Content makes up 70% of your traffic while the other 30% comes from how you design and give your audiences the friendly navigational aids that they are looking for at your blog. While many bloggers touch on Increasing traffic through contents, Massive traffic with contents and Write unique contents.
I am pretty sure everyone have this word sank deep in their mind, yes writing good unique content is important but bloggers are not appreciated if they chuck aside their blog design, it is time you create or re-design a blog with your ideal layout . So how do we come up with a blog design that is perfect for every audiences to reach for our popular post, a free ebook or even showing important messages you want to deliver across to your audiences?
SIMPLE, You just got to chuck everything onto the front page of your blog and you would have delivered the message across. While the blog design are slowly evolving, there is a distinctive design that had everyone talking about and i personally can feel the effects through the design.
Everyone wants their post and targeted messages to be read by the audiences at first glance through the front page while i use the term ‘front page’ i mean without scrolling your bar, the information first captured and seen by your naked eye.
Lets take a look at all the new blog designs that we are seeing recently. What have they in common in delivering their message to the audiences.
The Screenshots taken were from the following 3 blogs
John Chow
Shoe Money
Darin
The 3 Blogs that i have choose shows you what you can see within the front page. If you notice the layout of these 3 Designs, they have a 80% similarity in the structure of the design. I have came up with a design layout map which tells you what you can look forward to with such a comprehensive design which could market your blog and attract incoming visitors to stay longer and appreciate your blog.
Looking at this Map that i have drawn out which is not the prettiest you can find around, but it is inspired from the Google Heatmap which allows you to figure out which is the best place to fit your Google Adsense.
Back to my topic, this Design map is drawn out from the similarity of the 3 blogs and what i have gathered through experimenting with reading, being a first timer viewer and navigating through the whole design.
The front Page Effect
I will touch on how this front page effect can boost your traffic like how John Chow and Darin reports that they have a increase in both RSS readers and visits/day!
Navigational Tabs
This is where you show your navigational Aids to direct users to your site.
These 3 are the most important tabs that a blog must have, it tells a user your home page, who you are and where you come from and how do they contact you directly speaking to you on emails, MSN or skype if they have something to suggest or query. A blog fails without these 3 essential tabs. You can add on new tabs that you think would help your readers navigate better.
Banner
Everyone needs a banner, even if its a simple text banner which should include in a web 2.0 look.
3 column Header
While not every theme is available with this additional killer column, it is vital to have a list of things you want to project to the crowd right on your front page. Most of time they stick to 3 commonly used messages they want to project.
- Popular Posts
- Email Opt-List
- A unique message you want to deliver to your readers
Content and sidebar
With this design going content and the sidebar is no longer a factor anymore, since this templates offers a list of good informative grabs that you can choose from, but still it is always good that your front page can show your latest post title to gain curiosity among your readers.
The forgotten places
Enough said on the front page effect, there are areas that are not touched on which are seriously not important but since you have such space created, make full use of them and explore how you can work on those areas.
Sidebar
Like my 2 column layout i had to throw everything on my sidebar and i would have to prioritize between those that i want to deliver to my audiences first to be on the front page and the not so important at the bottom. Since you are using a template design which had already covered your most of your messages that needs to be addressed, it is time you place monetizing ideas on your blog.
- Sponsors
- Featured Sites
- Top Commenters
- Recent Articles
- Categories
- Poll and votes
- Blogrolls
3 column Footer
I seem to have covered everything with this magnificent design, and if you want all these on my cramped up 2 column design, there is no way it will work, so having this 3 column footer is good if you have joined a social network like myBlogLog or Blogcatalog which you can include a widget to one of the designate column and as for the other 2 columns you can place in “short shoutout about yourself” and “resources & tools”.
Can i get this design for free?
It would be impossible to get it for free now, i guess designers are still not releasing this for free since its effort have been put in by Nate Whitehill and his team members at unique Designs. This is no promotional review done for them, but a design worth talking about. If anyone can create or do a replica of this design, i would suggest this design be heavily used for both marketing strategy and user friendly blogging.
Currently Unique Designs is offering this full design at $799, if you can’t afford his design at the moment, you can stick to the 3,000 templates available for free and try and source for a design that you find worthy to try.
Posted by MixedSoup |
1 Comment »
