Search Engine Journal is a great place to learn about effective blog design. Recently they published a “tips” article in which the focus was prominent RSS Feed placement and sharing tools. In terms of design, the biggest thing they want us to understand is to not over clutter the site with tons of options to share with every possible network. Thank you Search Engine Journal! Give your users a few of the most popular options, or, keep  all the sharing tools in a tight format. Personally, I prefer just a few choices. Find out what your users want and give it to them. They don’t need the rest.

I agree that blogs need legs and social sharing buttons are important. But RSS Feeds and Sharing Tools placement is not the end of  tips for incorporating effective feed and sharing tools into a blog design.  Social Bookmarking and Share This! are relatively compact and I’m surprised they weren’t mentioned.

Here are some of the practices I use when integrating these tools into blog design:

Simple Start Guide to Effective Blog Design

Top of the Page

Working from the top of the page; a good type face, prominent size and color for the main headline can make a huge difference. Take a look at a default install of Thesis Theme for WordPress. Big and prominent. And very close to the headline, a publish date because readers want to know how current the information is that they are reading and you should want to keep updated information supplied to your readership.

Content Layout

Whether your blog has one or two sidebars, they should both appear on the right side of the page with the main content column on the left. Since people read from left to right, this is where your readers will be looking most of the time they are on your site. And it gets crawled first because its closer to the top of the page within the code. If you don’t keep your sidebars to the right then the first thing Google Bot will see is the links to other pages rather than rich content.

Most blogs tend to include the include the sharing options mentioned above within the content area. It seems to be most popular to include the “Retweet cloud” and Facebook’s “Like This” buttons toward the top while other social bookmarks like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc are seen at the bottom. This is a good way to offer more options and keep the blog looking clean and organized.

Sidebars and Footer Space

The top of the sidebar is a great place for your RSS Feed Subscription content. The rest of the area is all supporting content. In no particular order you want to have recent posts, recent comments, tags and categories. I personally think “related posts” and most “popular posts” are necessary. These plug-ins will give your reader a reason to stay on your site and continue reading. Remember, the job of your website is to help readers get to the information they need in the quickest amount of time.

An effective blog design can go a long way and with these simple guidelines you can take it even further. Just remember that less is more and the design of your blog is equally as important as the content.

We  create  custom WordPress themes. Contact us today to discuss building an effective design for your WordPress blog.

Blogging takes time but it doesn’t have to absorb a lot of time.  I recommend devoting an hour a day.  This hour is NOT to be entirely devoted to only writing, but an hour that also focuses on other important facets of a successful blog.

There is so much more to developing a successful blog than publishing massive amounts of content. The overall health and SEO of your blog is just as important as the content you publish. And brainstorming for interesting topics that will keep readers engaged is more important than publishing vague and common posts.

Choose one activity from the list below and complete it each day of the week. If you don’t already have a calendared schedule, make one and write your blogging time into it. The best activity to start with is “topic brainstorming.” The next thing to do is just start writing. Don’t forget to revise because I can’t emphasize enough how off putting and amateurish spelling errors can be.

Now let’s get going. Make a copy of the list and start with “Topic brainstorming.”

• Topic brainstorming
• Content planning
• Keyword research
• Editing or updating outdated posts
• Publishing and cross linking strategies
• Reviewing older posts for new cross linking opportunities
• Link building & networking with other blogs
• Software and plugin updates

All of these tasks combined may seem overwhelming but by putting just one of the above tasks into action for just an hour each day, the stress of a large project is minimized. For a successful blog and to benefit your social community make sure to take the time to stay on top of behind-the-scenes dirty work which includes software and plugin updates.

If you already have a blog and need help with maintenance or development, contact us. We can help.

I spent my blog hour today planning a new WordPress CMS Tutorial blog. How did you spend your hour?

I break rules all the time. Especially the #1 rule of blogging. A colleague of mine saw that I hadn’t posted since July and said, “shame on you.”  Regular publishing is really a difficult thing for me to get done. I don’t love writing and I have to keep the cogs of the business turning. But still, I need to improve my blog health as much as the next business.
There are three main reasons which make regular blog publishing is necessary:

1. Social Networking

If you publish regularly then readers will follow your content via RSS, Twitter and Facebook because they will see you as a source of knowledge on the topics you write. Followers usually share your content with others, then they share with others. You get the picture.

2. First Time Visitors

If a first time visitor comes to your blog and sees that you haven’t posted in a month or so and all your posts are sporadically published they’re likely to go away and never come back.

3. Search Engine Spiders

Publishing regularly and often will keep search engine spiders like Google Bot visiting your site for new content to index.