11 Simple Blog Design Tips Every Blogger Should Know
When starting a blog, there are specific blog design tips that every blogger should know in order to maintain a good looking brand. And don’t worry, these tips below are quite easy and simple to follow.
After taking the time to follow these blog design tips, your readers will definitely be more engaged and you’ll leave them wanting to read some more LOL.
Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if clicked at no extra cost to you. Though the opinions remain my own
Blog Design Tips for Bloggers
Like I said, these design tips for your blog are easy and simple to follow so be sure to take note and implement these below asap!
1) Choose a Color Palette
I know, I know… selecting colors for your blog can seem like a difficult task, especially with so many different color schemes to choose from. However, it doesn’t have to be.
The easiest way to choose your palette is by thinking about the kind of blog you want to create.
Are you starting a homeschooling blog? If so, then maybe you should consider using bright and vivid colors like red, green and yellow. Or perhaps your blog is about the outdoors or nature. In this case, browns, oranges and greens might be a better fit for your brand.
You can also look at other blogs in your niche to see what color scheme they have used. Of course never copy but take a look for inspiration and then use the color palette generator in Canva to create your own unique set of colors.
2) Select Complimentary Fonts
Finding fonts for your blog is not very hard, but the tricky part is finding a pair that compliments one another.
Some fonts are easier to read than others, so keep that in mind when choosing your font combination. You obviously need your font to be legible so it’s normally best to stay away from the crazy curvy type fonts.
It’s actually best to choose a serif and sans-serif type of font combination, as they compliment one another pretty good.
Canva is definitely a great place to look for font pairings as they already provide some font combinations for you.
3) Only Use Quality Images
Always make sure to use high quality images on your site. This means they must have high resolution. Avoid blurriness or low resolution at all cost.
You can either take your own quality images. Most phones do a great job at this, but can take up some time to do.
Another option is to use stock images as it’ll take away the step of having to take images for your blog that match the blog topic.
Some of my favorite stock image sites include:
These websites will ensure you have quality pictures on your site at all times. Plus, it makes your brand look more professional as well. And this is what we want, right?
Related Post: Best Stock Photo Sites for Bloggers
4) Avoid Going Overboard on Pictures
Although pictures is great to have on your site, it’s also important to not go overboard with them. Having too many pictures in your post could not only impact your site speed but user experience as well.
We don’t want our readers having to scroll through too many images at a time just to get to the valuable information.
So be careful not to add too many pictures to a single blog post. We don’t want your readers to bounce off your site too quickly.
5) Use a Fast Website Theme
Speed is an incredibly important factor when it comes to creating a successful blog. The faster your content loads for them, the more likely it is that they’ll stick around and keep reading your blog posts.
So another of the blog design tips is to ensure you select a fast theme for your site.
One super light theme option is Astra. There is a free version but I personally use Astra Pro on my mom blog for the additional features.
But regardless of which theme you choose, you are able to check its average load speed by using Pingdom Tools or GTMetrix.
6) Make it Mobile-Friendly
Nowadays, more people are using their phones to browse the internet rather than a desktop computer. For this reason, it’s essential that your blog loads quickly on any kind of device.
Following the site speed tips mentioned above will also help with making your site mobile friendly.
However, you should also make sure that all text is readable. You don’t want it to take up the whole screen, but you don’t want the font to be too small either.
Related Post: SEO Tips for Beginners to Thrive at Blogging
7) Only Use One Sidebar
Sidebars are great for organizing info without overloading your readers with text and images that’ll take up too much space on their screen.
However, some themes give you the option to use two sidebars but you don’t want to use them both. In fact, when it comes to sidebar placement, I’ve noticed the right one seems to perform the best.
Be strategic on what you want to house on the sidebar because like I mentioned, you don’t want to overwhelm the reader.
8) Create an Easy Navigation Menu
You want your readers to be able to easily locate the information that may interest them. So make sure to have a visible menu bar located at the top of your site with your main blog categories. This will help readers easily go from one section to another and possibly find some new reads they’ll enjoy.
But avoid having too many categories as this may overwhelm them. If possible, try it to no more than 4 categories.
9) Make Links Visible
This is one of the easiest blog design tips you can implement right away and you probably already have this done so good for you LOL.
You want to make sure that people can easily see the links that you have added to your site. You can do this simply by bolding and changing the colors of the text.
This tip is not only good for your readers as you don’t want them accidentally clicking on links they didn’t meant to click on, but it’s good for SEO purposes as well.
Related Post: How To Add Affiliate Links & Disclaimer Without Plugins
10) Have Plenty of White Space
So let’s talk about white space. Spacing out your content (hence white space) makes it a much better user experience as your page doesn’t look so cluttered.
This is the case for both desktop and mobile users. You don’t want to have paragraphs that are too long in your blog post format. In fact, 2-3 sentences are the perfect.
You also want to make sure that you don’t have too much text before placing another element such as your opt-in form, a stock photo, a banner etc. You want your overall blog presentation to look nice and clean.
Related Post: This is the Blog Post Format You Should Follow
11) Follow a Consistent Brand Theme
Yes, there are many different blog styles out there but you want to make sure you design your blog in a way that’s going to best represent your blog brand well.
Be consistent on your branding by using your brand colors, fonts and overall ambiance. This will help your readers easily recognize your blog and feel more connected to it. And what’s better than making a genuine connection with your readers?
One easy way to ensure you are maintaining consistency across your platforms is to create a brand board with all your branding elements, colors, fonts and more.
Related Post: I Changed My Name: My Brand Story
Now Go Design Your Blog
So remember to implement these blog design tips right away to help make your site appear more presentable and polished. Many of these only take a few minutes to do so knock those out first.
Before you know it, your site is going to look better than ever before and your readers will definitely take notice.
Are there any other blog design tips you have implemented? Do you have any questions about any of the tips listed above? Please leave a comment below as I would love to hear from you!
And remember, there is always something to be happy for… Cheers to blogging! What are you cheering to today?
Lucy
Yes, white space is good! Some blogs have so many ads I just click off because of the annoying ads!! It makes for such a difficult read!! Especially when trying to follow a recipe!!
Lucy, thanks for your information and wanting everyone to exceed!!
Kimberly
Awesome tips, thanks for sharing your blogging knowledge with us newbies! Wish I read this before I started blogging, would have saved me time on my photos!
These are great tips for anyone starting out with a blog! I love the reminder to pick a scheme/plan and go forward with it. Don’t let yourself get distracted by all the people telling you what you “should” do!
Exactly! So glad you found these blog design tips helpful 🙂
Great post and tips! Thanks for sharing! All quick and easy but they make such a difference!!
Yes, these blog design tips can definitely make a BIG difference 🙂