Getting a new design for your blog is both time consuming and expensive. There are many great options for free themes but too often these themes do not have very many features and require a lot of extra work.
Purchasing a theme from premium theme designers or paying for a custom design can not only give you many extra features but also allow you a unique and useful user interface.
Getting a design is much more than choosing colors, uniqueness and price. There are a lot of important design elements you should know about before getting a new theme. Here are your most important areas of interest as well as a buyer’s checklist.
Fundamental Design Elements
There are a few very important things to consider when evaluating the design of a potential theme. Some of these elements are often misunderstood so I will point out the what is usually left out of posts about theme design.
We all know that features are important and themes with jquery or admin panels add extra customization to your blog theme, but lets go back to the fundamentals.
White Space
In the image above all you see is the words. The “whitespace” is exactly what the name implies.. the area around the image that is white. Now to categorize as whitespace an area in design does not have to be “white”, just clear of any text or images.
Whitespace is important in design because it focuses the eye on to what is important. A good example of how this doesn’t work is when you go to a site and the design’s background is intense with a collage and millions of colors. The text or image you are trying to highlight never even gets any attention. Here’s an example of zero whitespace:
In the bad example you can tell that the words are there and we even could accent the text with either a drop shadow, outer glow, or stroke around the text to make it more appealing. But can you see how without whitespace your eyes are too busy.
Your eyes are taking in all of the background and trying to work out the text from all the other interesting images.
If you had an entire pack of with no whitespace then very easily you could find your blog with no readers, little click-throughs, and no brand. Actually you would have a brand.. you’d be the blog everyone remembers not to go to.
Avoid any design that does not have enough whitespace around important areas like the logo, navigation menu, and content area. Trying to make your theme busy only leaves your site empty.
Eye Tracking
For the avid readers of Blogussion I apologize, this next part is a repeat idea from a post last week, Your a Blogger Not a Crackhead! Its about finding a design that highlights the things that are most important to you.
The number one thing is your logo which brands you and should include near by your navigation menu and then your conversion tools. Your conversion tools are your subscriber boxes, products, ads, etc. Whatever your goals are for your blog is what your conversion tools should be pointing too.
Let’s look at the examples of good eye tracking to remember what it is.
The Eyes #1 is the area your eyes first see on a page and the Eyes #2 is the second area your eyes then go to. Eyes#2 is the area that you are trying to get people to see. In our blog its about converting people to subscribers.
Clean Content Areas
In one of my favorite posts on Blogussion, Alex describes some of the best ways to style your content area. If you have some time you should definitely read the entire article because Alex does an amazing job at breaking it down — Stellar Tips for Styling Your Content
To highlight some of what Alex said here is one of his main points:
Headings Matter — Alex talked a lot about headings because they really do matter. They draw attention to your post and bad headings with unattractive fonts or the wrong typography (text) can quickly scare away your readers. Be sure your the headings in any blog you are looking into are clear and clean looking. They should be prominently located on the page for maximum results.
Typography
Your text is the primary instrument for gaining more traffic and keeping readers. We talked yesterday about how to write powerful content and have previously talked about the importance of good content, but now I want to talk about the typography (font design) of your text.
Typography is the intricate design of the fonts you are using on your blog. Although there are plugins to add extra font features to any wordpress blog, the original functionality of the blog theme you are using makes life a lot easier.
For example Thesis theme comes with over a dozen options for typography. Other feature rich themes do too. The key is many of the free themes don’t and unless you have the patience to setup a complicated plugin then you should look into typography early on.
For the best practices of good typography, and to learn what all of the most popular blogs are using for their sites, check out Smashing Magazine’s Typographic Design Patterns
Navigation Menu
Menus are one of the most important elements to your entire site. A bad navigation menu will completely ruin a blog.
You heard that right:
A BAD navigation menu will RUIN your blog
Here’s the reason why I think this is true. Navigation menus are the life blood of your blog. People will see your content, conversion tools, and logo on almost every page but to get from page to page or post to post the best option is a navigation menu.
If your menu is not helpful and never sends any traffic through your blog its time to look at what you can do to change that.
