1) Make your header image/ banner/ Blog Heading link back the home page. A lot of people get to your blog through a specific post.

2) Give your blog a simple ‘visual flavor’. Using a simple and arresting graphic for your header and matching favorites icon can do a lot. Color and coordinated text are also great ways to make a blog look super polished. Consider choosing two font faces (perhaps one serif, and one sans-serif) and apply one of the fonts to your headers and side bar links and the other to your side bar paragraphs and post text.

3) People often like to link to just a singular post that they are Interested in. Consider making it easier to get to the individual post by making your post title the ‘perma-link’ rather than a tiny timestamp.

4) It is good idea to include a short descriptive paragraph about your blog in a sidebar next to your profile/about me link. When people are blog browsing, it helps them to understand quickly what your blog is about. Make it have a snappy tone that sounds optimistic and original.

5) Make your blog have a fixed (not liquid floating) layout. Nothing is worse than reading a line of text 11 inches across. A good rule is to keep your paragraphs no wider than 500px.

6) If your blogroll is very long, consider making another page of links so people can browse through them if they want.

7) Make use of categories and labels, depending on your platform.

8) Make sure your blog has an rss feed! There are a lot of great blogs that I don’t subscribe to ONLY because they don’t have that option available!

9) Use photos in your posts, even if they are just stock photos. If someone is quickly scrolling through your blog to locate a particular post, an image can identify it quicker than a title can. Also it helps to cement a ‘visual flavor’ to your blog.

10) Make sure you know your blog’s current mission. Nothing makes a blog more confusing or out of date than one that has content that doesn’t match up with their blog description. Determining your current blog focus can be as simple as writing a ‘why I blog’ essay or even reviewing your post categories. Blogs, like our lives, often change focus, and every now and again you can find your content taking a different direction than you originally intended. If your blog used to be about knitting, but has been concentrating lately on your first child, or was about your favorite recipes and has turned into a list of humorous video clips it may be a good time for a new blog description.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Design, Design Careers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.