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Are You Building Your Blog Like a Catapult?

In my Physics class, we were given an assignment: build a catapult. I immediately knew this project was going to take some time, and as I went through it, I found that building a blog is similar to building a catapult. Let me explain how…

How to Build a Blog Like a Catapult

It may sound ridiculous, but a catapult is everything you want your blog to be. It’s noticeable, effective, well designed, and optimized for range and conversion efficiency. Let’s go through a breakdown of how to build your blog like a siege machine and lay waste to your target market!

The Frame: Proper Hosting and Design

Just as the frame of a catapult supports all of the tension and physics, the hosting your blog runs on must support all of your traffic, software, and content. A crappy frame makes for a crappy blog. Trust me, I’ve switched hosts a total of 3 times for Headaway Hacks.

I’m currently hosted with InMotion, who I have to say is the best host I’ve ever worked with.

The same concept applies to your blog’s design. You should always build your design around your content and functions, and not the other way around. Forcing your blog into a frame that doesn’t fit will result in bad fortune. Of course the incredible Headway Theme by Clay and Grant Griffiths will help you find the perfect fit!

The Arm: Choosing a Content Deliver Method

The arm of the catapult is what delivers the projectile to its target, in the same way that your blog delivers its content to your audience. Therefore, you should strive to choose the best delivery method for what you want to do. Will your blog be a membership model? A video blog? Choose the best fit and get ready to build up some tension…

The Tension: Building Up Hype for Your Blog

A catapult has to have tension to launch something. A blog needs marketing and hype to get off the ground. Just like winding back the gears, you should make people anticipate your content’s arrival. Building up some enthusiasm for your blog is easy with the following tasks:

• Guest posting on other blogs.
• Commenting on related blogs.
• Asking your online contacts to help promote your blog.
• Tweeting about your blog’s progress.
• Emailing friends & family to check your blog out.
• Asking for blog reviews on forums.

The more tension you build, the farther your launch will go. Makes sense, right? However, there is a limit to how much hype you want to build up for your blog…

The Stop-Lock: Managing Quality, Quantity, and Hype

The stop-lock is one of the most important pieces of a catapult. It helps it stay on-target in the same way you have to manage where you want to take your blog. Without a way to direct readers towards your goal, your blog’s effort will fail.

Think of it this way: if you stop the arm too quickly, your results will fall short. Stop the arm too far along and you’ll overload and hit the ground before you get going. Find a combination of posting momentum and marketing that’s “just right” and you’ll hit your target. Especially if you have support…

The Guides: Readers, Friends, and Commentators

My catapult never flies straight. That’s because it doesn’t have very good guides, and I have to re-calibrate it on every launch. Without the proper guidance, obtaining your goals will become a major hassle.

Tweak your blog according to the feedback you get from readers, friends, and commentators. See which posts do better on average than others. Test out which directions bring you the most return. Using guidance and feedback will help you build a system that keeps your blog on-course.

The Wheels: Making Your Blog Mobile-Ready

A catapult, though large, is incredibly mobile. In today’s society, people are accessing the web from mobile devices just as often as they do from normal computers. It’s important to optimize your blog for mobile devices to increase the audience you can reach. Plugins like the Wordpress Mobile Pack make it easy for readers to take your blog with them wherever they go.

The Projectile: Putting the Right Content in the Right System

Catapults are built to launch the right kind of projectile. Build your blog to enhance and deliver your content with maximum effectiveness. To that extent, make your content work with your blog system and methods so that it receives the benefits of your hard work. There’s nothing worse than putting in all of the key components and skimping on the content!

Putting It All Together

I couldn’t resist, so here’s a chart to help you remember today’s catapult blog-building lesson:

What Do You Think?

Are you building your blog like a catapult? What do you think about this approach to blogging? Share your thoughts and opinions below!

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Published by: Grant Griffiths

Full post as published by Blawg for Profit on April 27, 2010 (boomark / email).