Employing a marketing blog in your overall marketing campaign can really help your online presence, if it is done correctly. There are millions of blogs out there. Some for personal expression, some for marketing purposes, and some for generating their own revenue. Blogs are a great vehicle for all these things, but only if the blog is presented right. A marketing blog, in particular, requires the seamless integration of aesthetics and architecture to make it work for you.

We will begin this discussion with the aesthetics of a blog, because the Internet is, above all, a visual medium. And blog readers, just like other Internet users, are looking for instant gratification and are prone to a certain level of attention deficit disorder.

When developing the aesthetics of your marketing blog there are a number of things you must consider. Some are simple obvious, and some are a little more subtle.

First, the simple things. What font are you using? Are you using a twisted, hard-to-read font just for the sake of being different? Blogs are about reading as much as they are writing, and you must present your posts in a font that is comfortable to read.

Now what about the overall look of the marketing blog? Pictures are a necessity. Too many pictures are a shot in the foot. There's a fine line between eye-pleasing and cluttered, and it's a good blogger who walks the line and knows the difference.

And you must always remember the average user's attention span. Your pictures and your content must come together in such a way that a user can quickly and easily get a feel for your blog with nothing but a quick scan.

And that brings us to the most important part. The content. The writing. Writing is art so it is included with the aesthetics portion of our discussion. And since studies have shown that the number one reason for reading a blog is the quality of the reading, it becomes supremely important to make sure you provide something worthwhile. So when it comes to the quality of the content you need to consider a couple things.

One: The Character. Does your marketing blog have personality? Blogs are still supposed to be a source of information that is outside the mainstream. People turn to blogs because they feel they can "get to know" the blogger. This also ties in to point number two: Writing Style. Is your style stuffy and stale, or is it light and personable? Are you imparting actual opinion or information, or are you using your writing in a thinly veiled attempt to hide a sales a pitch? Your readers can tell, and they are looking for content that is fun, informative, new, interesting, controversial, entertaining, or a mix of all the above. If all you have is stale reworking of old articles, you won't have many readers for long.

Now on to your marketing blog architecture. This is as important to a good blog as it is to any other website. A clunky, broken down blog will dissuade your readers as quickly as poor content will.

Can the casual reader easily find their way around your blog? Are all your links active? Are your old posts archived and easy to find? Do you let your visitors brows by category? Is everything organized into proper categories? And don't forget your RSS feeds. Right now these are really important for continued readership and support. Have you made it easy for your readers to subscribe to your blog?

There are a number of things you can do to maintain a clear and effective blog. Most of them are simple maintenance procedures like keeping your links with in the blog and leading off the blog up to date. Blog maintenance is almost as important as maintaining regular posts.

Above all, content is king. You've heard that a million times before, but repetition does not dilute the truth value. Nine out of ten philosophers say so.

If you don't have anything useful to say... don't. The best way to get your marketing blog out to the public is to create content that is worth bookmarking or would otherwise gain the attention of other blogs. When you've shown you truly have something to offer by developing a blog that is both aesthetically and architecturally pleasing, other bloggers will have a natural tendency to lend support. When you relate to your community your community will relate to you.