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Blog Design is Important- The 3 Do’s and Don’ts

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Whether you are already a blogger or considering getting into blogging you need to understand that blog design really does matter. By this I don’t mean that you need to have the most creative or beautifully designed blog but it is important to stay away from some of the bad blog design techniques.

I am not an expert at blog design and only speak from personal experience. I surf the net regularly for new blogs and I have come across so very nice blogs and some that I can’t get off of quick enough. Most of the blogs I have visited are somewhere between the good and the bad.

Sometimes you may only get a few seconds to convince visitors your blog is worth reading. Just because you might have an interesting post doesn’t mean people will suffer through bad or annoying blog design to read your post. This has happened to me on several occasions. I have left sites because of hideous backgrounds that made my eyes hurt, confusing navigation and for too many advertisements that made it hard for me to find the content. I don’t think I am the only one who feels this way.

It’s important you understand that blog content is absolutely the most important part of your blog. It’s not the Adsense ads, not the affiliate banners, it’s not the cool widget or plugins that you have found. So design your blog to make the content easily read. It may be easier to think of it in relation to home design or photography. Your focal point should be your content and all the rest should be accents or background. This doesn’t  mean you have to make the ads invisible either. Just give them an accent feel.

Here are some Do’s and Don’t and for blog design. I’ll start with the Don’ts first.

The Don’ts

1. Don’t choose backgrounds that will shock people at first site causing them to take their eye off the content. You don’t want your readers to have to adjust eyes to read the content of your blog.

2. Don’t fill every single space with advertisements. Again, content is the most important section of your blog. You want people to feel comfortable and to find the content on your blog easily. My biggest pet peeve is when people fill every space with Adsense (Google) ads. I am all for making money with Adense but when it’s hard to see the content amongst the Google ads it can get very annoying. Someone would have to have excellent content for me to put up with that. “Advertisement Happy” blogs are also often difficult to navigate.

3. Don’t choose blog templates that are hard to navigate or that are just plain ugly. Unless of course ugly is the look you are going for. An ugly template would be bright, bright colors and poor navigation to name a few clue ins. You are much better of using a very simple plain design.

The Do’s

1. Do make your content the focal point of your blog. Try and view your site from a visitor’s point of view to determine whether your content is easily read. You may ask a friend to help you out with this one.

2. Do keep advertisements and bells and whistles to a minimum. Accent the content not overpower it with ads and bells and whistles.

3. Do use a color theme throughout your blog and with your Adsense Ads. On this blog I have opted to give Adsense a background color that accented this blog. I wanted it to be visible because most people searching this blog are searching for more options. So by making the ads visible I make it very easy for people to find what they are looking for. Many people try and make the Google Adsense as part of the content and that is an option. I however felt an accent color would fit this blog better. The great thing about Google ads is that you can test different colors to see what works best.

 

January 10, 2007 | Filed Under Blogging Tips, Web Site Tips 

21 Responses to “Blog Design is Important- The 3 Do’s and Don’ts”

  1. Maki on January 11th, 2007

    Hi Mona .. thanks for the great tips. I’ve read an article somewhere which did a research on Technorati’s top 50 (or 100 blogs). The writer concluded that over 50% of them used a clean white background. =)

    BTW, Would you mind changing the URL for my blog in your blogroll? I’ve recently moved my blog to http://www.doshdosh.com .. thanks!

  2. Mona on January 12th, 2007

    Thanks Maki,
    That is very interesting info. It goes to show you that content is very important :) .
    I will update my blogroll, thanks for letting me know.

  3. Jennifer on January 15th, 2007

    Good article. Thanks.

    My blog changes colors very often (I am an admitted theme addict and sometimes can’t resist the newest thing.), but I like the black and orange colors that are there now. I hope they aren’t too distracting.

    Jennifer

  4. Mona on January 18th, 2007

    Hi Jennifer,
    I am glad you liked me article. I check out your blog and I think it’s a good design. The colors are good and the content is easily visible. I post a little bit more about it on your blog.

