Essential Blog Elements
This post on blog essential elements and design is taken from Newsletter 4.
The emphasis at Moms Make Money, is very much that. Making money from your blogging. But before we try to do this, we need to make sure our blog has everything it needs to draw in readers, and keep them there browsing the site. So today let’s think about blog design and the essential elements that must be present.
Now before we begin – I admit that design and graphics is NOT a strength for me. My sewing blog is pretty plain right now and I would love to make it more colorful. With this in mind I found a site – Design Seed – which is FULL of color scheme inspiration. If you have a couple of minutes, do drop over and drool over the beautiful photos and the palette of colors you can use on your own site to get the same feel. It truly is beautiful I hope to use a brighter color scheme and might get to work on this soon.
Now to the subject of the essential elements that you should have on your blog or website.
- Sign up box – you may have heard the phrase ‘The money is in the list’. You MUST have a website sign up box where you can collect the email addresses of people interested in what you have to say. If you don’t have this already, I will cover how to set up a mailing list and add a subscribe box in a later newsletter issue. (See the Newsletters 7 and 8.)
- Social Media Buttons – a cute row of buttons to ask your readers to follow you on Pinterest, like your Facebook page etc. Not sure how to do this and where to get them from? Follow through this easy tutorial at Add Cute Social Media Buttons to your Site.
- A header image or logo – so that visitors get an immediate idea of what your site has to offer. You only have a few seconds to make a first impression, so make your header count. Although good design alone will not keep someone on your site — an eye-catching design will, at the very least, grab their attention long enough to take a look around. Tutorial on how to design your own is coming up in a later issue. (See Newsletter 6.)
- About page – this can be one of the most visited pages on your site. Readers will want to know more about you, and it is often better to place personal info here than fill your blog with too much personal posting, which won’t necessarily contribute to its content or earn you money.
- Call to Action – what do you want a visitor to do? Maybe its sign up for your mailing list, download your e-book, read a post on a subject important to you. Make sure your Call to Action is eye-catching and directs the reader where you want them to click on your site. Best to limit yourself to one or two calls to action.
- Latest posts or blog – showcase your recent content. If you don’t update often, consider leaving off the dates on your posts. There is nothing more off-putting than visiting a blog to see that the last post was 6 weeks ago – in internet terms, this looks like an abandoned house!
- Menu bar or navigation. Place these under your header, and use them to direct your readers where to go and showcase your best pages or content.
- “Content is King” — you might have a pretty web site which will catch someone’s eye, but if the content is no good, you can be willing to bet that they aren’t going to stick around or visit more than once.
- Contact information. Maybe on your about page, or a separate Contact Me page. Make this easy to find – you never know when an opportunity might have been coming your way from a fellow blogger or even a potential advertiser – but it they can’t easily find how to contact you, they will quickly move on.
- Search box. Maybe someone Pinned on of your projects but instead of linking to the post, they linked to the front page of your site. Now a visitor quickly wants to find that project they are interested in – provide a search box to make navigation easy or they will soon be off somewhere else.
- ALT tags on your images. If you have great images on your site then make the most of them. Improve your search engine optimization by using Alt tags on your images for your keywords and these can also be found on Google Images to also draw in more visitors to your site.
- Statistics and tracking. You want to know where your visitors come from and what pages they visit. What keywords are being used to find your site? (See Newsletter 5.)
Download the Blogging Design and Elements Checklist from my Google drive.
Check out your site now and make a list of things you feel need improvement or have to be added. Small changes make a big difference.
Are there any other blog elements you feel are essential for success?
Authored by: Deby at Moms Make Money
April 30, 2013 @ 8:48 pm
I always look forward to seeing your posts – very informative! Thank you for sharing on Fluster’s Creative Muster Party!
Robin
Fluster Buster
April 30, 2013 @ 9:30 pm
Great list of essentials.
April 30, 2013 @ 10:47 pm
Thanks for the great tips!
Glad to find you on the link party 🙂
May 1, 2013 @ 12:22 am
Great information. Thanks!
May 1, 2013 @ 1:50 am
Great List thank you
May 1, 2013 @ 10:59 am
Thank you for this great list. I have most of these but there are a few that can use some work! Thanks for the help darlin’. 🙂 Krista @ A Handful of Everything
May 1, 2013 @ 11:36 am
Very helpful info for this new blogger! Thanks for sharing at How To Tuesdays!
May 1, 2013 @ 12:09 pm
Thanks for sharing this. As a new blogger I feel like I have so much to do and so much to try and catch up on. This is a great checklist to have to help guide me. Thanks for sharing!
May 1, 2013 @ 2:17 pm
Thanks for the list!!
May 1, 2013 @ 11:33 pm
Love your tips there very useful and effective.
May 2, 2013 @ 5:48 am
Thanks for the great tips! I love reading your helpful articles:) Have a great weekend!
May 2, 2013 @ 6:45 am
Thank you for this! Great tips!
