By home base, I mean a central hub for your content. One blog or website that you can direct everyone to and easily be found on the Internet. This blog is my home base. It’s where I direct all of my friends/followers from all of my social profiles and communities.
Allow me to explain a few key factors about establishing your home base:
Why Blogging is Important
Not everyone needs to have a blog as their home base, but it certainly helps from a branding perspective. If the goal is to get found, it is important to create content. Both search engines and people like content, and the more you put out the more likely you are to be discovered by interested audience members.
Keep It Simple
There is no need to go over the top with your blog. Everything from the domain name you choose to the layout is important and the simpler it is to remember or navigate the better. Avoid complicated or long domain names and sophisticated, vibrant layouts. Make it easy to read your content.
Make It Easy to Communicate
Speaking of keeping it simple, it should be relatively easy for your viewers to communicate with you on your home base. Strategically place social icons on your site and make subscribing to your content easy. Also, make sure it’s easy for people to comment on your posts. Let them be social!
Get Rid of Clutter
I know there are a lot of cool plugins and widgets out there and it can be very tempting to just load up your sidebar with cool features, but try to keep it basic. You can test widgets to see if they’re having an impact on your viewers or not. If they aren’t, get rid of them. Avoid having too many ads too. It’s okay to make money on your blog, but don’t sacrifice all the good real estate.
Register/Claim Your Home Base
Continually try to make it easy to be found online. Register your blog with all of the top search engines and claim your domain on sites like Technorati. Try to make use of any platform that pops up. If it is somewhat popular you can always find wealth in readership there.
Image Credit: onyks
