21 Essential Blog Features For A Widely Successful Blog

Blogging For Beginners To Get Started (24 Tips & Hacks To Start Now)

A Detailed Step-By-Step Guide To Start A Blog In 2024

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Are you new to the blogging world and looking to create a successful blog that stands out from the crowd? Understanding the essential features that make a blog successful can be overwhelming when you're just starting. Fret not, as we've covered you with all the crucial information. Discover the key features that make a blog successful and take your blog to the next level with these tips on blogging for beginners.

Get ready to explore the blogging world with Feather's solution, Notion to blog. This valuable tool can act as a guiding hand to help you learn about the critical features that make a blog successful. So, all you need to do is create engaging content, and the rest will follow. With our comprehensive guide, you'll be on your way to creating a successful blog in no time.

What Is A Blog?

A blog is a website centered around “posts,” which are individual entries that may include text, images, and videos. Each blog post has its title and exists as a piece of media, though bloggers sometimes write a series of blog posts where each post continues the last. When a blog post is published on a website, readers from all over the world can check out the blog post and leave a comment.

You might wonder why somebody would want to share information about their lives, their hobbies, or their business with strangers on the internet. The truth is that people love to read blogs, and their massive popularity has made them one of the very best marketing tools and a great means to build a community.

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11 Common Types Of Blogs

1. Personal Blogs

Personal blogs offer individuals a platform to express their thoughts, experiences, and viewpoints without any constraints or restrictions. Whether it's sharing daily challenges, personal musings, or unique insights, personal blogs showcase the author's individuality and storytelling prowess.

By weaving a tapestry of personal narratives, personal blogs create a deep and intimate connection with readers, allowing them to glimpse the author's life and perspectives. The internet transforms into a diverse mosaic of human expressions through personal blogs, offering readers a rich tapestry of personal anecdotes and reflections.

2. Lifestyle Blogs

Lifestyle blogs offer a holistic and eclectic mix of topics that define an individual's lifestyle. Covering areas such as fashion, beauty, travel, wellness, home decor, and more, lifestyle blogs curate a narrative that reflects the blogger's unique perspective on living life to the fullest.

By sharing personal experiences, tips, and insights, lifestyle bloggers inspire readers to enrich their lives and discover new passions. With vibrant visuals and engaging storytelling, lifestyle blogs bridge the gap between personal aspirations and shared experiences, creating a sense of community and inspiration online.

3. Travel Blogs

Travel blogs act as digital passports to a world of exploration, taking readers on journeys to diverse destinations through vivid tales and immersive accounts. Authored by passionate globetrotters and seasoned travelers, travel blogs offer valuable insights into various locales, travel tips, and firsthand experiences.

Travel blogs ignite readers' wanderlust and foster a deeper appreciation for the world's wonders by showcasing different landscapes, cuisines, and cultures. These blogs transport audiences to distant lands through descriptive narratives and stunning visuals, shaping their travel dreams, plans, and experiences.

4. Food Blogs

Food blogs tantalize readers with delectable recipes, culinary explorations, and savory stories, creating a feast for the senses. Authored by food enthusiasts, chefs, or home cooks, food blogs celebrate diverse cuisines, culinary traditions, and the joy of sharing good food.

Through mouthwatering recipes, vibrant photography, and personal anecdotes, food bloggers make cooking an accessible and enjoyable journey for their audience. By blending creativity, passion, and storytelling, food blogs transform the act of dining into a visually enticing and communal experience that inspires readers to embark on culinary adventures.

5. Fashion Blogs

Fashion blogs serve as digital runways where style enthusiasts, trendsetters, and fashionistas converge to share their sartorial insights, inspirations, and aesthetic expressions. Authored by fashion influencers, designers, or dedicated enthusiasts, these blogs curate outfits, trends, and style advice, reflecting the dynamic nature of the fashion industry.

From street style photography to runway show analyses, fashion blogs offer a platform for self-expression and exploration of individual identity through clothing. By celebrating creativity, authenticity, and personal flair, fashion blogs influence how people approach and appreciate the art of dressing, shaping style preferences and trends in the digital landscape.

6. Tech Blogs

Tech blogs provide a virtual space for technology enthusiasts, industry experts, and curious minds to explore the latest innovations, gadgets, and digital trends. Authored by tech-savvy individuals, industry professionals, or tech enthusiasts, these blogs offer insights into cutting-edge technologies, software, hardware, and emerging tech trends.

Tech bloggers demystify complex concepts, evaluate gadgets, and predict the future of technology, empowering readers to navigate the tech landscape confidently. By bridging the gap between tech advancements and end-users, tech blogs play a crucial role in shaping the digital conversation and aiding readers in leveraging technology's potential.

