Blogging is a passion for some, the main source of income for others, and a medium to express themselves for all. Whatever your purpose is, we are sure you want to reach more and more people through your blogs.
There are over 600 million blogs in the world. But the question is-“How many out of these are successful?”Only a few. So, we have decided to share with you some evergreen tips to make your blog more user-friendly and hence attract more readers.
Are you ready?
Let’s get you started!
Table of Contents
ULTIMATE TIPS TO MAKE YOUR BLOG USER-FRIENDLY
Blogging is not just writing content and optimizing it for Google, it has got so much more to it. We need to take care of certain aspects and shouldn’t make these common mistakes to give our readers a world-class experience! Let us discuss with you some of these to take your blog to the next level.
1. MAKE YOUR DESIGN STANDOUT
Creating valuable content is hands-down an important aspect to consider while blogging but it is definitely not the only one. If even after writing content that is worth a thousand shares, you are not getting the response you want, you probably need to fix your blog design. For more people to notice your content, yes, you need to make it “look good” as well. People these days would rather prefer reading an average blog with great “design aesthetics” than a great blog with poor design. The 5 tips below will help you master the art of designing:
5 TIPS TO DESIGN YOUR BLOGS
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TAKE CARE OF YOUR FONT-SIZE
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- Example 2:
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- Which of the two do you prefer reading? The second one, we are sure. So the next time you blog, make sure to make it more readable by using a legible font size.
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PUT WHITESPACES
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Another tip to make your content readable is by adding sufficient white spaces. Adding spaces between the texts and the images not only makes it more readable or scannable but also more elegant at the same time. Look at the images given below for a better understanding.-
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- Example 2:
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- Even though the font size used in both the images is the same but clearly the first one is way more understandable than the second. So, use white spaces around your content to enhance its readability and let your designs breathe.
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USE DESIGNS THAT STANDOUT
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There are so many blogs available on the web so if you use a design that is just like your contemporaries. There are high chances that your blogs will blend in. This is why you should choose a memorable design. Consider the blog page of this website. -
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- We love the way they have amped up their blog page through some striking designs. It uses a 3X3 grid to display the list of the blogs which makes readers easy to know about the latest blogs. To help visitors get to your content easily make sure you choose a design theme that loads faster, easy-to-navigate is trendy and hooks your visitors the very first time.
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COLOUR SCHEME
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The next tip is to use contrasting background and foreground colors to make the texts readable. Choosing different colors will have a different impact on your visitors. When in doubt, choose a light or white color for your background since it works well with most browsers and is very versatile. For some inspiration, click to know about the best colors for your website.
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BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR COMMENT SECTION
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While designing the skeleton of your website you need to put some extra effort while choosing your comment section layout. The comment section is where all the action takes place. It is one of the strongest mediums available to stay in touch with your readers. Firstly, make sure your recent comments show up to give your readers a chance to get updated about the latest debate and discussions. Secondly, keep it right next to where the blog ends to boost its visibility. Lastly, do not add elaborate signup requirements for the readers to add a comment to make commenting easier. Click here to know more tips. -
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2. IMPROVE YOUR CONTENT
When it comes to blogging, hands down, Content is the king! To make your blogs reach a wider audience make sure it is easy-to-understand.
Additionally, make your content relevant, visually appealing, and grammatically correct. These are not enough! We have a list of a few more tips for you to keep in mind.
5 TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE
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USE DISTINCT CATEGORIZATION
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USE EASY LANGUAGE
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MAKE IT VISUAL
As much as we know you are not a designer but a writer, we would like to stress an impactful visual for your blogs. Readers will get bored of reading black and white walls of text, so to keep them engaged it is important to make this look interesting. The best way to do this is by adding good-quality images, interesting videos, and infographics. You can even use hand-drawn images to take your blogs to another level! For Example, Enchanting Marketing uses beautiful illustrations to attract visitors.
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SCANNABLE
In a life that is getting busier with time, people do not have much time to spend online. This is where making your content scannable/skimmable comes into play. You can do this by adding bold texts to draw attention to important facts or messages.
Adding italicized texts is also a great way of drawing user attention to dialogues, names, stories, etc. Additionally, as discussed earlier leave plenty of whitespaces around texts and images, highlight important phrases, use different subheads, and put bulleted or numbered lists. The higher the scannability of your content, the better will be the chances of attracting visitors.
3. MAKE YOUR BLOG SITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY
About 80% of internet users, use their smartphones to access websites these days. This makes it really important for you to work on making your website mobile-friendly. In fact, if your website is responsive to various devices, it is going to perform better in search results than websites that are not.
You need to take care that your users need not ‘zoom in’ time and again to read your blogs on their phones. You have to use a clear formatting style and legible font size to make it readable on small screens. Fortunately, Google makes it easy for you by providing a platform to check your mobile-friendly score. This lets you get better with every test that you take. If you are using WordPress, various responsive plugins can help you in this process, click to know Some plugins to make your website responsive.
4. ADD TESTIMONIALS
If you are a blogger selling digital or physical products online, it is time you add testimonials to your website. We believe that testimonials are valuable real estate on your site. They help in building customer trust, explaining your products or services, or creating an emotional connection. Good testimonials act as social proof for your amongst your consumers and boost your brand liability.
Below are some 5 places to add your testimonials:
- Home Page
- Over the images on your home page( hero images or slider)
- Products or services page
- Separate page for testimonials
- Near to Call to Action in your About Us Page
For some people adding testimonials to the home page might work better than various other places. Therefore, whenever you are adding testimonials to various places on your website, it is best to test them via A/B testing.
