huge part of your potential audience. Google and other search engines put an emphasis on mobile friendly design when determining SEO rank as well.

To make your website mobile friendly, start with designing a mobile version of your blog. Make sure that page load speeds are quick as well, since slow loading pages will drive readers away before they see your content.

4. Detailed author page

Author pages serve a few purposes, namely giving your readers background about who you are, what you know, and why you run your blog. This helps foster trust and builds a more personal relationship with your audience. Author pages are also required by Google’s Publisher Center in order to have your posts be included in Google News.

Your author page can include some background about your expertise or why you are sharing your views. Linking to your social media on your author page is also a great way to get readers more engaged with your blog, and gives you the ability to cross promote your content to them on multiple platforms.

5. Buttons for readers to share your posts

Reader referrals are key when growing your blog. They are a simple but essential way to increase blog traffic. Give your readers the opportunity to share your posts on their own social media pages, by email, or by direct link all with a simple click by adding share buttons. This element is quick to set up, and can make a major difference for your blog’s total reach.

6. Modern and appealing design

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but most readers will judge your blog by its design. Having a cohesive and modern-looking theme goes a long way to keeping your blog readers engaged. If your blog uses an outdated style, it can affect the opinion readers have of your content before they give it a fair chance.

Appealing blog designs are often simple and understated, which keeps the focus on your content. You don’t want to use distracting colors and wacky fonts that take away from your work.

7. An active comment section

Your readers are the most essential part of your blog. The blog comment section is one of the best places that you can connect with your audience, as it helps you create a devoted community of readers and can also increase the SEO power of your posts.

You can start generating comments on your blog by posting comments yourself on other blogs that cover similar topics. This allows you to promote your work to a relevant audience and grow your readership quickly. When you have comments on your posts, be sure to reply so you keep your readers engaged and broaden your core audience.

8. “Contact me” page

Developing an engaged audience will be crucial to your blog’s success. By adding a contact page for your readers, you establish a personal line of communication and build trust with them. Contact pages are also a great place to add links where readers can receive more of your content, like a newsletter signup form. The more opportunity you give your readers to engage with your work, the higher the chance they will keep coming back to your blog.

Wrapping it all up

Whether you’re just launching a blog for the first time or need help taking your blog to the next level, these eight elements are essential for any successful blog to have. Google Analytics is your key to unlocking insights that can help you build your blog efficiently, while SEO-optimized content will get your work in front of a wider audience. Mobile-friendly and appealing blog design keeps your audience on your page, while your active comment section and dedicated contact page give you the chance to deepen your readers’ connection with you.

Adding these elements to your blog will set you up for growth and success, and is easier than you think. If you’d like an expert’s guidance in adding these elements to your blog, reach out to the Safetynames team to get started with our Managed Website Service.

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Do domain names matter for social media influencers in 2020?

admin — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 07:25:08 +0000

Do domain names matter is a question you might have been asking yourself for a while. The following blog post is a modified version of an article which was first published on Medium in January of 2020. It tries to shed some insight into this question of whether domain names still matter in 2020.

I’ll never work with computers!

I’ve been in the domain industry for much longer than I ever thought possible. I always said I would not work with computers. My dad taught informatics/ computer sciences at university so I wasn’t particularly interested in the topic.

Straight after completing my Masters degree, I joined two friends and their startup which set out to rid the world of spam emails. This is when I first heard (I mean really heard) about domain names and their importance and how the internet works. We succeeded making the business a success. It sold to a company which one year later got listed at the NYSE. Spam seems to not have gone away… but you can fight it with our software SpamExperts.

Feeling burned out, I took a short break and then decided to join the second largest domain registrar in the US. My day-to-day was creating new business and negotiating contracts with and about domain names. After about two years there, I was invited to join the team of one of our suppliers and to move to sunny Santa Monica (CA). The supplier was a registry operator, which is something like the wholesaler of domain names to a registrar. My mission to escape “computers” was nothing but a faint memory.

Online, Simple & Secure

I started SafetyNames about a year and a half ago. My mission was simple: get small businesses online. Or, to be more accurate, get small businesses that don’t have a clue about domain names, web hosting, SSL certificates, email etc., online.

