How to Get Your Blog to 100,000 Visitors and Beyond, Step 4; Create a Useable and Attractive Design

Step 4 to getting to 100,000 visitors and beyond: Create a useable and attractive design.

Ok, I'm venturing into deep water here -- an area where I'm not quite comfortable. I'm certainly not an expert or even a designer of any sort (that's one reason I use Typepad -- it makes designing easy), so for specific, design-related advice, you'll have to go elsewhere. But I can certainly give you tips that will help out with any design you select including:

• Focus on usability. Above anything else, the blog needs to be usable to readers and potential visitors. Nothing will kill a blog faster than one that's not usable (or difficult to use), so this must be your primary objective in the design of your blog. Think about what audience would like to see, where and how they'd like to see it, and so on, then incorporate your conclusions into your design. You may even want to ask some of your first users what they like and don't like and adjust accordingly.
• Make it attractive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there are certain design rules that are simply unattractive no matter what eye is viewing them. When deciding on color, layout, and other elements that impact attractiveness, again consider who your main reader will be and what he/she would think is attractive (hint: pink and neon green probably aren't the greatest colors for a blog intended for 60-year-old men). Incorporate these findings into your design.
• Use descriptive titles. In your sidebars/sub-sections on the side of your blog, tell what each is about in simple, straightforward, descriptive language. For instance, "My Favorite Blogs" is better than "Blogs" since it gives readers a good sense of what they are seeing.

I realize this probably isn't a tremendous amount of help. There are plenty of resources out there though and in the end, be sure you like it and it works for your audience. If those two things are taken care of, you'll certainly be fine.

Click here to read part 5 of this series.

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Comments

[James]

Hmmm.. This is a good topic. Even if you aren't comfortable with it. Thanks... Of course, I kind of changed my page layout and style, hoping to make it look more modern. Whether it's targeted at my audience or not I'll have to see - not whether the look is targeted, but what audience I will eventually get, if any. :-)

Good luck for 2006.

Thanks again.
James

[prakash]

The last point - Make the Titles descriptive - is an important point. Baisc things but when we are trying to make the Blog go - one tends to miss out on the simple things.

Prakash