7. Health and Wellness Blogs

Health and wellness blogs offer inspiration, information, and guidance to individuals seeking a holistic approach to well-being. Authored by health professionals, fitness experts, nutritionists, or wellness enthusiasts, these blogs cover topics like physical fitness, nutritious recipes, mental health strategies, and mindfulness practices.

Health and wellness bloggers share relatable narratives, evidence-based information, and actionable tips to aid readers in making informed lifestyle choices. By fostering community and support, these blogs encourage individuals on their transformative journeys toward optimal well-being, promoting healthier living in an increasingly health-conscious society.

8. Business and Entrepreneurship Blogs

Business and entrepreneurship blogs act as virtual boardrooms, providing insights, strategies, and valuable knowledge for aspiring entrepreneurs, business enthusiasts, and industry leaders. These blogs are authored by successful entrepreneurs, business leaders, and industry experts and cover startup advice, business trends, marketing strategies, and leadership principles.

Business bloggers share experiences, lessons learned, and practical tips to navigate the challenges and opportunities in the business world. By empowering readers with real-world anecdotes, expert analyses, and actionable advice, business and entrepreneurship blogs help individuals make informed decisions and succeed in the dynamic business landscape.

9. Educational and How-to Blogs

Educational and how-to blogs serve as digital classrooms, offering instructional content, guides, and tutorials across various subjects. Authored by educators, experts, or enthusiasts, these blogs provide accessible resources for expanding knowledge and skills.

Whether learning a new language, mastering a craft, or understanding complex theories, educational blogs break down concepts into digestible steps, empowering readers to acquire new competencies. By bridging formal education and self-directed learning, these blogs foster a culture of continuous education in the digital age, offering tools for enhancing expertise across various subjects.

10. Fitness and Wellness Blogs

Fitness and wellness blogs act as virtual gyms and holistic health centers, providing information, motivation, and practical tips for individuals seeking physical and mental well-being. Authored by fitness trainers, health experts, nutritionists, or wellness enthusiasts, these blogs cover workout routines, nutritional advice, and overall wellness practices.

By sharing transformational journeys, workout plans, healthy recipes, and mindfulness techniques, fitness bloggers empower readers to achieve their fitness and wellness goals. These blogs motivate proactive self-care, encouraging individuals to make informed choices for their overall well-being and contributing to a culture of holistic health practices in the digital age.

11. DIY and Crafts Blogs

DIY and crafts blogs offer inspiration and guidance for individuals passionate about crafting and creative projects. Authored by artisans, crafters, or enthusiasts, these blogs cover a range of DIY projects, from home decor to upcycling and artistic endeavors.

DIY bloggers empower readers to embark on their creative journeys by sharing step-by-step instructions, tips, and innovative ideas, fostering a sense of community among like-minded individuals. DIY and crafts blogs spark imagination and promote the transformative power of creative expression in everyday life by celebrating the joy of crafting and offering diverse projects, materials, and techniques.

Subdomain vs. Subfolder: Which Is Better For Blogs?

When building a blog as part of an existing site, deciding whether to structure your blog’s URL as a subdomain or a subfolder (also called a subdirectory) is important. A subdomain comes before the root (main) domain and looks like this: www.blog.example.com.

On the other hand, a subfolder (subdirectory) comes after the root domain and looks like this: www.example.com/blog/.

SEO and Ranking Considerations

Search engines treat subdomains as entirely different websites from their root domains, which can affect rankings, indexing, and the link equity earned from backlinks. For blogs, this level of separation isn’t ideal because clicks earned on a subdomain won’t necessarily benefit the root domain’s rankings and domain authority. So, choose a subfolder for your blog instead of a subdomain if possible. Not only is it easier since you can run it through your CMS, but your rankings will also be better.

Feather's SEO-Optimized Publishing for Businesses

Feather is an SEO-friendly blog platform allowing you to publish content from Notion without requiring coding or design skills. By using Feather, companies can easily write and publish blog content on Notion and have it automatically posted to their Feather blog. This feature helps businesses streamline their content creation process while optimizing their online presence for search engines.

Feather allows users to set up a subfolder blog (e.g., domain.com/blog) instead of a subdomain blog (e.g., blog.domain.com). Subfolder blogs are considered better for SEO, as they help consolidate a website's domain authority. By offering this feature, Feather empowers companies to boost their website's search engine rankings and increase their online visibility.

21 Essential Blog Features For A Widely Successful Blog

1. Dynamic presentation

A blog page should be dynamic in type. Dynamicity represents interactiveness. The prime aim of a blog is to grab attention by making visitors more engaged. Hence, the blog page needs that type of presentation, which should be dynamic by nature. Blogs are not static like websites; they should be dynamic.

