Jan | 18 | 2009

What First Impression Does Your Blog Give Off?

Posted by Jimmy as Design, Images, Opinion, Tips

First impressions last, or so they say. To be fair, first impressions do not always stand the test of time. There are times when first impressions are false and perceptions change through time. But then again, when talking about your blog and new readers, would you take the risk of not converting a first time visitor to a returning one merely because of a so so first impression? I thought not.

So, have you taken a look at your blog lately? I mean really LOOK – from an outsider’s point of view. What impression does it give off? If you cannot answer that objectively, you might want to take on the help of other people who would be able to give you constructive criticism.

When doing so, try to look at a few important points.

Does your blog layout look messy?
Does it seem like the elements were put together hastily? Try to determine whether this is what other people see and if so, do something about. Trim your blog, clean it up – do whatever you need to get a tight look.

Does your blog look spammy?
Messy I can still take. But at the first signs of spamminess, I pack my bags and hit the high road – and I bet a lot of other people do so as well. Choose your ads tastefully and place them in strategic locations without sacrificing the essence of your blog.

Does your blog look too plain?
This might be a matter of preference but I think that there are a lot of readers out there who would like to have some visual aids complementing the text. If you find your blog looking like a 1000-page novel, it might be prudent to consider adding splashes of color and photos here and there.

These may seem trivial to some but they can make a difference as to whether or not someone decides to return and pay you another visit.

Comments Off

Comments are closed.

Our Features

Design and Themes

Is Your Blog W3C Compliant?

Last night I checked my personal blog’s code hoping I can proudly display the W3C Validated Button. Since I use Blogger and do not really do anything to clean up the code (beyond adding Alt-tags to the images I embed) I wasn’t surprised at all to find that my blog contained lots of errors – [...]
Read on
More Design and Themes Features
Software and Widgets

Wordpress Plug-ins

If you blog using Wordpress and can’t do something that you want done like adding Sphere-related content at the end of your blog posts you might be surprised to find out that there are already plug-ins available that make it happen.
To find good Wordpress plug-ins all you need to do is search for “wordpress plug-ins” [...]
Read on
More Software and Widgets Features
Reviews

A Friend In Need

I’m helping out my friends from the UA&P – IShareHappiness Blog Team.
Whenever you feel pessimistic, angry, troubled, frustrated, and depressed – what have you – you need someone to talk to. Someone who could help you be more optimistic and help make you feel that there is hope. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to someone [...]
Read on
More Blog Reviews
Monetization

Review: Logical Media

Logical Media is one of the innovative services that pay for ad placement within blogs. Do you have a blog and are you seeking a way to make additional money from the blog? Are you seeking a way to offset other programs with the use of ads? Through the registration with Logical Media, the blogger [...]
Read on
More Monetization Features
Marketing and Search Optimization

Search Rank Drop and False Alarms

Happy Holidays!
What are the chances of someone being concerned about their blog’s search ranking dropping on Christmas Eve? I have no idea but then again if I’m writing about it right now then there’s probably someone somewhere around the world doing SEO at this very minute.
If you have experienced a sudden drop in ranking, both [...]
Read on
More Marketing and SEO Features
Blog Resources