Blogging is much more than your day-to-day task of churning out content for readers. Another very important aspect to blogging is something very differnent yet just as important which are pages (suprise, suprise). Pages are what define your blog into something more sophisticated than blobs of posts coming out of nowhere. These pages are visited by your readers and creating great pages that are thoughtfully put together will serve as stepstones to higher rankings for your blog. Here are some pages to consider having in your blog:

About Page – This is one page that should be self explanatory and is very key to have in a blog. The about page is one page that tells who sits behind that rich content readers read as well as what the blog is about. A well written about page may lead to readers subscribing to your blog, telling their friends, and may even serve as a catalyst for advertisers in their decision as to whether advertise on your blog or not.

What should I include in my about page? Although there is no right or wrong answer to this as I have seen many successful blogs have vastly different styles and tones on this page, but the line that separates successfulness from lameness is something called a first impression. The first impression is the one or two sentences that will make your reader to read on and learn more about you. Here are some examples:

“From Hobby to Profession” – by Darren Rowse, ProBlogger

http://www.wpdesigner.com/about/ - WP Designer – need to read it to understand

They say the first impression is the last impression so it is very important to create a good impression of yourself and your blog the very first instant readers lay eyes on your about page. Using a catchy phrase, some sense of humor, or pure professionalism all work in making an about page appealing.

After the initial impression, go on and explain what the blog is about; its mission, goals, values, etc. IMPORTANT!! Be sure to limit this to several paraphraphs maximum as you will bore your readers to a point where that is the only thing they remember.

Wrap up your about page with something about yourself and how you ended up blogging or something interesting. Including a photo of yourself is going to be more effective because the human brain tends to remember images much better than text or audio and including a photo will not only give your blog a personal touch, meaning that you care enough about the blog that you’re willing to open up to your readers and show who you are, but it will also help readers associate you with the content you write. Once they see that photo, their brain will subconsciously associate the content they read on your blog with your image creating a sense of fascination and communication with your image.

Contact Page – A contact page is also very important for another very self explanatory reason. Readers come to blogs not because of the great news you have, but because they want to interact with you. Readers read posts and then enjoy it so much, they want to send you an email saying how much they loved your post and enjoy what you write. Leaving out a contact page is basically telling them “I don’t care who you are, what you do, and what you have to say.” Even if you do feel this way, this is certainly not the way to present yourself to them. Instead include a contact page that will satisfy their urge to tell you what’s on their mind. In addition, a contact page tells readers that you are reliable and they can reach you when they need to and they are not reading content from a ghost.

Advertise Page –  Whether you’re planning on connecting to advertisers or not, it is important to have a page for advertisers. This page should include relevant information to all the advertising plans you provide, advertisers contact information, or both. Some blogs have sold out their ad slots, or stopped selling. This page is there to let advertisers know that they cannot advertise with you. Leaving this out will make this annoying and painful to both yourself and advertisers as you will be getting (lots) of emails from them with questions that could have been answered if you took 5 minutes to put them on your advertisers page.

Disclaimer Page -  If you’re going to be screaming out headlines guaranteeing people millions or any other promises, it is a very wise idea to include a disclaimer page on your blog. This is there to protect you from potential problems and lawsuits (yes they’re very real).

Services/Products Page -  If you’re providing services or products, which I’m sure many of you provide such as design or coding services. Or if you’re selling a product along with your blog, it is very beneficial to include these pages. If you don’t let people know what services you provide, they will never know right?

Archive Pages -  These are great to include as well. I myself, when I find a blog I like, I always look for the archives and by doing that I can glance over what content I missed. Archive pages can be designed in various formats and styles depending on the view of the creators. The problem that arises is when the archives become too cluttered or too big that it becoms a difficult task presenting your valuable content in a way that readers can still access it without the hassle of going through 90 pages of content. It is basically a guess and check game until you reach a point where you can balance these effectively. Nonetheless, for most of you, unless you created your blog in 2006 and have been posting actively, this should not be a difficult thing yet.

Final notes…

These are just a few pages that I’ve started off with, but pages are great to use for all kinds of tasks and goals. Always keep pages in mind as in some cases it may be wiser to create a page of content rather than creating posts. Remember, pages are not subject to age. They do not fall off the front page like posts do. They stay where you put them and using these pages to your advantage is one of the keys to successful blogging.

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