What Makes a Blog Outstanding – A Design Perspective

Blogging has become an integral part of the Internet and a vital medium through which news and information is passed on to readers. With the advent of Web 2.0, its importance in SEO and information dissemination has increased by leaps and bounds. More and more people are using blogs to express their thoughts, talk about informative topics, provide updates about their company’s products and just about anything that they feel is important for the world to know.

Some blogs become popular within a few months while others are never on the radar even after years of hard work and marketing. So, what should a blog have from a designer’s point of view to make it outstanding and popular among its visitors? This is exactly what this article is going to delve into.

Ease of readability

While good content is one part of blogging, the more important part is to present it in the right way for users. As designers, it is your job to choose the best font and size that will make reading easier. Cramming a blog with too much content can make it eye sore and will keep readers away despite the quality of the content. To prevent this from happening, have a nice layout that enhances readability and make it clutter-free. Good navigation and a simple design will also increase the visual appeal of the blog.

Encourage and respond to comments

Most people tend to think of blogs as a one-way source for information. Unfortunately, this is not true because blogs are one of the best means to get feedback from your readers about their thoughts on any post. Designers should understand the importance of the comments and should include them in their design. Encourage your audience to engage with you through comments as this is the best way to know if your audience is really reading through your posts and whether the information you provide is useful to them in any way. It also helps you to understand your readers better and this means you can deliver content that is geared towards what they want. This will increase your subscriptions in a big way. Another important aspect of comments is responding to them so that your readers know that you value their opinion. Take some time off to respond to each of them with the appropriate words to further encourage interaction.

Write about the things you love

Content is the central aspect of every blog. Irrespective of the other aspects in a blog, it’s the content that has the power to make or break it. The best way to make your content great is to write about the things that you are passionate about as this is sure to bring the best out of you. Try as much as possible to give your readers information or guidance that is unexpected. This surprise element will make them keep coming back to you. However, this information should be reliable and useful and not something that they trash right away.

Make it creative by weaving stories around what you want to say so that it is exciting and inspiring and not just informative. Keep the content universal so that it can be read by people across different countries and cultures and this is sure to give you an international audience. In short, bring out the best you can every time and write exceptional content that will make your readers ask for more. This is a sure shot way to make your blog outstanding.

A good example for content is the one written by Liz Strauss shown below. Her focus is on the content and she writes about things that are close to her heart. This makes her an expert in this niche and people come to her blog for constant information and inspiration.

Make it artistic and unique

The world is full of millions of blogs and one way to make your blog outstanding is to choose an innovative design that has never been tried before. A good way is to use an illustration-based background or anything else that will give you an edge over other bloggers. Though this is easier said than done, it nevertheless gives you the advantage over fellow-bloggers and is a definite way to make your blog outstanding in every sense.

The example shown below is unique in its design. The navigation as well as the visual appeal are unique and this makes this blog attractive to visitors.

Simple and effective navigation

Navigation is one aspect of your website that never gets the attention it deserves. In fact, a blog is of little use for visitors without an effective navigation. Blogs have a vast amount of content and so the best form of navigation is a sidebar navigation that lists the posts in a reverse chronological order. Depending on the nature of the blog, you can also provide navigation based on the topic. Also, if the blog is long, then it is a good idea to provide pagination options for the readers. Some blogs can also have top-level header navigation, though this is more suited for corporate blogs.

In short, provide navigation for users to read through the entire content of the blog post as well as options to browse through the other posts in the blog. To achieve this end, navigation becomes an essential aspect that requires a fair amount of time and effort by the designers.

Appropriate images and icons

Images and icons increase the visual appeal of the blog posts, so it’s important that you as a designer pick the right images that go well with the blog post. Unrelated or ambiguous images make it difficult for users to relate which can make the entire page confusing for the readers.  Many designers refrain from using images because it increases load-time and does not play a big role in search engine optimization. Though this is true, it is also important that the readers understand the content thoroughly and images will help in this aspect. So, designers have to make a trade-off between performance and visual appeal and it’s a good idea to stick to just one image per blog post.

Social media integration

Social media is a great way to generate traffic for your blog. So as a designer, make sure you integrate it with the page. Social sharing buttons will make it easy for your visitors to promote your blog with little to no effort. Twitter and Facebook are two popular social media sites that will constantly generate traffic to your site and all that you have to do is to include them in the page. Google Plus is the latest in this field and this also leads to a more targeted search for the users. In the example below, see the small icons at the bottom of each post. Using these icons, users can effortlessly email, blog, tweet, facebook or recommend to their friends. This simple sharing technique is vital for traffic generation.

Conclusion

In short, blogs can be made outstanding from a design perspective by infusing creativity, readability, layout, navigation and the right content. The above tips will go a long way in helping designers to come up with a design that is sure to increase traffic and at the same time, make the blog one to be remembered by millions of people around the