Working at Home on the Internet

Does A Blog’s Layout Make a Difference?

 

The short answer is Yes.  The layout you pick can make a big difference, not only way you are perceived, but in presenting information to your readers.

 

There are a few things to take into consideration in picking a design and layout to use.

First would be what do you want your visitor to see first?  Do you want them to see your Post first, Navigation bar, Ads, About page?

When I had my old Blogger Blog, I opted for a Left sidebar with my Ads first.  I moved the Navigation into second to draw people further into the Blog and put the About and RSS subscribe buttons at the bottom of the sidebar.  I actually didn’t think anything about the content other than writing it.

Needless to say, with a setup like that, no matter how many visitors I had, they didn’t stay long.  I was concentrating more on how it looked, rather than the reason for having a Blog in the first place.  To write interesting and informative posts about my work at home experiences.

 

When considering which Theme to use when I transitioned to WordPress, I thought long and hard about how I wanted to portray my Blog.  I did want to have a cool looking page, but I wanted to present as much information as possible to the reader.  You can see my choice of design and layout.

I opted for a layout that put the POST FIRST.  Other than the Header, it is the first thing to load.  My reasoning is that when a person visits, you have only a few seconds at most to give them a reason to stay.  If they are looking for information and I can provide it, I want them to start reading.

If the first thing they see is an Ad or About with nothing they are looking for, they WILL CLICK AWAY.  You want to grab their attention before you can tell them about yourself or try to sell them something.  If there is no interest in what you are writing, why would they care about you or click on an Ad (other than to get away)?

 

Once you have their interest in your content, then you can worry about what to present next.  In just about every article I have read about visitors habits, the next place they go is either the About Page or Navigation.  Putting both of them towards the top of a Right sidebar makes them easy for a new and hopefully continual visitor to find.

If a person has stayed long enough to read some of your work and navigated around a little bit, you will want to make the Subscription process as easy you can.  That is my reason for putting an RSS button on the top of the page and another towards the bottom of the sidebar.  You may also want to make E-mail subscriptions available since not everyone likes RSS.

 

Once you have taken care of your readers, then you can think of where you want to place any Ads, if you want them on your site.  I will not go to deeply into that, but you can read a previous post I had written on the subject using the link below.

 

There are many reasons for the various layouts available, but these are mine for choosing to set up my Blog the way I did.  My readership, pageviews and subscriptions to RSS and E-mail have increased with the new layout, so considering how to present my Blog and information beforehand has helped a lot.

 

Related Post:

Ad Placement

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September 13th, 2006 at 03:37pm | Posted by Joe | Basics, Blogging, Organization | 4 reader remarks | Print This Post