DMBMMLF: Week 1 – Look & Feel
Does My Blog Make Me Look Fat?
Ten Weeks. Ten Small Actions. One Great Blog.
Cute title aside, the real point of this series is to make your blog more of a way to help your business instead of just some place to splurt your ideas and thoughts.
Each day you’ll evaluate your blog from a different perspective than you may be used to and to pinpoint problem areas. You’ll get tips on how to fix those problem areas and by the time you’re done, your blog should be in way better shape to work for you.
So let’s get on with it!
What is Look & Feel? Why does this matter to me?
Look & Feel is a designer-ese term for how all the elements in your site work together to form a coehsive “thing.”
Think Apple.
You know an Apple product just from the packaging, right?
Everything they do radiates the same Apple Look & Feel.
From the product to packaging to commercials, you instantly know it’s Apple.
So what does this mean for you?
All the elements of your site are supposed to support your site’s mission.
So today we’ll pick on three points today to help you better express who you are:
- Your Blog Header (logo & navigation)
- Your Blog Posts
- Your Blog Sidebars
There are tons of things that encompass “Look & Feel” but we’re taking small, easy steps, remember?
What can I do to Improve my Look & Feel?
Your Blog Header & Navigation
Your Header – Tell Them Who You Are!
Your header is usually the first thing people see when they come to your site.
Make sure it’s eye-catching (nice font or cool logo) and has a quick tagline describing what you’re about.
Most themes already display your Blog Title and Description (both can be changed by going to Settings > General).
Other themes allow you to specify an image URL to use as a logo, like Vigilance (the theme I use for WPChick.com):
And yet others require you to use the “Editor” feature of the Appearance menu and look at scary code. Don’t do this unless you really know what you’re doing.
Your Navigation
Does your navigation just SCREAM “Hey I’m the Navigation!” or does it whimper?
Consider a theme that has navigation across the top.
Most WordPress themes are laid out this way anyway, but if it’s not and you have Pages as well as Posts, consider finding a new theme. I have some suggestions.
Your Blog Posts – Highlight Your Points
Make use of header tags (i.e. <h2>… </h2>) to highlight your main points. Use the Format drop-down in Visual mode when editing a post.
The Format menu is only visible when you activate the “Kitchen Sink” – as seen below (thanks to Vintage Mommy for the reminder):
This makes it easier to skim and has the added bonus of doing some cool search engine-y things (more on this on day 3).
Sure, some people can get away with LONG-arsed paragraphs, but I think that being concise has its merits, too.
Short paragraphs and headers makes your blog easy to read. I know my eyes get tired when they see long stretches of text on a computer screen. I may be old-fashioned but I’d rather do my intense reading on paper.
Sidebars – Keep ‘em Simple
Sidebars are there not to stuff everything and anything in ‘em but they serve to keep things visible and highlight important stuff.
You can highlight things like your newsletter signup form, subscriptions to your RSS feeds and even how to find you on Twitter.
Leave out anything that doesn’t really add to your site’s main goals.
You don’t really need post categories, tags, archives and pages as well as all your friends’ blogs and latest photos from your Vegas vacation (of course unless your blog is a personal blog than none of these guidelines apply).
Add post categories OR tags – not both. Create an Archive & Blogroll or Links page (I’ll show ya how to do this soon) instead of having all that information crammed into your sidebars.
So that’s it for today. Leave a comment and let me know how you’ve done, shoot me some before & after screenshots or just let me know what you think about this series so far (even though it’s only the first installment).
Here is the rest of the series:
MYDMBMMLFPOSTS
It took me some clicking around to find the Format drop-down; it was called the “kitchen sink”. But what a great thing to finally discover – thank you!
Really like your logo, by the way; good luck with the blog!
.-= Vintage Mommy´s last blog ..Show & Tell: I Like Having “Simple Hair” =-.
Thanks for pointing that out! I’m going to add this to the post! I’ve been using WordPress so long I forgot those features aren’t visible by default.
This is such valuable information. You are one smart cookie, girl! I’ve gained some awesome information just in time as I am preparing to set up my photography blog. I’ll be checking in often! Thank you!