Beauty and the Beast
Making your blog functional
By Phoebe Montague of Lady Melbourne

We all know a poorly laid out website when we see one-garish colours, irrelevant links, and poor navigation. In this day and age with CMS and basic web development software like DreamWeaver available, bad website layout is almost inexcusable.

Blogging however sits slightly outside the realm of website design because for most of us, we are given the limited option of using templates provided by our blogging platforms.

Despite the limitations of having a select number of templates to use, there are some basic rules you can follow that will make your blog functional and professional, while still being a true representation of you.

1. Bad Colour Scheme
The colour scheme will determine if the readers will read get the hell out of there when they log onto your blog or stay a while and read what you have to say.

The combination between background colour and text colour is the primary thing you should pay attention to when setting up your blog. There has no doubt been a trend in recent years towards minimalist blogs- white background, picture galleries, black or grey text- and I’m not immune from the trend.

Think before you choose the bright pink or black background however- is it really going to make your blog easy to read?

2. Too Many Widgets
Putting unnecessary widgets on your sidebar, header, and footer makes your website redundant if they are not functional. You might think it’s cool, but the truth is nobody needs it.

3. Automatic Music Playing
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you like Mariah Carey, your readers will. Surfing the internet is a personal experience where we make our own selfish choices about the content we want to view. Auto play for most people is a turn off and unless it’s crucial to your blog content should be avoided.

4. Very Slow Page Loading
Most people these days have high speed internet connection, but if you are one of the unlucky ones still using dial up, large files and images can kill someone’s download time.

As a rule, if your page takes more than 10 seconds to load, 80% of visitors will click back and never come to your site again. Choose a suitable and safe image size to avoid this common mistake.

5. Excessive Ads
We’re canny these days and don’t turn to the internet to be bombarded by ads. Be smart about ad placement your you increase your chances of making money rather than turning readers away.

6. No ‘About’ Page
We’re a curious bunch us humans aren’t we?! The about page whether you like it or not is one of the most highly viewed of most websites. Readers want to know who is behind the content they are investing their time in reading.

7. Irrelevant Blog Rolls
People come to your blog for a reason and linking as we all know is one of the most crucial ways of driving traffic.  If you have links that are not at all related to your blog content however it can confuse and irritate readers about what you are trying to say.

If you have a topic you would like covered, simply send me e-mail and I’ll do my best to cover it off.
Happy blogging!

Lady Melbourne
You can check out Lady Melbourne’s blog at www.ladymelbourne.com.au