This is the fourth chapter in the 11 things to consider before you start blogging series in this chapter we are going to look at a blogs website design. We shall focus on 4 areas of a blogs design these being:
- Simplicity of the design (Navigation)
- Conversion of the design in both subscriber and advertising aspects
- Readers options (Social media marketing, subscribing, relevant articles)
- General Design (Is the design cluttered? Has it enough advertising space? Does it use space efficiently?)
This chapter comes with very good timing considering I have just finished re-designing my own website as you can most probably see. I have now moved to wordpress a very popular blogging platform because of its usability and flexibility.
The design of my whole website has changed with RSS subscription conversion being a very important factor in my overall design I have ensured that readers can easily subscribe to my website. As well as this I have cut down on the amount of internal links that are present on every page in the navigation bar. In the past every article I had written was shown on each page of my website which seemed to have a great effect on the blog’s bounce rate however it also meant that the number of internal links per page had surpassed 100. It is a common fact that Google does advise websites to keep the number of links per page below 100 but with the improvement of the Google Algorithm and various other factors Google bots can crawl more and more pages so this is no longer a large issue although it is still advised. I seem to rambling quite a bit about my blog’s redesign so I shall now get back on track with the article.
Why is a blog’s design so important?
A blog’s design is important for several reasons more than just conversion rates and aesthetics. Although it is one of the first things that people judge a blog on its also important for ensuring readers can easily surf your blog. Making it as simple as possible for your readers is very important and trying to maximise page views per reader is something you can do through having a decent website design. As well as this a good design can help to give your website a brand. Branding is very important for anyone who is hoping to keep their blog for a long time as it is a marketing function which takes a long time unless you have the money to inject in to global marketing. You can brand your website through a decent blog design, incorporating your blog’s logo in to the overall design and including a favicon with a smaller logo (appears in the URL bar).
What impacts does a blog design have on a blog?
Image
Image is a large portion of a blog designs importance. With a good simplistic, yet stylish design you can impress you’re readers on their first visit.
Increased traffic
Like most choices you make with your blog they have an impact on the amount of traffic you receive. This is the same for your blog’s design. It can have both positive and negative effects on your blogs traffic depending on whether or not the design is simple and effective or cluttered and annoying.
Increase readership
Similiar to increasing traffic a blog design can also increase your readership with a good placement of opt in subscription boxes and RSS icons you can maximise your blog’s subscriber conversion with your design.
Increased profits
A professional design can also improve your income by choosing or coding a design to have advertising boxes in more eye catching places you can increase your click through rate (CTR). If your lucky enough to have the finances ready to hire a website designer you can ensure your blog is fully optimised for squeezing the most out of your readers, if thats what you want to do.
You can gain many benefits from spending time searching or spending time hiring and designing your own blog theme. Although it may be time consuming or expensive it is definitely worth it, take it from me an experienced blogger who has made mistakes along the way and is now trying to advise others so they don’t make the same mistakes. Redesigning my website took hundreds of pounds as well as a large amount of time and added stress as well as this it is a little late but as the saying goes “better late than never“.
Whether your going to code your own blog design, hire someone to do it for you or use one of thousands of website designs you can pick up for free or pay for you will need to analyse that design and ensure it is the right one for you and your blog.
Simplicity of the design
What annoys me most about visiting a new blog is not being able to go from article to article with ease. If the design is tacky or too bland/boring, if it is too cluttered or confusing for readers you are going to seriously effect the growth of your blog.
“Simplicity is great but too simple is boring”
This is something I believe, with my website you may find it is quite simple however it is not boring and thats the point I am trying to make. You don’t want to pick a design which is cluttered with advertising space and big RSS icons, but then again you don’t want to pick a design which has no space for adverts has no RSS icons or opt in boxes and lacks colour and life. You need to find a balance between simple and cluttered.
Before I sent my web designer my design brief I already had a design in mind using blogs that I read daily for inspiration and ideas. The two blog’s I used for inspiration and ideas for this site were www.johnchow.com and www.dailyblogtips.com using John Chow’s layout and Daniel’s (Dailyblogtips) simplicity and functions I had this design.
You need to make sure the design you choose or code has sufficient space for
- Navigation bar
- Logo
- RSS subscription box or icon
- Advert space
- Article space (You want to make sure your article has enough words per line)
- Wordpress Plugins (If you opt to use any, such as recent readers, popular articles)
- Catergories Bar
Some of these features you may not want on your blog but you may want other plug ins or features depending on the market you are targeting. This is just a basic outline of features I chose to have on my blog.
Conversion of the design in both subscriber and advertising aspects
If your planning on keeping your blog, increasing traffic and readership until you have a little community or if you are wanting to make money from blogging then you are going to have to look at a design for its advertising space and subscriber opt in box space. You need to have sufficient space for both and idealy more than one space for these too. Also it is important that you analyse the top fold (Top part of a design that is displayed without scrolling down) for advertising space and opt in space as this is part of the page which is most viewable.
If your planning on using Wordpress you can experiment with different designs if you like the look of more than one which is more than likely with the amount of designs available. Try using one design for a month then another design for another month, it might be best though to tell your readers this as they may be annoyed with the changes to blogs appearance.
Readers options
Giving your readers the option to read other related articles or to stumble, Digg or spread the word of your article with others is both beneficial to yourselfs and the readers (mainly you though). You may be able to see at the bottom of each of my articles I have social media buttons which I hope people click on so that they can spread the word of my article. Now when I first started blogging I didn’t think so much about social media marketing however after trying it out for a couple of months I have found that you can easily increase traffic through social media marketing and its become one of the main sources of traffic for my website. I advise to anyone planning on blogging to use social media marketing and ensure you give this option to your readers.
Another function you can display at the bottom of articles is the “related articles” function which displays articles which are similiar to that of the one they are currently reading. This helps to decrease your bounce rate and increase the amount of page views your website receives whilst also helping readers find related articles which they might be interested in.
Giving your reader the option to subscribe to your blog is another feature which is common among blogs these days. Allowing readers to subscribe to your blog helps them to keep up to date with whats going on at your blog and also helps you to increase returning visitors and build up a community for your blog.
Make sure your readers have options, whether it is to subscribe to your blog, read related articles or spread the word of your article it can benefit you extremely.
General Design
By general design I mean the structure and layout of your blog it is essential that you don’t pick a structure which may be confusing for your readers. Figure out who your readers are before you choose a design if they are tech savvy then adding an RSS icon with no information above or below it saying “subscribe here” maybe not be needed however if they are an audience which generally have no past experience with blogging or RSS then adding that little clip of text can increase your readership 10 fold.
Overall you need to choose a design which compliments the market that your in. A design which perhaps relates to your market only adds value to your website however make sure you don’t go over the top. Ensure the design is not to cluttered and not to simple that it has all the features you plan to use and no more.
The design of a blog is the first thing that a reader will see when visiting your website you want it to look stylish, professional and sleek. You want them to remember your blog for its great content, simplicity and ease of use not because it was cluttered, annoying and boring.
Hope you enjoyed the article make sure you spend the time before you start blogging finding the right design otherwise you may have to change somewhere down the line and it isn’t easy.
What do you think of my new site design?
STUMBLED!
Great article and I love the new look of the site, good ob.