How To Design A Blog?
January 20, 2011When considering the question of “how to design a blog?“, the answer will vary depending on what you want to achieve from the blog. In this article we’ll go over three blog designs, first, a standard blog design, second, a blog designed for lead capture, and third, a blog designed for monetization.
Standard Blog Design
A standard design is one that is focused on fulfilling the fundamental blog roles, i.e. keeping followers updated on the latest news, events, thoughts and actions of an individual, company or group.
The hardest part of a standard blog design is determining which theme suits your personality best. Once you’ve picked your theme and are starting to add content, then there are some more features you can add. These include items of interest on your sidebar and also user feedback forms below your posts to encourage reader interaction.
Items you should consider adding to your blog sidebar include:
- a list of some of your recent posts
- a list of your blog’s categories
- blogroll (list of other blogs that your readers might find of interest)
- a link to your Twitter, Youtube and/or Facebook profile
All of the above features can be added to your blog easily, and updated automatically, with sidebar widgets and plugins.
To encourage reader interaction, leave your blog posts open for comments and also have social bookmarking links and Facebook comments available at the end of each post. These can also be added automatically via plugins if you have a WordPress blog.
Lead Capture Blog Design
A blog designed to mainly capture leads would have all the elements of the standard blog design, with the following additions:
- an optin form in the sidebar (best to keep it up the top to get the most exposure)
- a call to optin at the end of a post
- the home page is a static, squeeze capture page
- pop-up optin form that appears a few seconds after a visitor arrives
To get the best optin rates for your blog, make sure your free offer is of good quality and related to your target audience.
Monetization Blog Design
If the primary purpose of your blog is to earn money then you would want to set up a standard blog and then add the following features:
- a banner in your blog header and footer
- a square banner or block of text ads at the beginning of your post on the right or left-hand side of the first paragraph
- if it is a long page of content, you can add more block ads but keep them spaced far apart
- banners in the sidebar
- recommended products links list in the sidebar
The banners, ads and links referred to above can be linked to affiliate products or your own products. If you don’t have either, you can set up a Google Adsense and/or Amazon account. Google and Amazon will automatically populate your ad spaces with relevant advertisements and pay you a commission per click or sale.
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