Most popular blogs have a number of blog design elements in common. Read on to learn about eight of the most important blog design elements your blog must have in order to have a chance at success!
1. Readable Text
Your blog design must be easy to read. That means the fonts you choose should be large enough to be read on high resolution monitors, and they should be simple enough to be legible. In other words, don’t choose a highly stylized font. Stick with a Web-friendly font. Also, make sure the text on your blog is easy to scan quickly.
2. Inviting Colors
Don’t select colors in your blog design that are blinding or so light that it’s difficult for visitors to read the text or even look at your blog for more than a few seconds. The easiest colors for people to read online are light backgrounds (white is best) with dark text and images (such as black, dark blue, dark green, and so on).
3. Easy Navigation
Make it easy for visitors to find your content. Don’t hinder their visit by using irrelevant hyperlinks. In other words, don’t give them a chance to click away from your blog when they land on it.
4. Short Pages
People don’t like to scroll. Keep your blog pages short by configuring your blog settings to show no more than 10 blog posts on each page of your blog (5-7 is best). If your blog posts are long, consider using the HTML more tag to split your post into two parts so only the first part appears on the main page of your blog and the rest is available for viewing when a visitor clicks the provided link (often called a ‘jump’).
5. Search Function
Make it easy for visitors to find related content, specific content, and archived content on your blog by including a search box in your blog’s sidebar or header.
6. Your Bio or Profile
While there are some successful blogs written by anonymous authors, most are written by a person or team who makes it very clear why they are the person or group to write about their blog subjects. Show the world who you are and why you’re qualified to write your blog by including a comprehensive biography. The best bloggers build strong relationships with their readers, and your bio is the first place to make yourself seem human and personable.
7. Comments and Social Links
The best bloggers build relationships with their readers, and part of that is making it easy for your readers to connect with you, share information, and get to know you. Make it easy for them to communicate with you by commenting on your blog posts. Furthermore, try using the “ShareThis” plugin to allow your readers to share your blog with social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+.
8. Useful Footer
Don’t forget your footer when you create your blog. When people can’t find what they’re looking for on a Web site, they often scroll to the footer to find site-wide links such as a contact link, site map link, and so on. Take some time to include useful links and information in your blog’s footer, and make sure the footer appears at the bottom of all of your blog pages.