Over time you will learn to try different things, adding new things and then eventually removing them if you don’t like them. I have a list that I have used myself that I think every blog must have for one reason or another which is listed below. If you don’t agree please leave a comment and say why, and if you like, write about something that you think is a must-have on a blog.

1. Your Own Domain Name
Domain names are extremely cheap and can be registered with a vast amount of companies. I personally recommend GoDaddy. It is important to have your own domain for many reasons. You create your own branding, your own domain name that has what you want in it and your domain name is something that people will refer to you by.

2. About Me Page
It’s important to let your readers know a little bit about you. They want to know what are the blog owners aims and a little bit about his background. It helps the reader understand what the blog is about and feel like they know you more.

3. RSS Email Subscribe Form & Link to Feed
This is a another point that can’t be stressed enough. If you see at the end of every post, I have a form where people can sign up to my RSS feed via email, and at the top of my blog, along with Technorati, you can subscribe to my feed easily. Having it prominently displayed will gain you more subscribers.

4. Contact Page
People will want to contact you, you need to give them a contact form(recommended) or provide them with your email address so they can contact you for whatever reason. Think about it, if they want to pay to advertise on your website and they can’t contact you, thats lost money!

5. Categories
It’s important you choose the right categories. Don’t be vague, name them appropriately and make sure you put your posts in the right one. Visitors like to look at your categories and know what they can find in them.

6. Search
It’s important you allow people to search for content on your website. They don’t want to have to search through every category to find what they are interested in. With a search they can within seconds have content if you have written about it. You’ll be surprised the amounts of blogs that don’t have a search function.

7. Plugins
There is some very essential plugins for Wordpress that many would not run a blog without.

• All In One SEO Pack - Let the SEO work get done for you with this extremely useful plugin.
• Top Commentators Plugin - It is important to show some love to some commentators. You can do this with this plugin as it displays a list of their names complete with links backs to their website.
• Sociable - Allow people to easily social bookmark your posts for more exposure.
• MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer - Saves your Wordpress blog from getting tagged as ping spammer.
• CommentLuv - Show some more link love to your commentators by offering them the chance to show their last post with a link in their comment which encourages comments!
• Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator - Generates a Google compatible sitemap which is also compatible with ASK.com, Yahoo and MSN Search.
• WordPress Database Backup - Make sure you’re backed up so you don’t have to worry about losing anything!

8. A FavIcon
Having a FavIon is extremely important for your branding. I recently wrote a post about how a FavIcon will help you and how to add one to your site here.

9. Entrecard
This is particularly useful to anyone who is a new blogger and trying to promote their blog. Want to know what Entrecard is about? Then click here. There is so much to do with Entrecard, it is a great source of traffic.

10. Blogroll
Sharing links with other people increases page ranks and is a win-win for anyone trading links. Try to create a page or have a blogroll that allows you to build links with other people. Having more links to your site increases your traffic and builds relationships with other bloggers that will bring benefits.

Think there are some more that you must have on your blog? Drop a comment.

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