Are you aware that when contemplating a purchase, 92% of consumers read online reviews and testimonials? Additionally, 88% of consumers place the same level of trust in online reviews as they do in personal recommendations. Furthermore, 72% of individuals indicate that positive reviews and testimonials boost their trust in a business.
5. LISTEN TO YOUR READERS
This is probably the most obvious step to make your website more user-friendly. Ask your users directly what they want to read or if they have any suggestions for you. Do not get demotivated by the negative comments, rather turn them into positives by fixing features your readers don’t appreciate.
The key to a successful website is its happy readers.
You can also carry out market research on topics your target audience would like to read. various online portals like Quora, Reddit, Facebook, etc can aid you in the process. You can also use various keyword research tools like Ubersuggest or Semush to see trending topics in your niche. The main aim is to provide content that your readers want.
While drafting your content strategy you should know the purpose of your blogs, target audience, and reader persona.
If your blog did not do well. Do not worry! Repurpose the content for the audience who would like to see it in a different format. You can do this by adding videos, infographics, the latest statistics, or intriguing images.
G ahead! Do whatever it takes you to suit your audience and monitor your progress.
6. WORK ON THE POPUPS
Most people will agree with us on how irritating popups can be especially when you have experienced a cannonade of them.
While a lot of unnecessary popups can be disappointing, when done correctly they can be really useful. This means, there is nothing wrong with having pop-ups.
In fact, popups help you gather leads, promote your products, increase your email subscribers, etc.
The important thing is to add pop-ups that do not hamper your user’s experience. But, how?
We got your back!
While adding popups, do not go overboard with them. Use intent-based pop-ups or targeted popups to help your website grow. Click to learn the 15 best popups to use on your website.
7. DO NOT OVERDOSE YOUR READERS
Human brains have a limited amount of processing power. Therefore, you need to use information that is relevant and required. Avoid beating around the bush, and stick to your point. Keep your content short and sweet. You can use Grammarly to improve the readability of your blogs.
Additionally, you can add relevant links to your blogs to help users read the useful information. This will give your users the impression that you genuinely care about them rather than selfishly promoting your blogs.
8. MAKE IT EASY FOR READERS TO GET IN TOUCH
So many bloggers are active on various social media channels to connect with their readers. If you are not among these, you need to gear up! Create accounts on different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest, and link your account to your blogs for readers to get in touch. The idea is to make it easy for readers to connect with you. As simple as a click of a button! Put the links to your social media handles in a place that is easy to notice. This can preferably be in the top corner or in the sidebar. Additionally, make these buttons big enough for the readers to spot easily. However, if you are restricted by your advertisement commitments, you can consider adding them below your first ad.
Another way of connecting with your readers is through an email list. With millions of active users on mail, emailers are in fact a great way to increase your brand awareness.
A small change as small as placing forms or buttons to connect with your readers can make a huge difference. Don’t believe us? It’s time you do it yourself!
9. IMPROVE YOUR PAGE LOADING TIME
When loading times increase from one to three seconds, the probability of a bounce increases by 32 percent. This means if your pages take more than a few seconds people are more likely to switch to another website.
You can check your web page’s speed performance by using various speed test tools available online. If your pages do not load faster, do not worry, try using these tips given below to boost your page performance:
- Cheap hosting solutions often hamper your speed. Invest in these fastest hosting plans that are powerful and performance-oriented.
- Optimize your images under 50KB to avoid bulking up your web page.
- Use caching plugins to boost your page speed. These basically offer cached copy if a user visits the same page more than once. This reduces the time of reloading the page boosting your website performance.
- Do not use elaborate HTML, CSS, or Javascript files to slow down the loading speed. Keep your code as simple as possible.
- Plugins pack your website with additional features. However, using excessive plugins will slow down the loading time. Therefore, we recommend using plugins that are essential and not unnecessary.
- If you love putting videos in your content then rather than hosting videos on your server, choose a third-party server instead. Adding Youtube videos to your blogs is a great example to understand this.
10. FOLLOW A MINIMALISTIC APPROACH
If you will have too much going on your blog page, it will confuse your readers making it difficult to identify important content. This is why simplifying your website and De-cluttering it is very important.
Figure out what people really want from your website and remove everything that is in excess. One example can be a page full of advertisements. Nobody wants to see ads while reading content. So, instead of flooding your web pages with money-making ads, try to focus more on your content. One or two ads per page should be enough!
Another example can be a sidebar that is saying too much! You need to simplify your sidebars and only put essential stuff like links to important posts. Some bloggers even remove the sidebars completely to help readers focus only on the blog content.
While many people think of minimalistic websites as plain and simple Scandinavian Themes. You can very much stick to different color palettes that go well with your design ideology- the key to minimalism is just adding whatever is needed.
CONCLUSION
In order to increase the memorability of your blog and attract more traffic, it’s important to ensure that it’s user-friendly. In this post, we’ve highlighted the top 10 tips for achieving this, which we’ll summarize here to make them easier to remember.
Firstly, pay attention to your blog’s design by selecting an appropriate font size, incorporating white space, using attractive designs and colors, and providing a suitable comment section. Secondly, focus on your content by segmenting it, using simple language, making it visually appealing, and making it easy to scan.
Other tips include ensuring your blog is mobile-friendly, including testimonials for product offerings, listening to your readers’ wants and needs, using pop-ups sparingly, keeping information concise and relevant, providing various options for connecting with readers, optimizing page loading times, and adopting a minimalist approach to blogging.
By implementing these tips, you can enhance your blog’s user-friendliness and potentially attract more readers. If you have any additional tips or suggestions, please share them with us in the comments section. We publish blog content regularly, so be sure to stay tuned for more exciting posts. Thank you for reading!
