What makes a good design blog ?

• May 3rd, 2010
• Articles

A great article on aspects what should be added to a blog in order to generate profit, to increase traffic and to make an overall better blog, weather it’s a design blog or a non design blog which are fundamental aspects.

RSS And Email Subscription

It’s essential to have an RSS and email icons or buttons which can indicate to visitors to the site that they can subscribe to updates from the blog. Icons need to be clear easy to see and attract the user’s attention at a quick glance. RSS icons on most blogs appear on the top right of the blog which is the ideal location to put an RSS icon because that’s most likely where people will first look when attempting to subscribe to a design blog whether its via RSS or E-mail.

Allowing readers to subscribe to your RSS feed or join your mailing list, is a great way to keep visitors returning back to your blog when ever new content is published on your blog which is a must have on any type of blog.

Allowing discussion with a comments section

Allowing your readers to voice their opinions and feedback on your blog is important because it allows them to engage with the editor and share their thoughts upon a blog post which you have produced.

Comments are also a great way to determine the success of a blog post a lot comments on a specific article indicates that the readers enjoyed the article.

A good footer design

The footer is the last aspect of a blog before a user decides to leave the site therefore you should linked to any key posts or pages , which you may feel readers may be interested within reading in order to keep them on your blog.

These are aspects of what usually a good footer contains.

• · Popular blog posts
• · Recent blogs posts
• · RSS and Mailing list icons to convince people to subscribe to your blog.
• · Archive links
• · Twitter Updates
• · Tag clouds
• · Contact details
• · Advertisement
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Related posts at the bottom of articles

Related post are great because once you have read a great article on a blog you can instantly find another great article similar to the current article you just read.

Implementing an related article section allows readers to read more content on your blog instead of closing page and going to another website, as well as being a great method in order to increase a site page views.

Social media icons below posts

Adding social media icons below blog posts makes it easier for readers to share your article on their favourite social media websites, which will help expose you article which you created and to help drive traffic back to your blog.

Using widgets, which is great method because the user doesn’t need to leave the page in order to share the article.

Good header design

A well known saying among the blogging community is that content is king but no matter how great and the content is an ugly header or site design makes me want to close the page. A Unique custom header design that makes your blog stand out from crowd and makes it an memorable blog.

These are aspects which you should think about including within a header design.

• · Rss subscription icon and Rss subscriber amount
• · Logo
• · Search box
• · Advertisement
• · Twitter subscriber amount
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Categorising articles

Categorising articles into good categories in order to make it easy in order for users to find and pick out articles of interest to read with all articles based around the same topic.

Advertisement

Implementing advertising into your blog is a great way to generate some revenue from blogging. Advertisements are great but too much advertisement within your blog design can become a bit of an kill.

These are advantages of implementing advertisements within your blog design

• · Money generated from blogging can be used to pay for guests authors.
• · An opportunity for people to showcase products or service which they offer on your blog.
• · The money can pay for faster hosting in order to make navigating through your site faster.
• · Can help turn blogging from an hobby to your full time income.
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Search bar

A search bar which allows users to search for a specific article which they may be interested within reading, instead of having to go through the archives. The search bar should be also in a visible clear location which is easy to see and readers to use.

Search bars are important because they’re a great method in order to get users reading old content as well as new content.