User Experience
Many bloggers work so hard getting people to visit their blog that they forget how they’re supposed to treat them when they’re there. Despite the fact that there is usually one author and multiple readers, blogging is not a one-way relationship. You have to engage your readers and get them involved in your blog in order for it to grow. How does this fit into design? Well if your design makes it hard for your readers to interact with you, there is a definite problem. Here are a couple things I’ve found useful:
1) Make your comment link prominent - Many users will know that if they click on a blog post’s header they’ll most likely be taken to a page where they can comment, but believe me when I say not everyone knows this. What people do know, however, is that when they see a big “Comment Here!” box they know where to go and what to do. It also never hurts to include a dialog box icon next to your comments link.
2) Make it easy to contact you - As a blogger, much of your content will be user contributed or at least inspired by your users. You want them to be able to contact you with as little hassle as possible. Not to pick at Darren too much here, but when I tried to contact him for the first time, I admit it took me a good 10 minutes to figure out where his contact page was! I completely glazed over the little link in the sidebar. Luckily for Darren, I’m tenacious.
Overall you want to make it as easy as possible to interact with your users, so always keep user experience in mind when laying out and designing your blog.
Compatibility
There isn’t a whole lot to say about compatibility aside from simply stressing that you need to make sure that your blog is accessible to as many people across as many platforms and browsers as possible. Much of that will fall on the programmer’s end, but the designer can help improve compatibility by using text over graphics as much as possible and laying out the navigation and content so that it is easy to display.
Blogging is part of the Web 2.0 craze, so always be sure to keep the foundations of the new web in mind when designing and laying out your blog!
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8 comments
u has great blog,my blog is http://sharingthelife.blogspot.com/ do u wan link exchange v me?
I will admit that when I first started blogging I was a mess. After reading a few good articles, similar to this one, now my sites are a little more eye friendly. I still have a little ways to go. If you have any pointers let me know. Thanks.
Hey there, I was wondering if you would like to swap links with me as it will benefit both of our sites. We both have similar sites and building up links will help to increase our traffic rate. Reply back to me through a comment on my page.
Thanks ACH
i want to exchange link wid u
if intrested then please leave a comment on my blog
I'm new to the blogging world and I will admit that only a few weeks ago I was one of those people who did not know how to find a comments link... As you can see, I can find them now, but layout is so important! I'm looking into any tips I can use before starting my own blog, there is a conference going on in November called PostieCon (www.PostieCon.com) that seems like a cool place to get tips from people making a lot of money in the blog scene. Have you ever been to something like that?
Yes, i completely agree with you. The content must be worth reading and convincing if your goal is to make money online.
Hi, remember me? We have exchanged link (Life's Roller Coaster) before but I've moved on to new domain at http://www.liferollercoaster.com
Would you be kind enough to link to my new domain as well?
Do let me know if you want to link ur blog at my new domain too. Email me at cbenc12@gmail.com or leave a message at my blog.
Thanks and have a nice day.
Hope to hear from you soon! :)
Hello,and thank you for posting to my post's,i will soon start a project on the new web page,and we can discuss all ours experience,about making money online,site will be user friendly,and maybe after few months i t will be closed for public only selected members will have grants to privilege part of the sites,like free software,scripts...offcurse my scripts,that i coded..for easy monitoring of all of my sites.
Thank you again
P.S
Site wiil be open in few days.
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