Ravi Saive: A Technology Blog For Newbies

Just starting up a blog is not enough, as time goes on you have to make your blog appealing, so that more and more people could stay there for longer period. In order to do this you have to know basics of blog design.Even though you are a good blogger but if your blog is not designed properly then you might be loosing lot of traffic and genuine readers. Good blog design help readers to stay on your blog for longer time.



Although blog design is a job of professional designers and in no way you can master blog designing in just one or two days. It is an art and you have to spend years to learn it. However, even if you are a new blogger with no knowledge of designing, there is a way out. Well! You can get pre-designed blog templates and layouts. You just have to choose one of them. So if you want to design a blog which is attractive then take care of following points.

1. Choose Good Template

Templates are basically design patterns which are readily available. You can easily plug-in or integrate them into your website code. The entire plug-in process is so easy that it requires just one click. Here I would like to give an example of Blogger (From Google) and WordPress. Blogger and WordPress both offers free templates that you can choose. While choosing a template you have to keep few important points in your mind. Any template you choose it has to match the topic of your blog. If blog is about food then choose a template that relates to food, if it is about entertainment then relate to entertainment, etc. Template design that you choose must justify the topic or niche of your blog. Here are few templates that I suggest you to choose from.

1. 25 Blogger Templates of April 2012
2. 26 Best Free Magazine Blogger Templates 2012
3. 35 Top Free Blogger Templates of 2011
4. 54 Best WordPress Themes of April 2012 by ThemeForest
5. 10 Fresh WordPress Photography Themes
6. 24 Best Magazine WordPress Themes

2. Layout

Next important factor to consider while designing a blog would be its layout. Layout in simple terms means how you are going to arrange your text content, images and ads. If you are not arranging them in a proper order then visitors may move away from your blog immediately. Never try to overwhelm your blog with too many ads in it. Your focus must be on showing text content. Ads should mingle with your text content in a way that it must not irritate visitors. Remember advertisements always turn off readers.

A good layout means place your text content on the left hand side of the screen, screen shots and images or videos must come in between. As far as ads are concerned they can be placed on right hand side.

3. Good Theme

Theme is a factor that you often find missing in many websites or blogs. Even good templates lack in their look and feel. Ultimately design of a blog is said to be good when it is build around a unique and simple theme. Theme must bring together all elements in your blog. It would include text, images, ads, menu bar, gadgets on the right hand side etc. All these elements must integrate with each other in way that it soothes the eye of a visitor.

However creating a theme for your website is not that easy. But the best way to do is using through CSS or cascading style sheet. CSS is a piece of code that you have to put inside the blog code. There are CSS code files that are already available on the Internet. If you know to write CSS code then you can try on your own.

4. Fonts, Colors and Plug-ins

There are other factors like font, color and plug-ins that define a good blog design. Choose a font that is soothing to the readers, font is very important because text is the main content in a blog. Adjust color of the blog which attracts more readers to your blog. It must not be too sharp or too light. However the most essential thing to consider is your various plug-ins on right hand side of the blog.

This could be facebook app, twitter button, subscribe button or gadgets like facebook friends etc. You have to integrate them in a way that it mingles with other items on your blog very well. Never underestimate gadgets or apps design.

Conclusion

In concluding remarks I would only say to get more traffic you have to design your blog in an organized manner. Here are few points that I mentioned in this article. First one is choosing right template, second is layout, third is right theme and fourth could be things like font, color and gadgets. Keep all these things in your mind while you design a blog. This might help you to get more traffic.