7 Things I Implement in a New Blog Design
Glen Allsopp / 
6 Comments / 
June 9th, 2008 / 
Subscribe via RSS
With the new focus on a future of full-time blogging, I’ve been working hard on the look of ViperChill and on the look of another blog that I will be officially launching sometime next week.
I’ve designed three websites from scratch in the last week and a half so while everything is still fresh on my mind I wanted to take a look at the types of things I include and my reasons for doing so. Hopefully, if you agree with any of them you may be able to tweak your current design to include them or keep a note of this post for a future re-design.
7 Features I Implement
1. Clear RSS Options
Blogs are highly valued on the number of feed subscribers they have and having a following is a key asset to having success with this type of content platform. Therefore, you should always make RSS options clear and accessible to the reader without having to ‘look around’.
2. Simple Design with lots of White Space
There is nothing worse than sites that have been filled with ads in every possible corner or ones that have a newsletter sign-up squeezed into a header. I like to keep my designs as simple as they need to be. After all, it is the content that matters on the site more than anything else.
3. Post Information
One thing people often do before subscribing to / bookmarking a website is to see how active it is. Therefore, on the homepage of the blog I like to make clear the date a blog post was published (assuming you update regularly) and the number of comments a post has. You can also do this on the single post pages for a better effect:
4. Clear Sharing Options
At the bottom of posts I like to ‘encourage’ readers to help promote the content if they have enjoyed it with such options like Digg it, Stumble It, Save to Delicious and Email this. It’s nice to make this stand out a little so that people can see it and can help your content get in front of more eyeballs which is what all bloggers want.
3 More
- Author name, I make this clear on all posts so that readers have a name to ‘connect with’
- Complete about page, this is important, and something I still need to do for ViperChill but a lot of first time visitors will navigate here to see what you are about
- Contact options, I hate blogs that don’t have this (although I rarely come across them). It lets the reader know there is a real person on the other side of the screen and shows they can get in touch whenever they want
Feel free to share some things you add in a new design
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
[...] 7 Things I Implement in a New Blog Design Some good things to keep in mind if nothing else. [...]
I’d like to add that a search forum is crucial especially for blogs that have tons of content. And I think using Google Custom Search is better than the WP default one
Keep it up
I’m not so sure, I’ve never ever used a search form on a site, I always go to Google and do a site search
Probably something I should still implement though
There is a typo in my previous comment; it should be “a search form”
In addition to your suggestion of a complete “about” page, I have to add copyright and privacy policies and a terms of use page. It’s pretty easy to find standard text for these on the web (hint: try your local chamber of commerce’s website) and adapt them for your needs.
These extra pages will help cover your ass legally and I keep seeing rumours that Google will assign higher trust to sites with such things pretty soon.
On the subject of site searches, I do use them fairly often. Although I agree with Glen that a Google search is more effective. Many times I try a search on a WordPress blog and get nowhere, so I’ll then resort to Google. Still, it’s nice to have a site search in my opinion. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary, but it doesn’t hurt. Actually, adding a Google custom search may be a better option than using the default WordPress functionality.