  5. marcus on January 21st, 2007

    awesome article. great to have you in the postie carnival.

  6. Mona on January 25th, 2007

    Thanks Marcus :)

  7. Deb on January 29th, 2007

    Nice article, and great tips

  8. Loretta on January 29th, 2007

    Good tips ;)

  9. Heather on January 29th, 2007

    I’m here via the carnival. Thanks for the tips. Your blog is very attractive and clean looking :)

  10. kids games online - Uttaruk.com » Postie Carnival part 3 on January 29th, 2007

    [...] Mona presents Blog Design is Important- The 3 Do’s and Don’ts posted at Time To Budget.What a cool article on blog design. You will definitely enjoy it. [...]

  11. CyberCelt on January 29th, 2007

    I would have to add 1) not to play music or video automatically when visitors arrive at your website, and 2) view your blog in both FireFox and IE whenever you change the template.

    Here from the Postie Carnival. Have a great day.

  12. Cecile on January 29th, 2007

    Great list of Dos and Donts. Thanks for sharing!

  13. Jeanette on January 29th, 2007

    Great tips Mona…

    Here from the PPP Carnival :)

  14. Mona on January 30th, 2007

    Thanks everyone for the nice comments! CyberCelt, I completely agree with you on the music and videos. Most of the time I have to use dialup and it really slows things down when there is music or video set to automatically play.
    I also think view you blog in firefox and IE is a great idea.

  15. Lisa on January 30th, 2007

    Great list. However, I do like my dark backgrounds :)

  16. skeet on January 30th, 2007

    Your blog is the proof. Sharp, clean, content-focused, though you have ads posted.

    One more addition. NO FLASHING ADS. I’ll never get to your content because they annoy and distract. I usually click off the moment they attract my attention away from what I’m trying to read.

  17. suni on January 30th, 2007

    coming from the carny

    love this post. I love how you point out easy ways to NOT lose readers haha …fantastic.

  18. Mona on January 31st, 2007

    I just reread my post and found a few spelling errors. I suppose that spelling errors should have been on my list of Don’ts. Thanks everyone for not teasing about it. If there are still more errors we will just have to live with it :)

  19. Leon on April 18th, 2007

    Don’ts #4 – Don’t use contextual ads. They are ugly and interfer with reading a blog. Most are irrelevant: one of yours says “Looking for your blog? Find exactly what you want on ebay.” Gee, I never knew my blog was for sale there.

  20. Mona on April 18th, 2007

    Wow Leon, that’s a bit harsh but I suppose everyone is entitled to there own opinion. I am actually in the testing phase of ContentLinks and haven’t decided if I am going to keep them or not. I don’t feel they are nearly as intrusive as some google adsense placements I have seen on other blogs.
    I noticed on your blog that you are devoted to having an ad free blog. That’s great for you but others need income and blogging is a great way to generate an income. Most people including myself don’t have a problem with ads as long as they don’t interfer with the content. I personally don’t feel that the ContentLinks are very different from a regular link. But like I said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Thanks for stopping by.

  21. 5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Blog Design - iwebis on April 25th, 2007

    [...] 2. Make your blog Content Focussed. It has been said over and over again that content is key. I agree with this wholeheartedly but will be turned off to good content if I can’t find it. My hope is that the day of filling ever other paragraph with Adsense will soon come to a end. Time and time again I have been on blogs that are so filled with Adsense and other ads that I wasn’t sure was content and what was ads. Now I am sure that this is a specific optimization technique to get confused readers to accidentally click on a contextual ad but it causes people like me to get fed up and leave. As I said before some people find this challenge enjoyable but others won’t tolerate it and leave. So optimize advertisements to compliment your content. I wrote a Blog Design Is Important – 3 Do’s and Don’ts article on one of my Time To Budget blog. [...]

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