Content is King, but aesthetic is Queen.
Make your blog look better with these five simple steps.
Humans are visual creatures. We instantly notice when things are beautiful and we form opinions based on looks all the time. Whether or not we should is beside the point. As a blogger, you can use this to your advantage.
Having content that’s pleasing to the eyes is a quick way to hack into your viewers’ brains and make them see you in a more positive light. It helps keep them on your site for longer, lowering your bounce rate and improving your site’s rankings. Keyword rankings are a key element for any Orlando SEO company, differentiating between companies that can proactively grow organic visibility.
But making a blog beautiful is a lot easier said than done.
Fortunately, we’re in the business of not just making blogs, but helping them look, feel, and perform better overall. Here are a few of our tips on how to make a blog look good so your readers can’t help but take notice.
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How To Make Your Blog Look Professional
There’s a time and a place for amateur blogs. But if you own a business, that time is “never” and that place is “in the Deleted folder.”
Your business deserves to be taken seriously! Show it some respect.
1. Don’t DIY!
You can’t create a gourmet meal with dollar-store ingredients.
Whether you’re cooking or blogging, you get out what you put in. And working with one of those “do-it-yourself” website builders is like trying to cater a wedding with roadkill. Ain’t nobody gonna be happy about that.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Wix, Square Space, or any other one, unless you’re a pro, you’re going to either end up with a site that looks like everyone else’s or something that looks like it was designed by a five-year-old.
Not to mention, you’ll have zero customization options.
Starting from scratch with a professionally built website is the first step to a professional blog.
2. Use a Website Theme
Most web designers use templates (called “themes”’), to get your site off on the right foot. Most of the design work is done; maybe your Orlando web designer or web developer simply plugs in your chosen color scheme, images, and layout; any new blog posts automatically conform to that design.
If you’re wondering how to make your blog look more professional, this one tip will take you the farthest.
Getting a new website theme does involve having your website redesigned, but if your site is ugly enough to bring you to this article, you’re probably overdue.
3. Use Structure & Organization
When I first started blogging, I chose my headline sizes like some people choose their outfits in the morning: it all depended on how I felt that day, which blog I was writing for, and whether Mercury was in retrograde.
As it turns out, structuring a blog post isn’t an art, it’s a science.
Start with a clear, organized outline. It can be as simple or as complex as you like, just include every main and sub point you plan to talk about.
When you’re typing up your article, this is how you’ll set it up:
- Your blog post’s title will be your H1. (Psst…the right theme will do this automatically.)
- Your main points (your Roman numerals, if you’re using the middle-school version of outlines you learned in English class) will be your H2s.
- Subpoints under your main points will be H3s.
It’s just that easy.
Setting up your headlines properly not only makes your blog look prettier and more organized, it also puts in a good word for you to the search engines.
4. Create a Featured Image
Images make your content more memorable, more engaging, and more likely to be shared on social media. Why wouldn’t you include them?
At the very least, your blog posts should have one image at the top, known as a “Featured Image.”
Not only will your readers see this image when visiting your blog, it’s also the image that is automatically pulled if your content is shared on social media.
That’s the good news. The better news is that they are stupidly easy to create.
I create all our header images using stock photos and Picmonkey, but if you have access to a graphic designer, even better! (Fiverr is an excellent resource if you can’t afford a full-time employee.)
5. Use Images Throughout
Having an eye-catching header is great, but you can make your blog look better by scattering several more images throughout your post, especially if it’s a long one.
Long blocks of text are as exhausting on the attention span as they are on the eyes. Having an image, infographic, video, or chart to break the monotony will not only make your blog look better, it will hold your reader’s attention and can even help you illustrate a point.
I like to include 2-3 good-quality (i.e. high resolution) images in each article. I make sure they’re full-sized, centered, and ya know…pretty. Pexels and Unsplash have the most beautiful images, IMO.
Just make sure you don’t go overboard, because….
6. Less is More
This doesn’t refer to word count. Far from it. (The best blog posts should be between 800-1,000 words.)
When I say “less is more,” I’m referring to visuals.
Keep sentences and paragraphs short, especially at the beginning of your article. Use bulleted lists when appropriate. This creates lots of white space (which is “rest” for the eyes) and helps people to take in more information in a shorter amount of time.
If you have any visual “clutter” on your blog—animations, gifs, lots of ads, visit counters, etc.—remove it or reformat it to have more visual impact.
Conclusion
How your site looks shouldn’t be your sole concern, but it is important.
Updating your theme, organizing your content, and using images are easy ways to make your blog look better while also increasing your influence and improving your SEO.
And hey, if writing a professional-quality blog post seems like too much work for you, have a professional take over. We’re happy to help.
Clarity Creative Group is a digital marketing company located in beautiful Orlando, Florida. I’ll admit it: I have no idea what it means for Mercury to be in retrograde.
