Blog Design Tips - Part Two ~ Lisa Sabin-Wilson

NOTE: This is Part Two in a series on Blog Design based on a short article I wrote in the past. Published at How To Blog for Fun and Profit and A New Marketing Commentator and promoted at Blog Business Summit in August 2005….
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Blog Desgin - Communicating through design.

Does your blog design communicate the goal of your site? For instance, if I were attempting to sell my original music CD?s on my blog ? I would make sure to have them showcased front and center ? in an attractive way that makes it easy for the reader to understand what it is, and how to obtain more information. Every blog owner has expectations set for their site ? make sure that your design follows the expectations that you?ve set.

Let’s face it, there is a lot of stuff that a person can add to their blogs on any given day. It all looks SO tempting! Blogads, Google AddSense, Blogrolling, Shoutbox, RSS Feeds… and the list goes on and on.

More and more, blogs are becoming the communication tool to use - whether you own a personal blog, or a business site who communicates their services through the use of a blog. It’s tempting to add the latest and greatest items to your blog - - and you should! There are many different services out there that help bloggers - - and the people who read them.

However, what you should keep in mind is real estate. That is how it is referred to as… your browser real estate. Think of your site as a piece of property. Think about what you want your visitors to see FIRST when they load your site. Also, get to the point while doing it. Make it simple and easy for your readers to understand AND to navigate through. There is nothing more aggravating than having to navigate through 10 different pages in order to actually GET to the thing that you want from that site. Most users will give up after the third or fourth clickthrough. As important as it is to keep your important information front and center is to make sure that it is easyily accessible to your visitors.

If you’re selling services - - you want your services and offerings to be front and center. Above the fold, as they say. The fold being what displays on your site before the user has to scroll down to see the rest of your page. The most important items that you want to bring to your readers attention needs to be above the fold.

Many political bloggers and folks who run personal or informational blog sites have turned more and more to using BlogAds to help make a little money from their blogging efforts. To make ad placement more appealing, most advertisers want to see those ads placed above the fold.

If you’re running a business - you need to focus your web building strategy the same way. Keep your message, services and offerings above the fold so that your readers are drown there first. Decide what is most important, and incorprate that type of navigation strategy into the layout of your design.

Also, most every single blog platform out there from WordPress to Movable Type offer an internal search engine. If you have a blogging program that doesn’t offer this as part and parcel of the program, itself - you can add a Google search tool to your TypePad blog. Blogger has a Google search bar for your blog, as well. Adding a search feat