I’ve heard many people ask me over the past year or so: does generation Z still need domain names? Should I not just start my business on Facebook or twitter? In short, do I still need a domain name in 2020?

While my view certainly isn’t unbiased, the answer is a strong and resounding: YES! Domain names matter very much! Even if you’re a social media influencer, chances are that your income from this do not pay for rent, food, and new gear you might need now and then. Sooner or later, you will want to start not giving the lion share of the profits from content you create to the owners of the platform. Instead, use social media only as a channel to bring people to your own business. I’ve noticed that lots of social media influencers share their “gear recommendations” etc. via Amazon’s Affiliate program and other platforms.

But the people that are truly killing it, they have their own website. Their own shop. Their own brand that isn’t exposed to being kicked off a platform with no chance of ever getting access back. The merely use social media as a channel to drive traffic to their website, which, as it turns out, is attached to a domain name.

Choosing wisely

And choice has become abundant. While your favorite .com may not be available anymore now, there are many cool new domain endings such as .me, .online, .xyz, hell there even is a .horse if that’s what you focus on.

What do you do? Do you have a social media following and use it in conjunction with a domain name? Do you think domain names are totally 2019?

The post Do domain names matter for social media influencers in 2020? appeared first on SafetyNames Blog.

How do I register a domain name?

admin — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 01:05:08 +0000

Small businesses (still) need to register domain names

You want to know how to register a domain name? In a world full of social media gurus and brands purely existing on Instagram or Facebook, you might think owning a domain name is no longer required for your business. Owning your brand name, however, is crucial for many reasons because it shows legitimacy of your business and allows for customizations. With your domain registered, you can create a website on a memorable piece of internet real estate and really show off your brand.

Why register a domain name?

“So why should I register a domain name?” you might ask. While there are many reasons why you should register a domain name, this article is meant to give an overview on how to actually do it. The key reasons to register a domain name are:

Own your brand, protect your trademark
Get a professional email address like info@YourBrand.com
Create a website that matches your brand
Own your customer relationship and billing
Create trust and credibility with new customers
Get analytics and analyze customer journeys

How do I register a domain name?

The SafetyNames team put together a short video on how to register a domain name with SafetyNames. The text under the video is just a transcript of the audio.

Video – How do I register a domain name?

Source Youtube video

How to find a good domain name

Today I’m going to show you how to very easily register a domain name with SafetyNames.

First of all open your browser window and go to safetynames.com. Type the domain name that you’re after and hit enter on your keyboard.

In this example I’m going to pretend to be a surfer that also loves coffee and wants to open a coffee shop. I type in caffeineandwaves and hit enter. SafetyNames will automatically search for available domain names, which match my search query. I like the .com ending so I go ahead and add caffeineandwaves.com to my cart. Next I click the checkout button.

Recommended add-ons

In the configuration panel I choose free DNS management as well as ID protection to make sure nobody can see my personal details. Next, I hit continue to get to the cart overview and then click on checkout to finalize everything.

Auto login feature

One of my favorite SafetyNames features is the convenient option to sign up with your Google, your Facebook, or twitter account. If you already have an account with us and are logged in you can skip this step. Either fill out your details here or hit the “already registered” button in the top right corner. I already created my account with Google so I’m just going to hit the sign in with Google button. Once logged in, you see all your personal details one more time and you can choose a payment method or if you’d like to use available credit in your SafetyNames account. I’m choosing my available account balance to place the order.

Hit complete order, to complete the purchase. It only takes a few seconds for the order to be completed and activated within SafetyNames. You can see the overview of all the products that you own with SafetyNames and you can you can click on “domains” to see the domain you just registered.

Protect your brand now!

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It’s 2020 – Time to Setup a Personal Email Address

admin — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 19:33:05 +0000

Welcome everyone and Happy New Year! We are now in 2020 and the online world is continuing to grow at an exponential rate. We took some time last year to speak with some of our customers to see what it is that customers are interested in purchasing and why.

The biggest desire amongst our customers was setting up their own personal email address such as info@YourBusiness.com or John@BobsShowers.com

Why is it that customers are wanting their own personal email address? It is because a personal email address makes you and your business look professional.

The post It’s 2020 – Time to Setup a Personal Email Address appeared first on SafetyNames Blog.