There comes a time in every blogger’s works when they think of change their theme design. Well, someone could have noticed that recently I’ve done some big changes on my theme design.
When it comes to make money online with a blog, people are constantly trying educate themselves to improve their business, and having an effective web design is one of the important part for improve it.
Sure, become very easy to install a blog from scratch, especially when using the easy CPANEL feature integrated on hosting sevice like Bluehost or Hostgator and add one most know premium theme such as Frugal(actually use on my blog) or other such as Thesis or Whoo theme, but there are a few reasons a good design take your site at the next level:
1. It allow readers to concentrate on content - A good theme without any fancy designs help your readers on focus on the textual content that your blog provides.
2. It make your navigation easy – Whether your readers are used to finding links in your top navigation, sidebar or elsewhere, if you have a clean design their navigation inside your site become more easy.
3. It increase your conversion rate – For those hope to make money from their blog, is very important to create strong pages that convert your readers into potential customers.
8 Design Features That Will Make Your Blog More Effective
Today I want to share you some of the additional design feature you may wish to consider and take inspiration in order to make your blog visually more appealing and functional.
Splash Header
A splash header is an area where you mention the most important parts of your blog in order to make sure people go where you want. As you can see I’ve added a some sort of thing here on my home page.
Show Previous Post Feature
Once your readers come into a blog and enjoyed the post, they want more stuff, but often do not know where to get next. A great way to make your blog stickier is by adding a simple customization that bring your readers to the previous or next post.
Create A Great Footer
If you want to give a nice touch to your blog design you could create a influential, eye-catching and stylish or well- designed footer links and background images. These ideas are meant to kick start your own creative process. Also I reccomend to take a look at Beautiful Footers In Modern Web Design For Inspiration
Creating An Attractive Website Navigation
Having an attractive website navigation will help you to make your users explore your blog more. Here’s there is something for everyone.
Add A Cool Author Bio
Once visitors finished reading a post, can be a good thing show a small Author bio. Nothing too special, but its better that just having description. Also, you can add a little avatar which make the bio look attractive.
Here I will show how I create a simple author bio on my awesome Frugal theme.
To create this simple author bio, open your single Post php file, usually single.php, and add this piece of code:
<div class="authbio">
<?php the_author(); ?>
<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/<?php the_author_firstname(); ?>.jpg" alt="" class="alignleft"/>
<?php the_author_description(); ?>
</div>
Note: Don’t touch nothing on that code. Only make copy and paste it on your single.php file, in the point where you want to put it.
Now create your avatar(my picture is 100×106 px), and put it on ‘/wp-content/themes/frugal/images’. Of course my theme is Frugal but can be another theme as well.
Note: rename your image with the same name you find on your WordPress control panel, then ‘users’, and click on ‘Administrator’ and ‘admin’. Look ‘First name’, that’s your name.
Now, open you File css, usually style.css and add some quick CSS to make it look somewhat respectable, you can always style away later!
/*************************
author bio
*************************/
.authbio{
color: #666;
font-weight: normal;
background: #f0f0f0;
border: 1px solid #d0d0d0;
width: 580px;
height:150px;
padding: 8px;
margin-bottom:5px;
}
/*************************
img post
*************************/
img.alignleft {
float:left;
background-color: #fff;
border:1px solid #ccc;
padding: 4px;
margin: 0 7px 2px 0;
display: inline;
}
To add your description, go on your WordPress control panel, then ‘users’, and click on ‘Administrator’ and ‘admin’. Ok, scroll your page down until ‘About Yourself’. On ‘Biographical’ box Info add a little description about yourself. That info will display on the Autor bio.
Add A Popular Posts Feature Within Your Content
It can be nice to display something that “breaks” the content. Having a popular posts bar is a great way to increase traffic and increase your page impression as well.
RSS And Twitter Count
Creating a visible Twitter and RSS count can be useful. The more big your button is the more chance you have to attract new subscribers or followers. Here I’ve put an example from smashingmagazine.com of nice design, that can can give a great touch to your blog.
Add a Popular, Breaking & Featured Widget
Having a Popular, Breaking & Featured Widget can be useful if you do not have enough space into your sidebar. Add a widget that features Popular, Breaking and Featured posts can encourage user to navigate more into your site.
PS. If you have any question feel free to ask.
To Our Success,
Nicola Deiana
