Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid In Blog Designing

This is a Guest Post By Alia.

A blog can be a big source of financial gain and propel its writer to star status. However, even if you have interesting information and know how to sell your content or products, your blog will not attract viewers if it is visually stunted or overdone.

One can utilize a number of programs to give a blog layout the zing it requires. Nevertheless, one has to be careful to blend the elements of balance, color, contrast and symmetry to the blog layout. More importantly, avoid mistakes that can discredit a blog.

Here are a few tips to avoid :

Fancy Text

Extra-large text will not help people view your matter clearly. It just appears amateurish and unprofessional. If your text is too small, people will have to strain to read your page. Texts with artistic, flowery font are just as bad. They tend to annoy readers who want to focus on the matter instead of how pretty the writing is. Leave the creative fonts to headlines or captions because they consist of few words.

Pop-ups

Few things have as a high irritation quotient as pop-ups and pop-under. Every web surfer hates how these unwanted advertisements or queries obscure the page they are trying to read or muddle the screen if there is more than one. It is best to keep your webpage free of any pop-ups if you are serious of acquiring return visitors. Many have tried featuring a pop-up subscription box for acquiring subscribers to their blog’s newsletter. It works only in the short-run.

Clutter

Unnecessary items will only distract the viewer from the importance content of your website. The landing page has to be free from clutter such as excessive text boxes, pictures and multi-tiered drop-down menus. Structure is pertinent to showcasing your topic and your professionalism. Even if you have a wealth of information, you have to exercise prudence and display what will be appealing to visitors. The rest of the information can be placed on other web pages and linked to the main page.

Another thing you must never neglect is the position of the information. The page cannot be a haphazard collection of data with no cohesion with the pictures placed anywhere and the videos shoved in a corner next to another colored block of text. There has to be consistency and organization.

Useless Extras

Flash effects, animation, banners, plug-ins and continuous music are capable of creating a good experience for a visitor, provided the extras are used sparingly and not in excess. Blinking text or moving pictures are all right to a certain degree for an entertainment blog. Blogs covering more serious topics are to be left mostly plain and neat.

Another reason not to have too many flash effects, plug-ins and animation on your blog, some internet users use dial up connection. Consequently, blog downloading will take longer on the visitor’s browser, altering his decision to be a regular subscriber.

Large Graphics

To increase the understanding of the topic of your blog, it is vital you incorporate some imagery. However, large images or graphics that take up space appear shoddy. They also slow down page downloading time unless optimized for the web.

Frames

Discard frames completely. Not only are they old-fashioned but they hinder the visitor’s ability to bookmark and print your blog.

Horizontal Scrolling

Interest in horizontal websites has grown in the recent years. While it does work for specific kind of websites, it is best for blogs to stay away from them. Horizontal scrolling has weak user usability and is not well received from majority of web surfers.

Construction Pages

Nobody likes to waste their time. When linking to a website outside of your blog or to an article on another page, make very sure the content is present. Sites can move or shut down. Maybe the site you mentioned is not even running and is still undergoing construction. Don’t send your visitors to worthless places.

Social Media Integration Toolbar

As tempted as you may be to make everyone across the vast array of social networking sites know your blog, exercise caution. Most visitors don’t like scanning a list of badges or widgets, additionally these badges occupy space. Choose only the top few that visitors will definitely click on.

Poorly Created Sidebar

A blog sidebar can be very useful to a blogger and can enhance the impact of the blog. Hence, bloggers have to careful that the sidebar is not in a state of disorder and visitors can browse easily through the list of interesting items on the sidebar. Since sidebars usually contain a short bio of the blogger, awards, blogroll etc. it has to be clean and attractive to demonstrate the blogger’s commitment to his or her craft.

So these were the top 10 mistakes that you should avoid while designing a blog. Were you committing any of these mistakes on your blog ? Is there anything else you would like to add to the list ? Do share in Comments.

Tagged as: blog design, blog designing mistakes

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Article By alia

Alia Haley is a blogger who also happens to be Mobile Games and gadgets lover. She is very fascinated by the luxury world and hence, is planning to write an article on the most expensive house or vehicles in the world. Beside this she frequently writes on Bluetooth headsets.