Blog Design: Is Imperative by Elizabeth, Delightfully Tacky & Tieka, Selective Potential
Elizabeth:
I would say that tantamount to good content is having a good layout. Let's face it, we are visual people and to add to that, we live in an era where information is given to us in a very visually designed way. Just look at how fancy the graphics are on news channels now! We have a hard time gathering information from sources that are poorly designed. So, that being said, I personally believe that if you want to grow your blog, it is a must to have a nice looking design.
If I go to a blog and the layout design is atrocious, it's unlikely I'll stay for longer than one page of it, and I'll probably never come back (unless the content is that good). I think having a nice looking blog is a testament to how much the author cares about his or her content. If you feel like you have good content, wouldn't you want your blog be a place where that good content is easily accessible and nice to look at? Reading a blog is like entering a cozy little corner of this giant house called the internet. A great looking blog can invite readers in and make them feel comfortable while they browse through your posts.
Here are a few benefits of having a great blog design:
1. Shows off your photos: Especially for those of us who post a lot of photos or outfit pictures, a good layout provides a nice canvas for those photos to be displayed on.
2. Easy to navigate: A good blog makes it easy for the reader to find the content their looking for. I've always made it a point to have links to my various types of posts (outfits/brave journey/food/travels). You can put this in your sidebar, or if you have a nav bar below your header, that's a great place to give people important links to stuff in your blog!
3. Identity: A good design gives people a sense of who you are and what your blog is about. Blogs with a focus on vintage might have more of a vintagey feel, like Rachel's blog Smile & Wave. A blog that is more into high fashion might have a more sleek look, like Le Blog De Betty.
4. Branding: A great blog design can be a part of your personal branding, which you can use for business cards and any other project that you put your name one. Your blog is essentially a tiny brand. Once you establish your branding, it can permeate your work. Use the same elements throughout your blog to solidify your branding. Pick a couple fonts and stick to using those two almost always. Pick a few colors that are essential to your branding, and use them when you add elements.
5. Consistency: I like to keep my blog looking essentially the same, even when I do tweaks to my layout. I like to keep my branding consistent. I know that some people like doing redesigns more often, but I really like a blog that I can go to and see the same design. You recognize it immediately.
Think about the blogs you love to visit and spend hours looking through. What is it about their design that you really love? Before tackling a redesign, think about the elements you'd like to include, what kind of vibe you want it to have, what your color scheme is going to be, and so on.
Working on your own blog design can be daunting, it still is for me at times! It's definitely not for everyone. If you don't have a lot of time to sit down and figure out all the HTML to do what you want, you can certainly consider hiring a designer to work on your blog for you! There are a lot of freelance designers out there looking for work. I know that Liz from SrslyLiz does blog designs, as does Kaelah from Little Chief Honey Bee. Usually if you find a blog design that you adore, you can either find on that person's blog a link to the designer, or the company they used to design it. Or, they may have designed it themselves and could have a link to their freelance design services! If they have none of those things, don't hesitate to ask who designed their blog!
I just started working for Freckled Nest blog design and I'm really thrilled about it! They do such great design work, so it'll be fun for me to be on an amazing team of designers! You can see their more on their packages here, and you can browse through all the different designers here to get a better idea of who might be the best fit to design your very own blog makeover!
Your sidebars are a perfect area to create buttons, menus, widgets, archives, calendars, anything you feel is important or relevant to your blog. There are no rules to what you need in your sidebars (everybody is different) but here are some tips and ideas for keeping your sidebars usable... and relevant to your content.
1) Search. Search functionality is so important in a blog design. You can add a widget to create a search box, so readers can type in something... and pull up results based on your content.
2) Follow. It's super important to make sure you have a "follow" section in your sidebars. This needs to include RSS feed and Bloglovin'. If you use Blogspot, the "followers" widget is great to show who supports your blog and gives the reader an easy "follow" button so they can subscribe to your blog. If you prefer not to show your followers count, make sure you have an easy way that readers can follow via Google connect. You can also grab a Bloglovin widget right on their website and copy and paste into an HTML widget. Attention Wordpress users: There is no Wordpress equivalent of Google's friend connect. You can add a plugin for Wordpress to see your Google friend connect followers and add a button so readers can "follow" via Bloglovin, but there is no Wordpress follower system.
3) Quick bio/tagline. A quick little biography or tagline should be placed somewhere at the top or incorporated into your header. It's great for readers to see the blog and quickly read a sentence or two on what they are getting themselves into. In my little call out, I just write a quick hello to new readers. "Hello, my name is Tieka; residing in a small beach town in michigan with my amazing husband brett, I'm a graphic designer and blogger that loves personal style, marriage and adventures." Now, new readers know exactly what I'm about. Reference your themes in this section. So, for me, I basically just told them... you can expect to read about Michigan, my personal style, my marriage with Brett and the adventures we take together.
4) Social media. Your sidebars are a great idea to contain widgets for Twitter and Facebook. You can create the HTML code via Twitter or Facebook, or place a Twitter/Facebook widget. Social media is so powerful and so relevant to blogging. This gives readers an easy way to follow your tweets or "like" your Facebook page.
5) Online fashion communities. If you want to link up your fashion profiles to your blog, your sidebars are a great place. You can create new widgets for your favorite communities or you could create a simple text button that says, "Chictopia, Weardrobe, Lookbook, etc.". If you are looking to save on space, I would recommend a simple text link or button link.
6) Buttons. Having a place where readers can grab your "button" is a great way to self-promote! Plus, you'll feel so wonderful when you see your button on other blogs. It's a great way to support your favorites and a way for readers to support you! We'll show a tutorial soon on how to create your own grab button!
7) Archive. You don't need an archive on your blog, but if you want readers to easily be able to access old posts, this is the best way. My archive is one of my favorite things on my blog. It's my link to the past... and all of the amazing things that have happened in the past. I love to click open October from last year and see all of my titles "Picking pumpkins" "Field of colors"... and I'm instantly transported back to autumn. I love it. Plus, readers are so grateful to read my older posts if they want to reference something or learn more about my past.
I hope that helps with some of the essentials you need for your sidebars! You can also add so many more fun widgets. I temporarily add little polls, callouts for blogger meetups, a special feature I'm running, whatever. Make sure you are constantly evaluating your sidebars and keeping the content relevant and up to date. If something is outdated or not being used by readers, remove it. It's just taking up valuable space and your blog will take longer to load!
