One of the forums I’m on has a discussion about best blogging practices. Here’s a few tips that I just added to the thread that you might consider for your own blog design. I’ve written these suggestions mainly with bloggers who write posts for which they get compensation by advertisers in mind, but I think these suggestions are good guidelines for most bloggers.
It’s nice when a blog design reflects your personal style or co-ordinates well with your niche topic.
If you are writing posts for compensation or selling ad space in you sidebar your blog should probably have a professional image. This doesn’t mean plain and boring.
1. If you are using a standard template that 1000’s of other bloggers are using personalize it in some way to reflect your blogs style. If you aren’t sure how to do this ask people on a web forum or hire someone to spruce up your site.
2. Avoid flashing buttons and images.
3. For the most part write your posts in one color of text and one font size. (There are some blogs with multicolored posts and I find them hard to read.)
4. Make sure that the font that you’ve chosen for your blog is easy to read and is of a color that can be read easily against the background color of your blog. Bright white text on dark or black backgrounds tires the eye quickly and is hard to read. If your blog has a dark background a light gray text seems to work best.
* In general I think dark blog backgrounds are frowned upon by quite a few bloggers (and possibly advertisers). Why? I’m not sure, but I think it’s mainly because they are often harder to read and as a result are thought of as not being well designed.
5. Avoid autoplay music! I think the majority of bloggers dislike autoplay music on blogs. If you want to have music on your site please have it in the off mode and let your visitors turn it on if they want to hear it.
You want your visitors to read your posts. It’s hard to concentrate sometimes when music is blaring at you, particularly if the visitor doesn’t like that style of music.
6. Avoid autoplay video. See above. Let your visitors turn the videos on if they want to view them. Anything autoplay is distracting.
7. Try to make sure that your visitors can navigate your site easily. You may actually see your traffic or page views increase if you follow some of these suggestions:
– Think about making your post titles clickable so visitors can easily read the comments that have been left on the post and possibly add their own.
– Likewise be sure that your visitors can see the comment link easily so that they can leave a comment if they want to.
– I’m sure advertisers love to see comments on posts, I know regular site visitors do, so do everything possible to make it easier for your visitors to leave you a comment. That includes not making your visitors register to your site just to leave a comment.
8. At the end of your main page, and possibly on your single posts, have navigation tags so that your visitors can easily move to the next page or next post.
9. If you like buttons or if you have very long blogrolls, categories, or archives think about moving them to pages rather than keeping them in your sidebar, or try drop down menus. Your sidebar will look less cluttered and your page might load faster.
10. Sites with only one post on the main page or dozens can be frustrating for visitors. If you have too many posts the site will load very slowly. If you only have one post your visitor might not click through to the next page to see what other fabulous posts you’ve written. New posts should probably be on your main page for a day or two, so gauge how many posts to include on the front page by how many you normally write on the average day. I think five to ten posts is probably a good amount to have on the main index page.
11. Using slang in your posts can be fun or even funny sometimes, but don’t over do it. It can make your posts harder to read and even understand, and if you are creating blog posts for advertisers they probably want you to use proper words. On that note, if you are writing a post in English don’t mix your native language into the post. It just makes it harder for English readers to follow and understand.
12. It’s also a good idea to spell and grammar check your posts before publishing. Most browsers have plugins or extensions that can be added to help you check spelling and grammar as you type.
Practicing some or all of these tips should keep your visitors happy and you might even start to see an increase in your traffic. Remember an increase in the quality of your site and in your traffic could enhance your ability to monetize your blog.
Good Luck!
Paid For Doing Surveys says
In addition to point #7 you should try to close your posts with something to encourage your readers to comment. Even something as simple as “What do you think?” can increase the number of comments you get. Also, respond to your readers comments in a timely fashion. I know that I tend to go back to a site if the author is responding to my comments right away.
Make Money BeatMyAuction.com says
100% agree with number 2 and 3…there is nothing more annoying than a blog that is 15 colors, 10 sizes, and bright flashy buttons all over. Those blogs just scream beginner, and “please close me” because it distracts from the content soooo much!
the subconscious mind says
i agree, one of the biggest crimes you can commit when it comes to webdesign is to play music when someone enters the site!!!
autopartsgee says
I really hate it when I enter a certain site then it comes a very distracting music. It really annoys me. Okay…fine… maybe they like that music but not all. They sometimes drive people away from visiting their site.
WebExpress Web Design (Essex) says
Some great tips there, many of which we may know, but sometimes forget to apply to our work!
Melody says
Thanks for the great tips, I never thought of #9 moving your blog roll etc. to it’s own page!
Silki Garg says
Good compilation. Many of them we already know, but forget, when it is time to apply them.
mercblogger says
Thanks for this very useful information, It really help me a a lot..:)
Lyrics says
Thanks for this. Great. 🙂
DivvyWork says
Nice list you have some good points there. #5 is important cause nothing bugs me more than having music start blasting when I’m not expecting it.
Kevin Tuck says
Absolutely agree – some great points here. We’ve tested having autoplay music and video, and always the non-autoplay is better, as it really is annoying to have things autoplay.
Don Kush says
The most annoying is when they have a bunch of popups which won’t go away, and that get get annoying. Other than that most sites don’t really bother me.
Don