My Top Blog Design Tips

Content is King. Google doesn’t look at your design. Many visitors will often read your content from their favorite RSS reader.

So really, how important is Blog Design for your business?

Does it affect your traffic? Does it affect your subscriber base? Does anyone care?

In short – Yes!

Here’s a few observations made while surfing the web (Hey, I do A LOT of surfing!)

I should also mention that I’m not even talking about things like floating angels, snowflakes that follow my cursor or background colors that automatically change every 30 seconds thanks to the wonders of javascript (for these sites I’ll stay around only long enough to laugh for a bit, then surf elsewhere). The following is a reference for bloggers who are actually trying to succeed online but may be using their blogs default template or a poorly designed alternative.

The search engines don’t care if your site looks any good, but I do and you’re writing for me not Google. If you’re not writing for me then I’m not coming back anyway.

It’s about perceived value. If I hit your site and see you’ve clearly put 0 effort into your design, I’ll automatically question how much time you’ve put into your message. I may still read your post depending on how I arrived, but I’ll be reading with a filter that didn’t need to be there in the first place.

There’s no shortage of competition out there. So unless you happen to be the # 1 voice in your industry and provide indispensable information with every post, which is unlikely, give me a reason to stay, not a reason to leave.

The package may not make the product (see next point), but it can certainly break it.

If you break new design ground you may generate a temporary buzz but if you have nothing to say your creative wonder of a blog isn’t going to convince me to come back a second time.

If your site uses yellow, red, pink or other light font colors I can’t read it… I’m partially color-blind and you just lost me.

It doesn’t matter if your regulars use RSS feeders unless you WANT a soapbox. Your job as a blogger is to keep people coming back to the SITE. You can’t have a conversation if your readers stay at arms length so give them a friendly place to come back to!

There’s something to be said for image. You don’t go to a dentist with discolored, cracked teeth or a chiropractor who sports a cane and you generally wouldn’t buy from a sales man dressed in a speedo! People are coming to your blog with certain expectations, understanding those expectations and exceeding them is better than the alternative.

Don’t design for your tastes (unless you’re an historically proven trendsetter). Let me put that another way: I don’t care that you really like yellow and black; the colors of wasps, bees and danger signs don’t belong in large quantities on your blog template!

This won’t apply to all blogs, but I read a large sampling of business related blogs and this one is for those bloggers. If your blog template NEVER changes, you obviously aren’t trying new things or testing the results and I’m going to question your online business savvy.

Having a great looking blog doesn’t mean you need to break the bank hiring a designer. There are literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of completely free template designs out there if you’re using a blog platform like WordPress. (see here or here)

I’ll end with a caveat and final thought

My Caveat

A lack of a unique and trendy Blog design shouldn’t hold you back from starting a blog. At the end of the day, it’s your message that brings people in, not your design (unless you are a blog about design). That being said, a sleek design should be at the top of your ‘To Do’ list once you get the ball rolling!

My Final Word (for today)

If you get involved in a redo of your blog template, don’t forget your priorities; a blog’s template should always serve to Enhance the presentation of your content and never overshadow it, and what’s really important in a Blog template is speed, accessibility and clarity.

Do you have any great tips that I haven’t covered here? Or do you disagree with any of my advice? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Tools & Tips & Design 17 Sep 2007 03:50 pm

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3 Responses

Christoph Says:
September 17th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
That’s interesting.

I just finished designing my blog, but I don’t know if the design “works” or not. I put some effort into it.

Well, this may be my only opportunity to ask a colour blind person for their opinion!

Youre post made a lot of sense to me, particularly the part about wanting readers to come back to the SITE and not just RSS.

Do you think I should make any major changes and does light or dark theme work best?

Finally, it would have been so nice to turn it into a WordPress theme and I was this (picture me — and you’ll get to see my picture in a moment — almost touching my thumb and index finger together) close to making it work, but couldn’t hammer out all the formatting errors.

Do you mind telling me what you think of my design?
Solace Says:
September 26th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Certainly changed my views. Just completly redid our website from the boring crappy theme we had before to something new and modern

And yes visitors view times have incresed and it seems numbers have slightly spiked
Michael Valiant Says:
September 26th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Christoph, I took a look at your site and will get back to you shortly! Unfortunately I’m a little busy getting ready for a big system upgrade right now

Solace, Excellent! I hope you’re not mad at me for making you change but your design looks great!
I’d love to hear what kind of % increase you saw in your stats after improving your design! If you want to share you can contact me at:

mvaliant at 1Shoppingcart dot com