Gino asked:

1. Blog Post Graphics

While great content and catchy titles are important, eye-grabbing images work best of all. Many people respond very well to visual graphics, so if you can find colorful, clever graphics that work well with your blog posts you should be able to pull more people in and then keep them there once they read the title and post.

You should not only have thumbnails, but also work interesting graphics into the post content to help break up large blocks of text.

2. Easy to Read Post Formatting

Many readers like to scan blog posts before they commit to reading the entire post and some people will just scan posts for quick info and won’t even spend the time to read. This is why it is essential to use proper formatting such as sub titles, bold and underlined text.

3. RSS Subscription Box

One of the biggest benefits of having a blog is having a large subscriber base that will see all your new posts. This why is is essential to have a link users can click to subscribe to your RSS feed. Many bloggers will create a special graphic in the top right section of a custom blog design dedicated to their valuable RSS feeds.

4. Clear Categories

Blog readers want to find good information quickly, so its important that your blog is easy to navigate. Having clear categories with your posts properly tagged and organized into the categories will make it easy for readers to find your great content.

5. Most Popular Posts

Every blog has its best posts so why not showcase them to new readers? This is a great way to turn new readers into lifetime readers. Many blogs display the top 5 or 10 most popular posts in the right sidebar of their blogs. You could even have most popular posts for each category and if you are using WordPress for your custom blog designs their are plugins available to display popular posts based on different factors such as number of comments or total views.