My opinion is to always have an archives page with lots of useful tips. For help creating a useful archives page check out a post we’ve written on Creating Archives. Additional menu items should point toward more content and resources you’ve created to funnel traffic and reach your goals.
For the Best practices in Navigation Menus, again check out the resources Smashing Magazine have put together.. they are phenomenal. Navigation Menus: Trends and Best Practices
Wrapping It Up
In the coming weeks we have more design posts planned to help you not only get the best design features on your site but also teach you what to look for.
We hope you enjoyed learning more about web design and be sure to look at some of these fantastic resources.
30 Discussions
And another important aspect is clean coding of the design. If the code is jumbled and a lot of pointless code, the search engines WILL frown upon it. That is a big reason why I use thesis for all my blog designs.
Brendan Wenzel´s last blog ..Use Other People’s Traffic to Build a List
Coding is an essential element to design for sure. That is such a big topic though that I wanted to be sure to cover it in its own post! Plus its easy to write an entire blog about good code.
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
Yes today we are doing in depth analysis of every thing and today’s most important thing is eye tracking.
Thanks for sharing such a useful information. I am definitely going to consider it.
If you have any questions about what I talked about or other design elements let us know.
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
Looking forward to the rest of these, because I think I need to rethink my own design quite a bit. Thanks for the post!
Heather´s last blog ..How to be Awesome: The Difficulty With Portfolios
This series of posts should be very helpful and when we are done I think we will be putting together a free ebook of the articles for people as a guide to buying a new theme.
Is there any other areas of design that you think we should definitely talk about?
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
Good tips. I like the idea about eye tracking … having a good reason for specific design elements … rather that just putting something there because the space need to be filled.
Todd Morris´s last blog ..My Ipod Makes Me Feel Old
Right. Filling your sidebars is completely worthless and can actually hurt your blog if they are not there for a specific reason. I find a limited number of sidebar items actually increases the likelihood of readers clicking on them.
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
Thanks for the tips.
Looking for a new blogspot design that will help me on pageload and SEO.
Your advice will certainly help me a bit. Its hard to find a good advice nowadays.
lunaticg´s last blog ..Happy Australia day 2010
For the seo I would recommend Thesis theme or Wootheme’s have a newly redesigned and seo friendly framework.
For page speed I think much of it comes down to your cache and there are a few excellent plugins for that. I recommend WP Super Cache. Then just put it on half cache.
If you have any specific questions just let us know.
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
If you don’t know anything about coding, but want a blog that looks professional, then you should really pay for a good theme, or have one designed for you. With option pages and templates to make it easier to administer.
Typography and colors are my biggest problem, the coding is the fun part…
Jim Gaudet´s last blog ..Ode to My Family
I think for many people its the coding that scares them so you have an advantage. Maybe you can find someone who is an expert on colors and typography and help each other out as part of an exchange. That way you both get to do something you are good at without charging anyone.
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
These r good tips.Typography & colors are the main essentials which make ur blog stand out from the crowd.Also one shouls take care of the inline advertising colors & should customize them according to the color of blog.Most of them don’t concentrate on these features that makes it look awkward..
krish´s last blog ..Tips to Increase Your Sales through Online Videos
Right, advertising should not be an ugly mess on a blog but instead compliment the blog design while still being clicked on.
Seth´s last blog ..How to Write Content Like a King
Excellent tips Seth! I would think some of these would be obvious, then I look around at what’s out there in the blogosphere and I want to throw up sometimes at the cramped, crammed, and crowded, poorly-planned blog designs out there. Thanks for helping keep it clean!
Brandon Cox´s last blog ..Bloggers Unite: Let’s Keep the Blogosphere Clean
I’d add a couple of other important points :
– call to actions – even if they are not really “purely” web design related, making your call to actions clear is one of the most important way to convert people. Make them clear, make them stand out, use CSS to optimise the anchor (for example you can add a button bg image that contains the words ‘click here’ to an optimised text anchor link) ;
- repeat important points : like blogussion, at the end of your articles repeat the subscription area styled differently as people who read your whole article will be more ready to subscribe.
Léo´s last blog ..8 Plugins Anti-Spam WP pour Blogs Wordpress
Thanks for sharing! You gave me a clear thought about how to design my blog. I think the typography really plays an important role in blog design.
