^[1]

I was reading Chris Brogan’s post ^[2] about Alltop ^[3] the other day, where he points out:

“Alltop isn’t for you or me. It’s for friends and family and coworkers who aren’t yet surfing at the speed of light with Google Reader…”

It got me thinking.

Yes, Alltop does encourage the mainstream [to participate on the Web in different ways] but it can also serve as an extremely useful tool for new business bloggers; especially during that first scary stage – designing the look and feel of your new blog.

Think about it. As soon as a visitor arrives at your blog, before they read the first word, they react to it in some way.

In that instant, your blog needs to be viewed positively, and the only way this can happen is to ensure that it fits in with what your audience expects it should look like. It must appeal to your target demographic. Sure, the Perez Hilton site may look great and appeal to the younger set looking for celeb goss, but his design doesn’t really make sense for a civil engineering blog.

I wish I could say there is a template out there somewhere of what your blog should look like based on your field of interest, but there isn’t.

However, this is where Alltop comes in brilliantly. Because Alltop is an aggregator of top blogs by topic, it can give you a fair indication of what blogs in specific industries look like.

If you want to blog about law, take a look at the Alltop law page ^[4]

If you want to blog about health, take a look at the Alltop health page ^[5]

If you want to blog about photography, take a look at the Alltop photography page ^[6]

You get the idea.

Go take a look at the Alltop main page ^[1] for a topic similar to your field, and start researching the design of your new blog!

If you have any comments or questions, I’d love to hear them!

And of course, I can’t end this post without saying thanks to Guy ^[7] for including BlogWell ^[8] on the Alltop Blogging ^[9] page – so, thank you Guy!