May 2, 2013 @ 7:20 am
Thanks for posting this! Now I know what I need to do to my blog. Enjoy your day. 🙂
May 2, 2013 @ 9:26 am
Great tips! I am having trouble with my call to action!! Anything that can help in that area would be great! Looking forward to reading more. Found you on Design Décor and following 🙂
Heather M, http://www.RockStew.com
May 4, 2013 @ 7:44 am
The call to action can be quite simple and is really what you would like your visitors to do before leaving your site. It might be that you want them to sign up to you newsletter, follow your social media, or to read a particular post, or look at (and hopefully buy) a particular product. I would always like a newsleter sign up, and if someone reads and acts on one of my posts then although it might not benefit me, I hope they get some benefit from taking action that leads them to come back and read again one day.
May 2, 2013 @ 10:52 am
Thanks so much for the great tips… I’ve got some work to do!
May 2, 2013 @ 10:58 am
Thanks for sharing!! I learned a few more things I need to do to help grow my blog.
May 2, 2013 @ 11:03 am
Thanks for the tips!! I need to start using the ALT tags on my images ASAP!!
Selene @ Restoration Beauty
May 2, 2013 @ 2:02 pm
Thanks for your helpful post! I’m not familiar with ALT tags, I’ll have to check that out.
May 2, 2013 @ 2:25 pm
These are great tips too! =) Thanks for sharing this post as well!!
Danielle
SewMuchCrafting.com
May 2, 2013 @ 6:00 pm
I got lots of great ideas from this. Thanks.
May 2, 2013 @ 8:24 pm
Thanks for the tips!
May 3, 2013 @ 1:27 am
Thank you for the good information. What are ALT tags?
May 4, 2013 @ 7:41 am
Hi Lori, Alt tags are the description of the photo that the search engines can read. It often displays when you hover your muse over a photo without clicking, and is best written as a proper sentence including the keywords for your image and post. Its not the same as any caption that might display underneath. In WordPress for example, you enter this in the Alternative Text box when loading the image. Its a great way to add more relevant keywords to the post and page without making it unreadable!
May 3, 2013 @ 11:27 am
Great post. I’m just restarting my blogging life and I’ve been redoing some posts to better my SEO key words. It is really hard work, I’ve been at it for a couple of days and it still isn’t done. I can’t wait to catch up so that I’m not stressing over SEO’s any more
Nissa
http://www.nissazaididesigns.blogspot.com
May 3, 2013 @ 11:05 pm
Thanks for the list. The only thing I would add is have a sidebar link to a tour of your home!
May 4, 2013 @ 8:08 am
These are fantastic tips. Pinned from your site yet again. 🙂
May 4, 2013 @ 9:07 am
These are some great tips. I pinned this post so I can refer to it in the future. Thanks so much!
May 4, 2013 @ 10:51 am
Thank you so much for this! I have been blogging nearly 2 years now and still don’t have an about me page. so will be doing that very soon
I would love it if you could share this on my link party Serenity Saturday
Natasha xx
May 5, 2013 @ 8:12 am
I linked up Natasha, thanks for the party invite.
May 5, 2013 @ 2:44 pm
Great post. I’m hanging onto it with a pin. Thanks!
Liz
May 5, 2013 @ 9:03 pm
Thank you so much for the list!! I am so far behind in setting up my blog/website. This will really aid in the process 🙂 You’re posts are the BEST! Have a great week!!
Andi
May 6, 2013 @ 10:15 am
Great list…I’d love for you to pop over to my site and let me know what you think.
Thanks!
Sam
http://cooksandcreates.blogspot.com/
(Found you on Skip to my Lou!)
May 6, 2013 @ 7:23 pm
Hi Deby,
Great list.
Please share this post at Pin It Monday Hop#7
Judy
pursuitoffunctionalhome
May 7, 2013 @ 8:44 am
Great list!! I pinned it! Thank you for sharing! I am visiting from Take-A- Look Tuesdays!
Shelley
http://www.piggyinpolkadots.com
May 10, 2013 @ 8:40 am
Awesome tips! Thanks for sharing at Give Me The Goods Monday! Can’t wait to see what goods you bring next week! Jenna @ Rain on a Tin Roof
May 10, 2013 @ 11:41 am
Thanks so much for sharing these helpful tips at Get Schooled Saturday!
May 11, 2013 @ 12:25 pm
I love Design Seed too! I picked out a nice color scheme that is being used in my new blog design coming soon. Visiting from Pin It Monday Hop.
Michelle @ On A Wing And A Prayer
May 13, 2013 @ 11:44 am
Hi I so want more followers any tips please. My theory is that if I have more followers I might be able to earn money from my hobby
May 13, 2013 @ 5:36 pm
Hi Tracy, I popped over to take a look at your site. Your blog at EdenHouseSeven is just like your personal diary, and features you and your family and personal posts. You describe it in the welcome section as “This is a diary of what happens in my life. Some of it is boring mundane everyday things.” Sorry to say that the big blogs with their large number of regular visitors usually have some kind of theme or a range of posts or topics that encourage visitors to return regularly to see the latest updates, such as home decor, recipes, crafts, coupons etc. This offers some value and incentive to readers to follow and return to see the latest updates. I think you would need to expand your content to a wider range of topics in order to attract the traffic you are looking for.
June 23, 2013 @ 7:10 am
Your blog is just what I’ve been looking for. I’m at the next stage in my business and having a difficult time deciding how to proceed-website, blog, newsletter. One or all of them? I’m leaning towards a blog and this article may just give me the needed push to get started. Thanks for the valuable information.