5 Blog Design Tips For A Clean, Effective Layout

When I recently purchased a new blog design, there were a few objectives I wanted to accomplish that would not only clean up my overall design, but also increase the effectiveness of it as a whole.

Here are 5 Simple Tips for a Clean, Effective Layout

• Feature your best content. The best place for this is in the header, but if you don't have space put it right towards the top of your sidebar. This will help new readers coming in via search engines find your best content more easily, and as a result will help you add more RSS subscribers in the long run. 5 to 10 articles works.
• Feature your RSS Subscription Option. The most common place you will find RSS subscription button and the like will be at the top of the sidebar, this is critical. If people can't easily find your RSS icons, then they can't easily subscribe to your feed, and if they can't easily subcribe to your feed, they may not subscribe at all! Newer designs now place RSS subscription options right in the header, but bottom line is keep these well above the fold.
• Don't display more than 6 posts on your homepage. Some people will display 10, 15, or worse even more posts per page on their blog. Not only are you eliminating the easy opportunity for more page views per visit, but you are lowering the chance that someone clicks an ad. Your highest performing ads will be above the fold, not five miles down your page of scrolling.
• Match your adsense colors to your theme link color. This may sound like a simple task, but some people find it to be a good idea to use purple ad links when their dominant link color is blue. This is dumb! It doesn't increase clicks, it doesn't enhance the user experience, and no, it isn't cool. Match your adsense colors to your theme, no questions, just do it.
• Don't have your logo take up the whole fold. This is up for debate, but personally I feel the smaller the logo the better off you are. Not only are you wasting advertising space, but you are taking away from the cleanness of your blog design. Place it in the top left of your header, link it to your homepage, and call it a day.