Why the “Look and Feel” of Your Blog Matters

While it’s not the most crucial element of your blog, style and presentation or “look and feel” has a lot to do with how potential readers view you and your content. Even if your content is highly informative, helpful and engaging, shoddy site structure, a weird color scheme or bizarre font runs the risk of frustrating certain people and can cause them to write you off.

Though I wouldn’t advise becoming overly obsessive about this aspect of your blog, you definitely want to give it an adequate amount of attention. If you don’t, there’s a fairly good chance you’re losing a small percentage of your viewership, which is needless when you consider that a few adjustments can fix the problem. Even if you’re not worried about losing readers, there are more than a few good reasons to give some attention to the style and presentations of your blog.

It complements great content - Great content on its own can go a long way and is still king when it comes to what drives the success of any blog; however the frame in which you present that content can either compliment  or deter from it.

When someone reads your posts, you want the area around that post to improve their reading experience. If that area is too loud, unorganized or clashes with other aspects of the site, it’s likely that the reader is “tolerating” it just long enough to copy and paste your material into a word document that’s easier on the eyes. Make sure that your material is easy to read from within your website and that the surrounding header, footer and columns do a good job of complimenting it.

It encourages readers to stay - Once you get someone’s eyes on your blog, you’ll want to make a good first impression and more often than not, that first impression comes from the presentation of your blog and not so much the content. If a user sees that your site is pleasing to the eyes and well put together, they’ll be more likely to trust that your site will deliver the information they’re looking for. This is one of the most important aspects of keeping your bounce rate down.

It makes your blog memorable - Having a distinct and well thought out style to your blog will actually help people remember it and make them more likely to return in the near future. A site with no logo, little color and an overall bland presentation isn’t going to settle in people’s memory banks even if they do find your page useful. What you want to do is present your blog in a way that is classy and organized, yet stylistically unique and memorable. Accomplishing that isn’t an exact science, but if you can do it, you’ll set your blog above the fray.

It sets you above the competition - Since many blogs tend to sidestep this topic, those who do take the time to present their blogs well will already have a leg up on their competition. Most blogs fail to present in a unique or memorable way, so if your blog is one that does, your posts are more likely to be shared and linked to for that reason alone. Again, this is all predicated on the assumption that you have solid and worthwhile content.

How do you do it?

So how exactly do you accomplish this? There are plenty of variables involved and your exact style will be a mix of trial and error and deliberate changes depending on your own ideas and the topic of your blog. At the same time I can give you some general advice that I’ve found helpful over the long term.

These are things that are fairly universal as it relates to presenting your blog well, though be sure to consider your own style and topic when and if you apply these to your blog in any way.

If all else fails, use black and white - Black and white might seem boring and dull but don’t be afraid to use it as a base, especially for your text regions. Text itself can go a little lighter, to more of a dark gray, but don’t deviate too much from this style in your reading pane. Bright colors in your font or background will make it hard for people to read your information and give them less patience for your site in general.

Be consistent with your font - Your font type should be simple and should stay consistent throughout the site. Heading and bolding options are the only variety you need from your text; otherwise, keep it simple and avoid trying to use a fancy font type to make your website flashy.

Attention to the flow of information and structure - The first basic decision that has to be made is how many columns you’ll have and how the structure of your page will be setup. Most blogs have at least one column on either side of the body (text area), and many of them will have two. Once you plan it out you should be careful about structuring your content and information for easy reading and a good flow of information. Think about where your eyes would go and what kind of structure would make it easiest for you to navigate to the information you want. Like I said, every site will be different, but if you can gauge where your readers will be looking for certain items and bits of information, you can put those items and information in the corresponding locations on your blog.

Use a template if possible - If you use a blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger, there are a ton of free templates online that you can choose to apply to your site. It’s an easy and prudent solution as most of these templates are well presented and constructed. You can even edit them and make tweaks as you go, so the longer you have the template, the more it will change and become your own. Btemplates.com has a wide variety of high quality templates to choose from, so it’s a good website to start with.

Charles Dearing has worked extensively in managing SEO campaigns. He enjoys keeping companies on the straight and narrow when it comes to SEO. He shares his insights on various blogs. Visit SEO Works to learn more.