2. Clear & Helpful Blog Taxonomy

It’s easier for search engine crawlers and users to navigate well-structured sites, and working from a specific blog taxonomy can help you stay organized as your company blog grows. When we talk about blog taxonomy, we’re talking about how your site’s blog pages are grouped and the structures used to group them. For WordPress users, the type of taxonomy you’ll likely be dealing with involves categories and tags.

Categories are a way to organize blog pages based on their chief subjects broadly. (For example, some categories we use include SEO Reporting & Metrics and On-Page SEO.) Tags are more free-form and may be used to indicate when a topic appears in a post where it isn’t necessarily the main focus. Both categories and tags should be clearly labeled on each blog landing page. The precise number of categories and tags you need will depend on your blog’s niche, but aim to find the sweet spot between too few (making categories too broad to be practical) and too many.

3. Posts Are Displayed in Reverse Order

Unlike a personal diary written in a notebook, blog entries are displayed in reverse chronological order – the newest posts being on top. The latest ones push previously published ones down the list until they completely disappear from the landing page. Older posts are usually archived on the following pages, but they can also be organized by the month or year when they were first published.

You’ve put a lot of effort into creating a neat blog structure — and now it’s time to make it easy for site visitors to find the content they want using that structure and visit other parts of your website.

Follow these navigation best practices:

All pages should clearly display a menu of links to your homepage, blog landing page, etc. Use a consistent navigation bar, just like you see on this blog.

All posts should be gathered on one blog landing page, which may be paginated or set to scroll endlessly.

Blog categories and tags should be viewable on the blog landing page and sortable in some way.

5. Email Subscription

Email is one of the major parts of marketing. On your blog site, you must have an option for an Email Subscription. Email address collection makes marketing much easier, ensures recurring visitors, and directly increases your brand authority and impact on the market.

According to statistics, mail marketing results in the maximum number of conversions. So, every blog site should have a subscription option to collect email addresses.

6. Attractive Headlines

Headlines of your article play an important role in making the reader of the article stay on your website for a longer period. Choosing attention-grabbing headlines for your blog is not an easy task.

Writing such headlines requires skills and creativity. The right headings in the blog post can help attract traffic to your blog.

7. Blog post archives

So, you have been blogging for a while now, or you put up blog posts more often. To make your visitors’ work easier, you can decide to categorize the blogs or simply arrange them in order from the newest to the oldest. You may have a long list of blog posts containing articles that may not be relevant to most of your readers at that moment. However, this is not to say that such content is less important. A blog post archive will help handle this “small problem.”

People who find interesting content on your blog will likely want to read or access more. Post archive is an excellent way to retain people on your site and help them discover more about your work. This section of your blog can also increase the conversion of first-time traffic as they will know what to expect if they become your regular visitors. It also enables regular traffic to access the blog post they may have missed or want to revisit.

8. RSS feed

Nearly all blogging platforms have a built-in RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed to structure the blog content. RSS feeds are practical because many readers will use an RSS reader (like Feedly) to subscribe to your blog and access your content alongside their other favorite blogs.

9. Comments

While not all blogs include a comment section, they’re a valuable feature for most brands. In fact, comments can be the most entertaining and useful part of a post. Comments enable a two-way conversation with your audience, giving you insight into what your readers think, the opportunity for readers to hear other perspectives, and the chance to build a relationship with your audience.

When your audience can engage in your blog, they’ll be more motivated to engage in other ways, like sharing the content or signing up for your newsletter. That said, several brands switch off blog comments due to spam, limited resources to monitor them, or to direct the conversation to other platforms.

10. Featured posts

You might want to feature a limited number of recent blog posts on another part of your site - usually your home page.

This feature can help:

Increase traffic to your recent blogs

Add a dynamic element to an otherwise static page

Show that your brand is active

Readers who like your content will want to get notified each time you share a new post, and email is a much more reliable way to reach your audience over social media posts that may get lost in the newsfeed. Add newsletter signup in your blog footer, at the top of your blog feed, and anywhere else; your users might pause and think, “I’d like to be on this list.”

12. Most Blogs Have the Same Structure

A header with the menu or navigation bar declutters the page and makes a great first impression. It’s followed by the main content area, on which blog posts appear either by order of publishing or by relevance. Below are contact pages, privacy policies, and relevant links, neatly arranged in a footer. A sidebar highlights favorite entries and displays social profiles and call-to-actions.

13. Relevancy

Though every engaging content must be relevant, this rule especially applies to blogs posts. They might differ in types, mediums, formats, and styles; to arouse interest or evoke debate, they have to be original and unique, but to be read at all, blog posts must always deliver upon their promise.

