Web Design Basics for Bloggers
You need a web site, but you’re not interested in paying a professional to design and maintain it. You can save money and control your own content by using a blog that allows you to simply plug in text and images. You don’t need to know anything about web design, right?
Wrong! Even with a blog that uses a template, there are web design basics you need. Using good design means visitors will be able to find what they need on your web site, and that they’ll be able to read the content. Ultimately it means they’ll keep coming back to your site.
Good Content in the Right Place
It’s not enough just to have relevant content on your web page. You also need to be sure you put it in the right place. First make sure you put important information in predictable places, and then be sure never to put too much content on any given page.
Put a navigation menu where most people would expect to find it – at the top of the page or along the left side. Have links to fixed pages for key information about your company, like an About page that describes your product and a Contact page that tells people how to get in touch.
Keep each page or post to roughly one or two screen lengths of content – whether that be text, photos or video. Divide written content into short paragraphs with a good bit of blank space between them. Most people will be turned off by a page with really long paragraphs or pages that scroll on forever.
Use plenty of visual cues like boldface and highlighting to set off different sections of the text. This helps visitors find information on a page.
Stick to only one topic per post, and write a new post for each subsequent topic. This makes it easier to tag and categorize posts for ease of indexing. And it means there will be no lack of content for a dynamic site!
Forget the Flashy Stuff
You know all those really cool things like animated images and funky cursors, musak that starts automatically when the page loads, and super bright colour combinations? You don’t want any of that.
Really.
You want to have a nice, clean site that loads quickly and doesn’t annoy visitors with popup ads, loud music, or strange visuals. Successful sites have clean, basic design. They use dark, neutral colored text on light backgrounds. They use graphics sparingly. Music or videos, when necessary, only start when visitors click the play button.
Use Links Well
There is a right way and a wrong way to use links. You want to do it the right way.
Always be sure visitors know a link is a link. Avoid cheesy phrases like “click here,” but do be sure the link stands out against the rest of your content. It’s fine if you want to use a color other than usual blue, but underline each link and use a color that contrasts with your main text.
Try to keep the number of links on a given page down, as search engines will penalize sites with too many links. Be sure to use a good mix of links to your own content and external links. And please, please take time to make sure links are working! If your site has too many dead links, visitors will quickly become frustrated and go looking for a more reliable site. All your hard work means nothing if nobody comes back to your site.
Do you have any questions about web design for bloggers? We’re happy to help!
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