Hi There! ☺
Sometimes, to become a better Blogger, you must become one with the blog.
I don't know what that means, but it sounds good and it may make some kind of sense to you.
In our early stages of blogging, we don't really know what we are doing, and are just happy go get something posted out there. But as we get better, we want to make our Blog unique and stand out more. What better way than to look at other people's Bloggers and steal a bunch of ideas?! Well, sort of. Sometimes, we may think we know everything about Blogger layouts and tools, but missed out on some of the creative ways of using them. So, to get some inspiration, it's good to explore other peoples pages.
The blog we will review today is "Your Blogger's Favorite Blog"
At first glance, I don't know if I want Burger King or Neapolitan ice cream. They say that sometimes its good to be different. This quote doesn't work out well here. Though it may not be the most appealing color scheme, it does one positive thing. The color scheme crabs your attention and hypnotizes you for a moment. This is good because most readers would usually move on to another site within seconds if something about the page doesn't instantly catch their attention. As they say, (and i don't know who "they" is so don't ask), don't judge a book by its cover.
Moving on to the rest of the layout, it is nice that there is a side bar, but it only shows a link to one Guide. It would be great to see some more links here. Something along the lines of newest to oldest posts so that a return reader can quickly find a guide they wanted to go back to instead of scrolling down the page searching.
As we scroll down and look through the posts, something i like is that the post title's stand out. The post preview is also large so you can read it. This is important, especially when you are trying to hook a reader and want them to click on the post. But for that to be successful, you must make sure that there is a hook there to catch the readers attention. If it doesn't pop, they will most likely move on.
I chose a random post to sample. The post is "How to Set Up a Custom Blog Domain"
First impressions are key to a reader you want to hook. What you don't want your posts to look like is what we see above. Everything is scattered. The snippets are randomly sized and all over the place. The formatting just doesn't exist. In an instructional guide, a user should not feel frustrated with the knowledge you are trying to transfer to them. We must give the benefit of the doubt that this is a new Blogger that doesn't know much of what he is doing yet. So lets explore the actual content.
The contents is simple and straight to the point. There's no need to write a novel on how to click the "next" button, yet some people do it. If you are going to keep your explanations simple, it is crucial that you incorporate visual aides. In this case, the blogger actually did a good job presenting the information in a way that someone can follow along. This was his most important task, therefore, even though his blog isn't pretty, his objective was met.
So what did we learn here?
A. Make sure to meet your objective and make it as clear and simple as possible
B. Sometimes, it's OK to be different with your theme, just don't go overboard.
C. Presentation is key to attracting new readers. If you want to believe you know what you're doing, take the time to edit a post to make it appealing and professional
D. Take advantage of the sidebar. Don't make users frustrated having to search for your content.
I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a thing or two. Now it's your turn. Go do some exploring!
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