Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.-----Steve Jobs
Last week, we focused on design. While design is important, we can’t forget the function of your blog.
It should be clean and free of any clutter. Clutter is the biggest no no. It’s okay to display your buttons of blogs you have collected, or any quotes you want to display on the sidebar. Just keep in mind if they are all jumbled together your message is not effective.
Your posts should be precise and should have a clear space differentiation from the rest of the blog. Use simple lines or designs to distinguish that space. The posting space is where your readers will hopefully spend the most time. The sidebar is important too, but let the posting space take precedence.
Have a navigation bar that lets the reader know the pages available, any links that are associated with your blog (like an etsy store). This user friendly option really makes a huge difference in the ease of readers finding your information that can sometimes become buried in your blog. Blogger has this option available if you use pages. However, it is limited with customizations.
Make your links clear. There is nothing worse than reading a great article and the link not working or its not clearly defined.
Many blog also have a blog button that readers can copy and paste onto their blog, thus visually saying, “Hey, I love this blog, go check it out.” They also are a great way to market an event or meme. However, blog buttons are the worst culprit of clutter. While they are great and help with readership/communities, they can be mismanaged and make the function of a blog slow due to the graphics. Want a blog button for free???? Email me today, the first ten people who comment on this post, will receive a free one. Make sure to leave me your email so I can contact you.
The easier you make your blog function and the cleaner the space is, the longer readers will stay. No one wants to read and stay in a cluttered up mess. Clean up those sidebars, don’t be a sidebar clutter hog.