Your blog is the place for you to truly be yourself. You can express your opinions, write down all your hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and explore your interests in your own space. But your blog also has to be readable - hits are important, especially if you’ve chosen to monetise your blog. A confusing, in your face, or overwhelming blog might struggle to get the readership you want or deserve. It’s all about a simple, elegant, and streamlined design for ultimate readability.
1. Your branding doesn’t need competition
Your blog is your own, personal brand. Your logo, your typeface, even your background all contributes to your website branding, and if you’ve paid good money to get the perfect branding, you’re going to want to make the most of it. A confusing blog with a lot of conflicting imagery and text can overwhelm the reader, and your personal branding gets pushed to the wayside. In order to make your branding pop, keep everything else subtle.
2. People don’t want to be overloaded
When someone comes to your blog, it’s because they like your style, they affiliate themselves with your worldview, or they are interested in what you have to say. They want to be able to find your posts and read them without any difficulty. When you have a world’s worth of colours, flashing banners, pop-up ads and slowly, slowly loading photographs, it can really detract from the experience. Of course, there’s a middle ground to be reached - you’re obviously entitled to your advertising and photographs, but finding a way to include them without seriously overloading the reader is the best of both worlds.
Simple and well-considered navigation is the key to a great blog. A search bar is a great place to start, and sadly a feature that so many blogs miss out on. If a reader respects your expertise and has a specific question, a search bar is the easiest and quickest way for them to find their answers. A browse function which allows the reader to separate the blog by category also allows them to scroll, reading posts which interest them. If there is no quick way for the reader to find a post which is of interest to them, they might just not bother, and that’s one less click for you.
4. Content is key
Fresh, interesting, and up to date content is essential on your blog. It boosts your SEO, gives something for people to share, and keeps your site relevant. A logical layout allows newer posts to be viewed nearer the top, but it also allows the reader to look further back into the archives. It contains listed archives, as well as categories and subcategories so that content is readily available and easy to find.
The layout of your blog is all about improving its readability, making it easy to navigate, and first and foremost, putting your branding at the forefront. After all, your brand is you, through and through.
No comments:
Post a Comment