Blogging isn’t easy. To get you sorted with the 10 essential components to run a professional blog, these recommendations by travel blogger Helene Sula will help you look more proficient from the get-go. Read on!

Easy to navigate

Keep it streamlined and simple. You want to make sure your blog is easy to navigate so people can find what they are looking for, subscribe, follow, and stick around. It is recommended having a navigation bar on top with highlights of places people might click on your blog.

Branded theme

When someone lands on your blog that’s their first impression of what your blog is about. Even if you have the best written articles in the whole world it simply won’t matter if your blog design is clunky and hard to read. A beautiful design is great but remember you can find this for the right price.

Search function

Please let it be easy for people to find what they’re looking for on your blog! Chances are, if someone is reading something on your blog, they might want to read something else. So make your search function easy to find.

Social media follow

We often get so wrapped up in making our blog look pretty that we forget to add something as simple as our Instagram. You would want to keep people coming back for more and a great way to do that is to have them follow you on various social media platforms so they are reminded of your incredible posts.

Email newsletter

A newsletter is great for this and so many other reasons. One of the best ways to make money blogging is to have an email list. The list is why one is able to remind people of new posts, let them know about promotions, and send them news about products.

Contact you

How would one contact you if they have a great, paid collaboration idea for you? Having no contact details at all can lead to many missed opportunities. It is recommended for a blogger to have a contact page. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just a simple way to email you works fine.

Share buttons

You just wrote a post that changed someone’s life, but what if they want to share it? So make it easy for people to share your stuff. You can use the Social Warfare plugins (paid) and the Sumo (free) options, as well.

Commenting

Set up your comment system so that the majority of your readers can comment. A great option is Disqus. It is a simple, easy to use tool that allows comments and also helps you avoid spam.

About me

Did you know that one of the most popular pages on your blog right after the home page is your ‘About Me’ page? Don’t neglect this very essential part of you blog. Tell us who you are, what you’re about, what you intend to update us with on your blog.

Your why

If you understand your motivations for why you are doing something it will help you in every single element of how you do it. Why are you blogging? Why are you hitting publish? What are your motivations behind it? Helene recommends that one should let people know why you’re doing what you’re doing.