Kok Siong Chen´s last blog ..9 Steps of Peritoneal Cancer Progression
Good post Seth, yes navigation menus are one of the most important element one should pay attention when designing a website. They are great important for usability purposes and creating a user-friendly website!
I would add that you also need to be sure that it will be easy to customize the editor pages, and the code. Some developers use very complicated CSS and PHP, that will be very difficult to figure out in case you want to make changes.
JR´s last blog ..Hi, My Name is Dick and I’m Addicted to SERP Analysis
For me navigation is most important part. Without good navigation your readers won’t be able to explore your blog.
Agent Deepak´s last blog ..Shoe Money System is Coming
Excellent advice regarding design. I’ve always liked those eye tracking studies because they can reveal a lot of information that would otherwise go unknown. Entire portions of your page may be going relatively unnoticed. And of course, an effective and easy to use navigational structure can also make or break your site.
It’s really an advantage if you know some coding so you can optimize the theme for your blog. A clean code theme is good for search engine.
Free Money Income´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
Colours (colors for people across the pond) are also an important – but missing from your list
– element that bloggers should consider / read about in order to evaluate a theme. In your eye tracking example, the reason why the eye goes to #2 is because of the use of the orange (and the white space, but mainly because of the orange).
The theme should include “zones” that warm colours bring the attention to, if they are important, and plain / cool colours to the others.
Your Practice Website´s last blog ..Search Engine Optimisation For Accountants – The Basics
Great concerts and ideas. Supporting your article, your readers can also use our new product (under limited released for January and February) the PicNet Mouse Eye Tracking service. A SaaS solution that is provided free of charge to those who need to understand users behavior on your pages/site, including eye tracking (via mouse movement correlation) and page navigation. Suggest people try it on http://www.PicNet.com.au -> Products section.
We have piloted it with our blogs achieving great results.
Marco
The eye tracking part of your article is interesting. However, I think there is one more factor in the case of the theme which is on your screenshot. When people look at the place with your conversion tools it may cause similar effect like looking on the banner (maybe others react in other way, but it is my experience). They may simply ignore the part asking for their email. Why? Because they came to learn something and they are looking for the information in your blog post. They have no reason to sign up for the weblog updates because they know nothing about your blog at the time when they see the box. When they finish reading the article it is the right time to ask them to subscribe in my opinion. But they are in to bottom of the page and don’t see the box. So I guess it is important to serve all page elements to the visitors in the right time.
I may be unique; the very first thing I make sure of when searching for a custom theme designer is making sure they can handle a true pain in the ass. LOL. Although I laugh, I’m most serious…If I am paying you, you will do as I say; in return, you will get the money you ask for, if not a little more ’cause I’m just an awesome guy like that.
OK perhaps a slight exaggeration on my ogreness, lol, but you get the gist. I WILL be back again and again for tweaks, whether large or small.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
This is an excellent overview of design for a blog. My greatest challenge is getting clients to believe this. Just today I had a client who said I didn’t really “design” her site because she wanted it all patchy colors, and funky fonts, and basically make it busy and fill up all the white space. I’m not sure how to convince clients that their design will drive people away.
I think your eye tracking info is right on. Jakob Nielsen has shown the F-pattern is the way people view sites. And Dennis, your point is a good one — constant tweaking to improve a site is critical to keep moving it in the right direction. It’s unfortunate though that many clients don’t want to pay for that, so they let their sites remain the same for years.
Great post! Thanks!
Bonnie Landau´s last blog ..Web Design 101: Please Don’t Squish the Type!
If you truly tried to convince her and she just won’t budge, I may have said something like, “I’m sorry but I cannot put my name behind something I don’t believe is right, please find another designer.” And if she seems like the type to make trouble, give her some monies back and right it off.
As for tweaking, this is why I’m doing the new blog in a different way from anything seen before.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Hello & Welcome To The All New – DennisEdell.com/DirectSalesWebMarketing.com Merged – Direct Sales Coaching Blog!
Speaking of design, I find myself constantly wanting to visit this site because I like the layout and design. My eyes are pleased when I visit, so I want to return more often here than other blog tips websites.
DanielthePoet´s last blog ..Coming Soon
6 trackbacks