Ideas to be Kept in Mind While Designing a Blog

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Web Design

Blogs are generally termed as personal online publishing systems, as they allow every one to just write, publish and distribute their ideas.

Personal blogs contain the views and personal experiences of people on a range of topics. Anyone can view these personal blogs, follow the person who wrote the blog, like the posts or even leave a comment. Of course, it is necessary for a blog to be informative and designed in an innovative and attractive manner, to drive traffic.

Here are some ideas for you to design a well-structured blog.

Make It Search Engine Friendly

We publish blogs to share information about things happening around us, to communicate with people about our feelings, views and opinions, to express our creativity etc. So when they decide to read up on a particular topic, they have to find the right blogs that offer the content they are looking for. This is achieved through the apt usage of keywords.

Get to know about the right keywords for your blog posts and use them in the appropriate places to make your posts user-friendly and search engine friendly. This is one of the ways to optimize it for search engines, thereby helping your blog reach out to people, attract readers easily and improve traffic.

Multimedia Isn’t Always Required

Even if the writing is outstanding, most users like to add some elements of multimedia like videos, audio, graphics, animation etc., to supplement the text. In reality, this isn’t necessary all the time as many multimedia elements are not supported by common browsers.

Flash files make your blog appealing but these files can be viewed only with the help of plug-ins that may cause some errors while loading. Include multimedia elements that have simple code and increased usability.

Include Relevant Links

You may link to references to make your blog more informative. Remember to use links that are relevant to the content you’ve posted, to increase creditability and build trust.

Test the links included in your blog, to debug the errors and get rid of broken links and missing pages. Make sure your posts are not cluttered with links as that can end up being very distracting and force readers to leave your blog.

Avoid Long Pages of Text

When readers land on a blog post, they tend to scan the page to know if it is likely to interest them. So the content will have to be crisp and relevant to make them want to read on.

Long pages of scrolling text reduce readability and make users bored. Present the content in short paragraphs in a manner that will engross readers.

Minimize the Use of Graphics and Images

Graphics and images are visually appealing and can help in attracting readers to read on. But the overuse of graphics, animation templates and images will drastically reduce the loading time of the page and create a negative impression among readers.

Avoid using graphics and images excessively and make sure they are optimized for the Web so that they do not reduce page speed or cause other browser compatibility issues.

Writing a blog broadens your knowledge and makes you an expert in a particular field. Blogs withย  social messages can help in creating awareness and solving basic problems. Get a global audience by designing an instructive blog that has the ability to inspire and impart knowledge.

Author Bio:

Brian Taylor is the Project Manager, VP at Forix, a web design company based in Portland, OR. Forix specializes in web design and development for small, medium and large company websites, e-commerce systems, developing mobile applications.

16 COMMENTS

  1. These are excellent tips for people who intend to create their own blog. In addition, to the things you already mentioned, you also need to think your target audience when designing a blog. Make sure that your blog is easy to navigate.

  2. Hi Brian, well mention and agreed.
    I think that best replacement of images and flash is the info-graphics for better understanding of your taught and techniques and for website authority as well.
    Thanks.

  3. Thank you so much for sharing some wonderful ideas to design a blog and I really appreciate that you share it. This very helpful for me.

  4. Thanks for the tips. You said that use minimum graphics and images in it. I would like to give you two more points about it

    1) Use caching option to make high speed browsing experience of your website
    2) Use CSS property to minify your small and repetitive images and combine them into one image.

    Hope it useful. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Regards,
    Tushar

  5. Great post Brian, and all your points here are strong, though I don’t really agree with the minimize use of images and graphics. For me images add to the design and symmetry of a blog, it makes the look and feel of a blog post flow nicely. Also as Rajkumar pointed out it provides a break and a focal point to an interesting post, especially if the appropriate kind of images are used. Thanks again.

  6. A well designed blog will surely attract readers. It is not an easy thing but if certain points are considered well, it can turn out to be successful. Great tips you have made here. Thanks for sharing.

  7. These are great effective tips that must be considered while designing blog. Designing a blog is indeed a cumbersome task as a large amount of factors need to be considered at the same time, so as to come up with something great. I certainly agree, that the length of the page should be adequate and not that long, as it will hamper the reading. Also, to make a visible marketing presence it is indeed essential for the website to be search engine friendly. Thanks for providing with the advices.

  8. Thanks for sharing this blog, Brian! I really want those readers to notice my blog and attract more hopefully. And so, I will work on including relevant links just like what you said here on your blog. You’re right, it will make my blog look overflowing with credibility and professionalism. Thanks!

  9. Great post and agreed,
    But few time if we add media to our blogs this gives more value to our blog and to the readers as well. Because it is more easier to learn and implement, that’s why most of the bloggers prefer images, info-graphics even they created their video blog in a coffee-shop.
    Thanks for sharing with us.

  10. I totally agree with all your points hence the reason why I keep my themes on a minimal design. I love how it’s simple and not too distracting.

  11. Great minds do think alike, I’m definitely into the same details on my blog. And I’m glad I know this is what is preferred. Good job on the post!

  12. @Brian: Some great points here, I would say that readability should be paramount importance while designing a blog. I have seen a lot of bloggers trying different text and background colors and they are very difficult to read. A good font size, decent vertical spacing and good contrast between text and background color is VERY important while designing a blog.

    I think you wanted to say, “But the overuse of graphics, animation templates and images will drastically ‘increase’ the loading time of the page”. A quick update should be on the way ๐Ÿ™‚

  13. Thanks for the practical advice :)I think that designing a blog should be focused on keeping it well-structured, enticing and user-friendly. I will definitely keep your tips in mind the next time I develop another blog.

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