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5 Elements of a Good Blog Design

You’re just starting a blog, you want to make it big, but you don’t know which area to focus on.

If I’ll give you one piece of advice, it will be to focus on design.

There are several reasons for that, but the major one I’d like to cite is that we now live in a world where perception is reality. People judge books by its cover, and it doesn’t matter how good your blog is on the inside, it won’t be very successful if you don’t have a good design.

You should realize, though, that by having “good design”, I’m not referring to having a fancy website with a lot of unreadable codes, but I’m referring to having a good website that search engines and robot alike will like to read.

I’ll be sharing 5 major elements of a good blog design with you below.

Element #1: It is Simple

The number one element of a good web design is that it is simple, and easy to comprehend by any reader.

Most people think that the key to building a successful website is to make it fanciful by using JQuery and Flash a lot, but that can’t be farther from the truth; no matter how good, colorful, or effective a web design is, the one golden rule to follow is to make it simple.

What do I mean by simple?

By simple, I’m not actually encouraging going for a complete minimalist website. I’m talking about building a design that complements your content; in other words, no fancy features or anything else that will keep your readers busy and distract them from your content; just good design, that focuses on getting people to check out your content.

There are numerous examples of these kinds of websites online, and they appear in various forms online; 3 good examples that come to mind are Quicksprout.com, Zenhabits.net, and Copyblogger.com.

Element #2: It Only Has One Purpose

Every good design has a purpose; it shouldn’t be more than one at any case.

Of course, there will be a lot of complementing actions you want readers of your blog to take, but the focus of the design should be to get them to do a specific thing.

The purpose of a blog differs, depending on what the blogger is trying to achieve, but your design should emphasize the purpose of your blog. For some blogs, this purpose is to get people to subscribe. For some blogs, the purpose is to get readers to buy an end product. But, your blog should have one end goal that your design complements, and encourages.

Of course, this purpose can be complemented by other things – like ads, social media profiles etc. – but the “compliments” should never take away from the main purpose of your design.

If the main aim of your design is to get more subscribers, then get rid of those big banners.

Element #3: It makes it Easy for the Reader

Aside from a good design having a particular purpose, it also makes it easy for the reader to take any action recommended.

In other words, a good design won’t encourage readers to subscribe and then make it difficult for them; neither will it make it difficult to spread the word about individual articles.

When people read your post and want to subscribe or spread the word, make it easy for them; make sure that there are big visible subscription buttons for those interested in subscribing, and make sure each article has social sharing buttons that readers can use to spread the word.

Each action you ask readers to take should be backed up with the right medium of taking it; that’s the purpose of a good design.

Element #4: It has a Good Navigation System

It shouldn’t be difficult to go from a blog post back to the homepage, and it shouldn’t be difficult to visit the about page from the homepage.

Make sure the navigation system of your blog is properly designed, with great attention paid to details.

Having a good navigation system has numerous advantages, including helping readers spend more time interacting with your brand, as well as getting the search engines to favor your blog.

You should have related posts on each page, and you should always link to relevant articles in each post.

The purpose is to get people and search engines hooked to your blog, and you need a good navigation system to do this.

Element #5: It is fast and Super-Responsive

This is perhaps the most important point in this article.

There is no point in having a beautifully designed blog, with great navigation system, if it takes forever to load.

People are too impatient to wait, especially when there are countless other competitors with the same stuff as you.

Focus on making your site faster every day, and make sure your code is as clean as possible. Make sure every image and element is hosted on your server, and try reducing your use of plugins, too.

What Do You Think?

What do you think about the points above? Are there other elements of a good blog design you can think of? Feel free to share your opinion below!

This article was written by Bamidele Onibalusi the author of  “The Writer’s Handbook-How To Write For Traffic And Money. See here to get a free copy.

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