Extreme Blog Makeover: 6 Redesign Tips To Improve Your Blog In 2016
By Paul Maccabee, President, Maccabee Public RelationsJust as every parent thinks their own sons and daughters are the best looking and most brilliant children on Planet Earth, too many companies and communications firms are convinced that their blogs could hardly be better. I ask you: how could anyone improve upon perfection?Give your company’s blog the perfect makeover with the following advice from our Maccabee Public Relations Q&A with Kuno Creative. These tips are fresh in our minds, as we just gave our MaccaPR blog a total redesign. See it here.
QUALITY NOT JUST QUANTITYDon't let your audience get lost in your words. Strive for a blog post to be no longer than 500 words, if it features a video, Slideshare or infographic. If it is a post without featured media, it can be around 1,000 words.EVERYTHING IS VISUALWhen a visitor comes to your blog, they should notice your imagery first and your text content second. Your main blog page should treat articles like billboards and magazine ads – with a highly graphic image and catchy headline. It’s all a visitor needs to pique their interest.MINIMIZE FREQUENCY OF SELF-PROMOTIONDon’t just write about your own company’s product and services. Another common mistake is infrequent updates. Avoid being that blog where the last post was two months ago.LEAVE SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS UNTIL THE ENDHere’s why: When you put social media links at the top of your blog, it’s a sign to visitors saying – ‘pull away from our content and check us out somewhere else.’ The longer marketers can keep visitors on your website and blog, the better.MAKE MOBILE A PRIORITYChances are you’re probably reading this very post on your mobile screen. The following three improvements will acknowledge the fact that your readers are most likely viewing your content on their narrower screens:1.) The blog post items that appear in the center column should be formatted to adjust their text size for greater readability across any device,2.) The amount of space between each blog post item should be increased on mobile devices to allow for easier scrolling, and3.) Sidebar sections should use custom formatting to allow for more efficient layout of content on narrower screens.KEEP BLOG METRICS IN MINDView your blog as the top of the funnel of your content delivery system. When gauging the success of your blog, you look at two measures of engagement: the growth of your subscribers and the conversion rates from your articles. Check out these three ways to increase your blog engagement:1.) Make it easy for visitors to subscribe – just ask for an email address.2.) Make sure there is a clear, concise path for your visitors to convert – using calls-to-action (CTAs) that deliver relevant offers of content.3.) Blogs should be a gateway that get people from across the web and social media to your website. Make it easy to move from your blog to your main site.Finally, here are two of our favorite posts, both from the HubSpot blog, on how to improve the design of your corporate blog:
- “The Non-Designer’s Guide to Creating Better Blog Graphics”
- “17 of the Best Examples of Beautiful Blog Design”
The tips above were compiled by Minneapolis-based Maccabee Public Relations from an interview with Kuno Creative…check out the full article here and let us know what you think of our newly redesigned blog![author] About the Author: Paul Maccabee is president at Minneapolis-based Maccabee, a strategic public relations and online marketing agency. Follow him at @maccabeepr or subscribe to the MaccaPR blog. [/author]
