Blogging Design Considerations – Step 8
Step 8 – Blogging Design Considerations
One aspect of personal blogging that doesn’t translate into business blogging is blog design. Personal blogs are like kitchen junk drawers, overflowing with widgets, advertising, blogrolls, shoutboxes, music lists, phases of the moon, and all other kinds of junk. It’s one of the things that makes personal blogging personal, but nearly all of these things have no business being on a business blog.
There is still a large percentage of the general population who may be your customers that do not know what a blog is when they see it. People tend to ignore that which they don’t understand. Leave out all those blog-specific items and focus on the content and fulfilling the purpose of the blog. All you generally need are the following:
- Subscription tools for visitors, both RSS and Email, with the email more visible and prominent than RSS.
- Categories
- Archives
- About or author information
Make sure your business blog carries your brand. Do not just get an off-theshelf or free template. That is not you. It is somebody else. Have your blog theme or template professionally designed, or for goodness’ sake at least customize a free theme enough to “make it yours”. If you are redesigning your entire site to use the blog CMS, have your theme professionally designed. A WordPress custom theme design doesn’t cost any less than any other professional web design. Expect to pay well over $1,000 for a good one. There are plenty of good designers out there.
Some final tips:
- Pay for a good stock photography and let your blogger(s) use it to add visual interest to posts.
- Make sure your blog looks great in all common browsers: Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox, and Safari for the Mac.
- If you’re going to really use it as a blog, and not just as a light CMS, make it clear that it’s a blog. Use the word “blog” or “weblog” prominently at the top.
- Consider using non-bloggy terms, like “permanent link” instead of “permalink” and “links to this post” instead of “trackbacks.”
Exercise: Deciding Factors for Blog Design
- Is your current web designer knowledgeable and experienced in designing blogs?
- How web-savvy do you consider your customers and audience? How do you know? If you don’t know, how will you find out?
Related Post
Related posts:
- Understand Who You Are Blogging For? – Step 3
- Know The Benefits of Blogging For Business – Step 2
- Understand Blogging in General – Step 1
- Graphic Design – AutoCAD 2006: One Step at a Time – Part II
- AutoCAD 2006: One Step at a Time – (Graphic Design) Part II
Category: Blogging Guide
