What Makes a Good Blog?

While finding the perfect blog is a fools game, there are certainly ways of defining what makes some blogs better than others.  Years of writing about my own creative ambitions have given me some perspective, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm still learning how I can improve.  In an online community saturated with cookie cutter content, here are a few simple things I've noticed that make for the best blogs.

1.  Passion and Purpose

The best blogs are created and maintained based on a true love and admiration for their topic or focus.  When visiting blogs like this you get a sense that the writer or writers are truly invested in what they're saying.  You get a sense of their character, their quirks, and how they speak.  They share goals, stories, and use their personal experiences to create a connection and bring their own spin to otherwise familiar content.  In doing this, the best blogs create an underlying thread that link their entire presentation together.  This is true of photo and video blogs too, or even those based strictly on sharing others content. 

2. Dedication

Regular updates with a focus on originality are the hallmarks of a great blog.  They make following easy and they reward readers by providing an experience that's personable, unique, entertaining, fun, and/or helpful.  When visiting blogs like this it's always clear that an effort has been made and that the author put thought into their process. In short, it's obvious they care.

3. Structure and Style

Proper punctuation, paragraphs, grammar, and a purposeful layout are always evident on the best blogs.  Nothing is harder to read than a rant of blunders presented haphazardly.  This is incredibly easy to do, but sub par blogs are always the first to ignore this rule. 

4. Evolution

Great blogs and bloggers are those who are always striving to be better.  They see what everyone else does, and try to do a bit more.  In turn, they inspire their readers to share their own ideas, to create their own blogs, and to do better.  The best blogs make it clear that they're trying to be memorable and different by continually challenging themselves.  In short, great blogs are those that are ambitious and steadily built upon.

These things are general and relatively straightforward, but it shouldn't be surprising that if you want people to visit your blog and share your content that you have to work at it.  You are, after all, competing for strangers time and attention.  For more ideas, check out my earlier post on how to keep your blog original.