Blog 8-2

I chose to review a unique blog, that integrates photos as a main purpose. This blog is called "opacity" and can be found at http://opacity.us/. 

This blog is the most visited blog in the Urban Exploration Photography community, as a SEO rank search will show. The site, in terms of SEO is functioning well, which is a key part of having a blog. With new google algorythms, and a Panda update just coming out this week, bloggers will need to make sure that their content is also benefitting their SEO.

Opacity has an easy interface, which allows users to search by location. The search feature makes and blog infinitely easier to navigate, especially if you're looking for something specific. The functionality here is key- blogs that require you to scroll through page after page are a challenge, and personally receive less attention when I browse them because of the time it takes to find a specific article.

The substance of a blog needs to be interesting. The basics, such as not having grammatical and spelling errors are important, but the topics are important as well. The blogger needs to understand how to take what they're writing about and excite the reader to continue with the article. Adding photos or videos is also a hugely important factor that I see many blogs overlook. My personal blog always includes a photo, or photo album depending on where I have traveled to entice the reader to keep looking. Even cooking blogs with photos of the final product are more likely to yield better results.

Lastly, the blog should be accurate. I cannot stress enough how often blogs are not accurate and either mislead readers or miss out on important facts that change the story. Reporting accurately, as we discussed, is also an ethical topic, and moves this piece to the top of the blog importance list.