The results of the review are up, and while they are specific to MLBTR, there is considerable information that all sports bloggers might want to use. These include:

• Adding an Advertise Here page
• Making RSS subscription prominent on the page, as well as including an email option
• Cleaning up the sidebar
• Tips for trying to find more relevant advertising (which should convert better)
• Adding more art (some blogs such as Roar of the Tigers already excel at this)
• Suggestions for attracting more social media love

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So more and more people are blogging, but so many of the blogs look the same. Default templates and addresses containing blogspot abound. While there is nothing wrong with default templates, and blogspot addresses, you may find that you want to differentiate yourself and have your blog develop its own identity. Here are a couple steps to build your blog brand.

Location, Location, Location

Like in real estate, location is key. Your blog needs to be easy to find, and so it needs a good address in a nice neighborhood. If you’ve been on a hosted site, like a blogspot or wordpress site, your best bet is to try and get a domain name that matches. The other nice thing is that you can have an email to match your site. I use GoDaddy to register domains, and the cost is minimal.

As for what constitutes a good domain name, it is really a matter of personal preference. There is probably some search engine advantages to having keywords in your domain, but do it in a natural way. The domain should be relatively concise. It might be a good idea to avoid the full team name. For the Detroit Tigers Weblog, I was feeling very uncreative when I registered the domain. Ever since then I’ve been nervous that the team could probably shut it down.

Now one of the tradeoffs of having to have that blogspot address is that you don’t have to worry at all about hosting, or software, or well anything. Just that the site is up. With your own domain though, you are carving out your space on the web, and you should have a little more control. If this scares you, it shouldn’t. Many webhosts will install your blogging software and get you set-up at sign-up time.

Don’t Default

If you really want to make your blog standout, don’t use the default templates. You can certainly start with a predesigned template, and unless you’re a CSS wiz I’d really recommend it. Just play with it and tweak it enough to make it your own.

Now don’t forego developing content as you get lost in template tweaks. Believe me, it’s easy to do. You don’t have to do complete redesigns all at once. It’s okay to make small changes as you go along. (Just make sure you save a back-up of your template each time)

If you just don’t have the time or inclination to pick-up CSS, try developing a banner. A fresh banner on a classic template like Kubrick is often all you need. Of course if you’re Photoshop challenged like me, this could take longer than redesigning your template. Try to find a friend who is good at that sort of thing, or try and teach yourself. There was recently an excellent Photoshop tutorial at Performancing.

Favicon for flavor

You know those little pictures that appear next to web address in the location bar of your browser? Those are called favicons. While these are by no means essential, they are just so easy to implement. And in a tabbed browser environment like Firefox, it really helps to identify each site.

If you’ve got your snazzy new banner, crop out a square-ish shape. Once you’ve got your picture, submit it to a website like this. They’ll create the favico.ico file and tell you how to include it on your site.

Voiceprint

The most important branding for your site is the content itself. What is your writing style? How often do you write? What will the reader find when he comes to your site? Your content is where the real differentiation occurs. All of the other steps are just there to help people find your stuff, and keep them around long enough to read those gold nuggets.

It has some great points about titles, navigation, writing skimmable posts, and some general design guidelines that will keep visitors reading instead of clicking through.

I’d imagine many sports bloggers’ strengths probably don’t lie in CSS or HTML, and as a result there isn’t a lot of attention paid to design.  If you’re not experienced with layout, you could easily get wrapped up in design and neglect your content.  This probably helps explain the number of default templates in use. It is also a pretty compelling reason to join a network where the layout is done for you.

Personally, an area I need to work on the most is writing skimmable posts.  This entails making good use of sub-headers, lists, and graphics.  Too often I have long, long blocks of text.  Maybe that can be my New Year’s blog resolution?