Choose Template and Design Your Blog
Even if you don’t really care about design, your readers do.
In a 2012 study from Google and the University of Basel, researchers found that users judge a website’s aesthetic beauty and perceived functionality in 1/20th – 1/50th of a second. Plus, thanks to a little psychological bias called the Halo Effect, we extend that judgement to all parts of your blog.
What this means is that in less time than it takes to snap their fingers, a reader has decided whether or not to trust your blog.
I suggest gathering inspiration by starting with looking at the blogs you admire the most. What is it about the way they look that you enjoy? Look at their logo and branding. The way they layout text. How you navigate and search for topics. What makes this site look good and feel good to use?
Picking a blog theme
Responsiveness is a must: Responsiveness refers to themes that make sure your blog looks as good on a laptop, as it does on someone’s smartphone. Today, more and more people use their phones to read blogs and depending on your audience.
Google also favors mobile-friendly websites and ranks them at the top of their organic search results. Your readers won’t just be using different devices, but different browsers.Try testing on a couple different browsers just to make sure.
Content: starting a blog is to share content that can be easily consumed (read, watched, experienced). And unfortunately, a lot of fancy blog themes get in the way of that. Don’t get too drawn in by crazy looking themes that compromise on legibility and usability. If a theme looks good, but doesn’t help you share your thoughts and engage with readers, it’s not a good theme.
SEO friendliness: SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to how well Google and other search engines can find your information when people search for it. Some themes use bulky code that makes it difficult for search engines to read. And while no one expects you to inspect a theme’s code you should see if the developer has said it is optimized for SEO.
Support: Problems happen. And when they do, you want to be able to ask for help. Lots of free theme developers won’t offer support for their products. So that’s one thing to be aware of when making your choice.
Supported plugins: If you’re using WordPress, the real power of your blog comes from plugins. These are “Add-ons” to your blog that give you extra functionality. Make sure the theme you’re choosing supports all popular plugins.
Ratings and reviews: Look for themes with a good track record. If the theme is sold on a third-party marketplace you should be able to see reviews no problem. For free WordPress theme, you’ll see the ratings just below the download button.
There are so many themes to check out, that it’s easy to get swept away by the ones that look awesome, but might not be functionally great.
Even if you don’t really care about design, your readers do.
In a 2012 study from Google and the University of Basel, researchers found that users judge a website’s aesthetic beauty and perceived functionality in 1/20th – 1/50th of a second. Plus, thanks to a little psychological bias called the Halo Effect, we extend that judgement to all parts of your blog.
What this means is that in less time than it takes to snap their fingers, a reader has decided whether or not to trust your blog.
I suggest gathering inspiration by starting with looking at the blogs you admire the most. What is it about the way they look that you enjoy? Look at their logo and branding. The way they layout text. How you navigate and search for topics. What makes this site look good and feel good to use?
Picking a blog theme
Responsiveness is a must: Responsiveness refers to themes that make sure your blog looks as good on a laptop, as it does on someone’s smartphone. Today, more and more people use their phones to read blogs and depending on your audience.
Google also favors mobile-friendly websites and ranks them at the top of their organic search results. Your readers won’t just be using different devices, but different browsers.Try testing on a couple different browsers just to make sure.
Content: starting a blog is to share content that can be easily consumed (read, watched, experienced). And unfortunately, a lot of fancy blog themes get in the way of that. Don’t get too drawn in by crazy looking themes that compromise on legibility and usability. If a theme looks good, but doesn’t help you share your thoughts and engage with readers, it’s not a good theme.
SEO friendliness: SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to how well Google and other search engines can find your information when people search for it. Some themes use bulky code that makes it difficult for search engines to read. And while no one expects you to inspect a theme’s code you should see if the developer has said it is optimized for SEO.
Support: Problems happen. And when they do, you want to be able to ask for help. Lots of free theme developers won’t offer support for their products. So that’s one thing to be aware of when making your choice.
Supported plugins: If you’re using WordPress, the real power of your blog comes from plugins. These are “Add-ons” to your blog that give you extra functionality. Make sure the theme you’re choosing supports all popular plugins.
Ratings and reviews: Look for themes with a good track record. If the theme is sold on a third-party marketplace you should be able to see reviews no problem. For free WordPress theme, you’ll see the ratings just below the download button.
There are so many themes to check out, that it’s easy to get swept away by the ones that look awesome, but might not be functionally great.
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