Making Your Blog More Professional
When it comes to the world of blogging everyone and their dog has a blog, but only very few make it into the big bucks. Many people can earn an okay living, working with brands, getting paid for writing content and links. And that is great, but what about making sure that when you are creating things for your blog, they are eye-catching and useful? It isn’t just about what you say it is also about how you present it. If you have a black webpage with tiny yellow typeface no one is going to stick around to see how to make a million bucks, are they? No. When it comes to the design of a blog, it should be clean, professional, and mobile-friendly. But, what else? Let’s take a look.
Font
Use a clear font, and once you have found the one that works for you, you should be using it across all of your content. If you struggle to find what you like in terms of the font, then take a peek at the typeface app to help you select the perfect font, and then create assets to use across your channels.
Clutter
Get rid of the clutter. While you might be looking to make your blog your primary source of income, having a lot of inline ads, pop-ups and other flashy items are likely to put your reader off. You can buy (or write the code for) a theme that will have dedicated spaced for ads. They will maximize your income without cluttering up your content. If in doubt? Put them in the sidebar.
Images
Use full-width images. Having beautifully written content, filled with emotion or information will go to waste if your images are fixed width and small. The flow of the material, pretty much any content, will be much better when you use full-width images. It is much more aesthetically pleasing. Uniformity is beautiful.
Fold
You need to utilize above the fold. If you have a really large header, and then some adverts, you are forcing people to scroll down to read your content. It isn’t always a bad thing but think about how often you scroll down. Any content above the fold needs to be the hook, you need to tell people WHY they need to read the rest of the post. What does scrolling down give them?
Tests
Test it all out at least once a week. The code for some themes changes, plugins change, and everything updates. If you aren’t checking in on the content, you might find that people are having problems you weren’t aware of. When you perform a check use the menu to navigate through the blog, try scrolling down and see at what point your pop-ups arrive. All of this will benefit or inhibit your readers. The user experience is essential.
A well-presented blog will be a springboard to more. You might like to think of it as a continually updating CV where people can see your style, your writing, your ability to design and your understanding of SEO.
