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RE: Getting the Party Started

“Cow has a point.”

I’m posting this in response to an interesting post Jon Cow made on his blog entitled “Getting the Party Started“. The original intent was to post this as a comment, but I decided it was just getting a little too lengthy. I also thought I could make use of the methods in his post.

This isn’t so much a response on the post itself, but something I thought goes right along with it that can’t be without mention.

When you have those 20 posts of awesome content and you are ready to start making your blog popular, I think there is one other huge aspect that you have to think about. What is it you say? Well it’s your design! I think to stand out in the blogging world you are going to not only need great content, but a good design that users can remember you by.

The look of the site is a pretty big deal for me. I never subscribe to blogs, I visit them every time. So even if the blogger’s content is A++, if the site sucks I might not be coming back. A prime example for me was Joel Comm’s old adsense littered blog. Even though I knew the content was decent, I never enjoyed coming back to the site because it only seemed like he was trying to make some cash. It really bothered me.

I think the quality of the design in part might also have an effect on how appealing the content looks to someone. i.e. A good design only makes the content sound even better. I have noticed that if I like a website’s design, I tend to indulge deeper into the content than I would normally do. I get hooked quickly on a good design, even despite what the site has to offer.

You do have to have some content though, this kind of goes back to one of my old posts “Getting people to read your blog“. A design is nice, but when all is said and done you still need something good to keep the reader engaged. This might not be so in certain cases, but in a blog you better believe it.

All in all, it takes a good combination of both content and design to make it in the long run. Great post Cow!

I dunno, just some thoughts. What do you think?

Nick

P.S. I hope it all makes sense, I just woke up and can barely think yet!