One of the first things you will have to decide on after starting a business blog is how you want it to look like. The layout and design of your blog can have just as much of an impact as the content you provide, so it is very important to take your time with this step.
If you have done even a little research on Wordpress themes you have undoubtedly come to know that there are a dizzying amount of themes available. There are hundreds of free themes available in many different styles and color themes, and there are also “premium” themes which you can obtain for a price. What theme should you use?
Unfortunately, this is not a question that has an easy answer. Blogs are as varied as the people who operate them and this isn’t an area where a “one size fits all” kind of mentality will succeed. You have to take into consideration your blogging goals and your blogging audience when you decide on your theme and layout.
A point to note is that some blog themes perform better than others for SEO purposes. Some blog themes are much better in how they format your site and thus are better indexed in the search engines. Two of the best blog themes for SEO are Semiologic Pro and Thesis. Both of these themes offer exceptional SEO benefits and are highly customizable.
Another important SEO consideration is how your blog is laid out. Almost all blogs you see will contain a “header” area, a “footer” area, “main content” area and one or more “sidebars”. Many SEO experts agree that having your main content area (the area that contains all your articles) to the left of any sidebars will produce better search engine results. A reason for this is because the search engine bots will find your topical blog content first before seeing the often repetitive sidebar content.
If you are unable to decide on a theme to use for your blog because nothing you’ve found is exactly what you want you can alter themes to suit your purposes. If you are comfortable in your knowledge of PHP, HTML and CSS it is more than possible to create the perfect theme and layout for your blog. Alternatively, you could hire someone to create a custom blog theme to your specifications.
In this often overlooked topic, I would offer the following suggestions:
- Simplify – The less amount of clutter on your blog, the better your blog will be for your readers. I like to stick with blogs that have just one sidebar to list information like “Recent Posts” and “Categories”. Businesses that use blogging to boost their rankings and traffic should focus more on their main content.
- SEO Optimized Themes – Businesses that are serious about utilizing blogging should use serious themes and bypass most of the free ones. Free blog themes may get the job done, but they may also require much more work to accomplish what a premium SEO theme can.
- Easy On The Eyes – Keep your color palette simple and standard and avoid any design scheme that is painful or distracting.
- Center Of Attention – When you visit a blog or website, what are your eyes instantly drawn to? When your readers visit your blog what do you want them to be drawn to? Your blog layout and presentation should act as a guide to what you want your visitors to be drawn to. Flashy sidebar or header graphics will garner more attention than your content, so if your content is what you want people to focus on you need to make the main area the center of attention.
All blog themes are not created equal, and if you spend a little extra time earlier planning the layout and theme of your blog you will reap more benefits later.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the great advice. Loooks like I need to change my sidebar from the left side of my blog to the right side of my blog. Is that correct? Thanks for all the great info. I’m subscribing to your RSS feed! Found you through a tweet in Twitter!
krissy knox
my main blog: Sometimes I Think
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Krissy, like a lot of other SEO topics you will find two different camps on this, but I think you’ll find more people promoting the right hand sidebar over ones on the left. I have put sidebars on the left and right sides, but feel that blogs that use fewer sidebars on the right slightly outperform those that don’t.
Yet another great post! I found a study recently that you may find interesting. The name of the group fails me, however, the study used visitor eye tracking to determine the most important areas of a web page.
As it turns out, visitors put more emphasis on the upper left hand quadrant of the page. Their attention dwindles the farther their eyes move from that spot. An interesting thought for conversion as well I thought.
Cheers!
Angie Haggstrom
Angie Haggstrom’s last blog post..What Is The True Definition Of ‘Quality Content’?
Angie,
I may have seen this study before, I’m not sure.
I have looked into website “heat maps” before, mostly as it relates to ad placement. There are definitely ways to layout your blog or site that are much more effective than others.
Simplify – what a true statement! Have been to many blogs where it was hard to find the content. Great information on picking a theme as well. Split testing is a great way to check your layout as well. Thanks.
Joyce Jacobsen
thatMLMbeat’s last blog post..Secrets of Success in 8 Words and 3 Minutes