Does Blog Design Matter? (And How It Affects Your Revenue?)

Take any top blogger for instance. They all have beautiful websites. And it isnā€™t a coincidence.

Majority of readers fail to notice the appearance of websites beyond a point.

But when looked closely, all those blogs you follow devotedly are designed very carefully and with great precision.

From color selections to font-size, everything is picked thoughtfully, and are often based on data.

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(Blue is one of the most favorite colors of top brands. And thereā€™s a good reason behind!)

Design Isnā€™t Secondary To Content

Admittedly, content is the king. But that king is incomplete without a throne, i.e. a beautiful design.

So if you have a blog, it is imperative that its design is decent, if not perfect. Because, directly and indirectly, itā€™s going to affect your blogging revenue.

#1 Poor Blog Design Affects SEO

Website speed, structure, and responsiveness are the three major SEO factors.

When your blog is poorly designed with irregularity in coding, it fails these factors, which significantly affect its ranking on search engines.

Additionally, there are many other SEO factors that bad design totally screws up with, like Time Spent on Website, Bounce Rate, Duplicate Content (they might be missing canonical tags), and Schema Markup.

Also Read: 17 Free On-Page SEO Tools

#2 Poor Blog Design Affects Email List-Building

Placing subscription form at the right place on the blog can have you more number of subscribers. Similarly, pushing the form to the readers at the right time (usually at the end of the article) can grow your mailing list significantly.

Wonder why many of top bloggers place their subscription box at the top of the sidebar?

All these are only possible if your blog is well designed to incorporate your visitor-to-subscriber conversion strategy effectively.

#3 Poor Blog Design Affects Your Ad Revenue

Much like signup forms, Ad units perform much better in a certain place on the website than others. Where you place your ad affects its impression and Click-Through Rate (CTR); and hence your revenue.

So does blog design matter?

In short, YES, IT DOES.

Hold onā€¦

Are you now thinking ā€˜how much does blog design cost?ā€™

It can cost you as much as you wantā€”or it can cost you nothing.

There exist many premium and free templates out in the market, regardless of the blogging platform you are using. You can hire a professional designer or you can follow the good olā€™ ā€˜Do It Yourself Blog Designā€˜ tips like most of us.

Here are 11 simple blog design tips to help you get started with:

11 Do It Yourself Blog Design Tips

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Do It Yourself Blog Design Tips
  1. Know the kind of features and functionality you want on your blog.
  2. Pick the right theme/template from the right resource. Donā€™t download or buy it from shady-looking website.
  3. Make sure the theme/template is simple, lightweight, content-centric and responsive. Check its speed HERE.
  4. Test it thoroughly before implementing on your blog.
  5. Avoid those bold, colorful, obnoxious themes, like this one. They are a pain in eyes.
  6. Donā€™t use unnecessary plugins or templates. Go minimalist here.
  7. Make sure the fonts are big, with good spacing and height. (Read an old piece on ProBlogger for more on ideal fonts.)
  8. For high conversion, place your subscription box at the top of the sidebar, at the top of your blog and after every post. Hereā€™s a nice post on this topic on Social Trigger.
  9. Make sure your blog isnā€™t overcrowded and have sufficient whitespaces.
  10. Nothing can be worse if your blog isnā€™t properly functional and readable on hand-held devices. Check its mobile-compatibility here.
  11. Make the navigation easy. Meaning, ensure that readers can find the categories/tags easily and can go from one page to another without wondering ā€œhow toā€. 

Thatā€™s about it for the starters.

Also Read: 5 Website Design Trends You Should Not Follow

If you have any question, letā€™s talk on Twitter.

And if you have havenā€™t already, subscribe to newsletters from Spell Out Marketing for more on content marketing strategy, SEO, and blogging! (SUBSCRIBE NOW)

Asif Ali

The guy behind Spell Out Marketing. A certified content marketer and professional blogger with 5+ years experience in the domain. Find me on Medium here. Let's talk about inbound marketing, business and side-hustle on Twitter. (And oh, if you're on LinkedIn, let's connect!)