Yusuf Hoosain from Glam Media is a designer, normally working busily on making things look good and so he knows what works and what doesn't. He has done a lot of the hard work in the past, so that we don't have to now.
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| Yusuf on Stage during his presentation |
Good design differentiates your space from everyone else. It will strengthen your presence and help advertisers and people come back, and that is what we are after. It doesn't have to be professionally done, but keeping some simple rules will mean that we can all have a design that we are happy with.
Of course a good design doesn't mean that you don't need good content. Keeping things fresh, appealing and exciting means people come back to your blog and you will enjoy what you do all the more!
Just as a Mothers work is never done, your blog is never complete either. There needs to be continual development, it will be something you learn as you go along, changes with fashion, your own tastes and within the industry.
What is important is that you keep it fresh and relevant, but keep it simple like Google.
What is important for anyone is that you should know your audience, if you know who this is then ask them what they feel about your design, about changes, about how they get around your site and you will know what you need to improve based on what they say.
One thing that Yusuf was very adamant about from his own personal experience is that blogs need to be user friendly. How many times have you clicked on to a post that looked interesting and maybe even followed a few links inside the blog only to end up lost? Web usability needs to be a high priority, nobody wants to have to go on a course to work out how to get back to the main page.
The logo header is important, it is the first thing people see when they come to your site. Some people have large headers that take a while to download and if you are one of these people be warned that some people might not stay, for the image to be downloaded. It is in the first 1000 pixels is where your relevant blog posts should be, so keep your header neat and a proportional size!
Headers are about branding and standing out from the millions of other sites. Think for sites that you like and you will see that the sites that stick out are the ones where you remember the header. This is because the
header and logo are your brand. It might be that you need to focus on it with a professional, but it is a big part of blogging these days.
Navigational systems (such as the one on my blog at the top there) are great as you need to know how to get back to the start of the blog from any page. Use categories for picture galleries, vlogs, keep it simple and clean and it will be easy to use.
Nobody likes a big wall of text, use logical blocks, use headlines, sub headlines, and paragraphs to help users be drawn into your content. Space around the text helps people to process what they are reading and what belongs to what. Colour is also important and the key to colour is contrast. Solid backgrounds with solid colours reads more easily and if you have to strain your eyes to read something, you will probably not go back.
Keep things simple, make sure that your colours stay the same, so if you have links always use the same colour to show them in your text, keep titles the same colour etc, it will give you a more professional and sleek look.
Yusuf then did something fantastic and looked at a couple of blogs, we first looked at http://www.omgip.blogspot.com/ and were told that the thumbnails of posts was fantastic (and I believe he loved the header too) as it helps people see all of the content on a blog and then even if you had gone to the blog to read about the wedding plans, you might see a post about weaning Lola and end up reading that as well.
After the end of the session I was able to grab a few moments with Yusuf and along with Karin at http://www.cafebebe.co.uk/ and Emma from http://www.methemanandthebaby.com/ we were able to quiz him a little more about our own blogs. He loved Emma's header, and said Karin's colour scheme was fantastic! I was cheeky and showed him my blog and my test blog (No I am not telling you where it is!) and he did agree that something I am trying on my test blog should be put into use over here on my blog proper!
I would just like to thank Yusuf for the fantastic advice that he gave to us all, and if you need me to remember more please do send me an email, or leave a comment!