14. Blogs and Links Go Hand in Hand

As a promotional strategy, link building is not limited to blog posts, but it definitely is a characteristic that all decent blogs share. Blogs and links go hand in hand, even when marketing isn’t the goal. Internal linking, for instance, ensures intuitive navigation between mutually relevant posts, thus providing an exceptional reading experience. It’s about the flow and facilitation of knowledge transfer.

15. Featured images

Most blog posts have a featured image displayed at the top of the post, on your blog feed, and whenever a link to your blog is shared on social media. A featured image can help increase clicks to your blog by catching your audience’s eye and enticing them to click through. The right image can support your written content, make it more exciting, and break up the text.

16. Post excerpts

A post excerpt is a short summary of your post or a hook that grabs a potential reader and makes them want to click. When you enable post excerpts, these are usually displayed on your blog archive page along with the featured image, so readers can decide if a post is relevant to them before they click through to read it.

With 3.8 billion active social media users, it’s unsurprising that a large portion of blog traffic comes from social media. Make it easier for new readers to find you with social sharing tools encouraging your audience to share your articles. Sharing your article could be as easy as clicking two buttons, depending on your chosen tool.

Social sharing and bookmarking tools make it easy for your audience to share the article from your page. There’s a high chance they’re using a mobile device, so copying and pasting the URL and opening a social media app can be more painful than it’s worth.

18. Author Profiles

Behind every blog lies a distinct voice and persona. Author profiles or “About Me” sections humanize the digital experience by offering insights into the authors’ backgrounds, motivations, and expertise. This bridging of the personal gap allows readers to connect on a more intimate level, fostering trust and loyalty.

19. Search Functionality

As blogs accumulate a treasure trove of content over time, efficient navigation becomes paramount. Search functionality empowers readers to swiftly access specific posts based on keywords or phrases. This feature enhances user experience by minimizing the effort to find relevant information amidst the archives.

20. Multimedia Integration

A picture is worth a thousand words; blogs capitalize on this adage through multimedia integration. Images, videos, infographics, and audio clips breathe life into posts, transforming the reading experience into a multi-sensory journey. This fusion of text and media enhances engagement and deepens the message’s impact, fostering a stronger connection between the author and the reader.

21. Analytics and Metrics

In the digital realm, metrics offer insights into a blog’s impact. Built-in analytics tools track parameters such as page views, user engagement, and traffic sources. This data-driven approach empowers bloggers to fine-tune their content strategies and tailor their offerings to meet their readers’ preferences

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6 Factors To Consider When Choosing A Blogging Platform

1. Ease of Use

Every blog content management system must be easy to use. A blogger should not spend hours figuring out how to create a blog post or add a tag. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to understand how to create a blog post, add images, metadata, tags, and schema.

2. Support from Real People

When there is an error with your blog, who do you call? The best website teams provide help that's just a phone call or email away.

3. A Really Good Content Editor

The ability to format blog content how you want to see it without knowing HTML or other programming languages is essential. A blog author will expect to be able to easily insert images, move content, organize the structure of their post, and format text as they see fit.

4. Ability to Manage Many Bloggers

It is important to maintain a consistent message throughout your blog posts. If multiple authors post to your blog, you'll need robust user management and permissions.

The whole point of a blog post is to have as many people read it as possible. Your blog solution should provide a simple way for readers to share posts across popular social platforms. If blog readers can easily share, your content will be seen by the people in their network, extending your reach exponentially.

6. Built-In SEO

SEO is an ongoing mix of strategies and tactics to make sure your website pages show up when users run a search on your topic keywords. Ensure your content management system allows you to write unique metadata for your blog posts. That way, you can rank for your spectacular blog post. Many platforms make figuring out where to put metadata like page title, meta description, and schema is confusing.

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Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today with Feather

SEO-friendly Blog Platform

Subfolder Blog Setting

HubSpot Experience through Notion

Feather enables users to experience the benefits of HubSpot through Notion by allowing them to manage their CRM and website blog management tasks in one place. With Feather, companies can seamlessly integrate their CRM and blog management efforts, simplifying their workflow and enhancing their online marketing strategy.

Custom CSS Design Customization

Feather allows users to change their blog's design using custom CSS. This feature lets companies personalize their blog's appearance to match their brand identity and aesthetic preferences. Feather helps businesses create a unique online presence that resonates with their target audience by providing this customization option.

Seamless Collaboration and Publishing Process

Feather facilitates easy collaboration among team members during the blog content publishing process. This feature streamlines content creation and ensures high-quality blog posts by allowing multiple team members to work together in real time on Notion and automatically publish their content on Feather. With Feather, companies can enhance their teamwork, boost productivity, and improve the overall quality of their blog content.

Try Feather’s Notion to blog software for free today – create a new account and go from Notion to blog in minutes!