Blog Design for Business
Blog Design for Business
Your blog’s layout and design plays a big role in how effective it will be. Here are a few tips to make your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs out there.
* Your Navigational Structure
How do you want to structure your navigation? What is the hierarchy of your pages and posts? How do you want people to move about your site? Do you want navigational links to be across the top, down one side or the other, at the bottom, or a combination of these? Do you want the home page to be unique or the same as all the other pages? What will appear on your home page: a static page or your blog posts? Before you even think about design, you need to have a good idea of how you want people to navigate your website. This information, as well as who your audience is, informs the design of the site.
* Personality
What is your brand’s personality? Is it perky? understated? creative? professional? The colors and layout you choose should help communicate the personality you want for your blog. For example, I chose vibrant colors for this blog because I felt they expressed the “turbo-charge” nature of the information, along with my quirky personality. The Women’s Business Gallery uses a more down-to-Earth color palette because it is much more “business” focused. Because I’m going with a “vamp” theme for WordPress ReVamp, I chose a sultry, simmering color combination. Get the picture?
* Advertisements
Will you have advertising on your site? What kind? Will you be advertising your own products and services, like I do on the home page of this website? Will you advertise other peoples products through affiliate links? Will you sell advertising space? What about Google Ads? You need to know what kinds of advertising, if any, you want on your website so you can incorporate space for them into your design.
* Your Header Banner
This is the image and text that appears on the top of every page. In the case of this blog, it is where the name of the blog appears and has the imagery and tag-line beneath it. This is where you put your logo and most of your branding imagery. It also sets the tone for the rest of the layout. When I’m customizing Wordpress themes for my clients, this is the first part of the design I work on.
* Give Your RSS Feeds Some Flare
Using FeedBurner, you can give your readers two ways to subscribe to your RSS feed: through their favorite RSS Reader or via email. Giving them this option can increase the number of RSS subscriptions you get. Also, if you use Aweber, you can create a “Blog Broadcast” and automatically send summaries of your blog posts to your subscribers.
* Audio and Video
You don’t have to limit your design and content to just static images and text. You can incorporate audio and video components to liven up your site. It is better to know you are going to do this up-front, so that you can work these elements seamlessly into your design. Podcats and Vidcasts are one option, but you can also post interesting video from YouTube, as well.
* A Favicon
This is the little image that appears next to the URL in the address bar. Having a unique, branded favicon makes your blog look that much more professional. There are lots of ways to add one to your website, but, at least for WordPress websites, I’ve found using the MaxBlogPress Favicon plugin to be the easiest. And, generating a favicon in the correct format is pretty easy, too. Just go to www.favicon.co.uk, upload the image you want to use as your favicon and follow the directions.
Blog Design for Business - To learn more about this author, visit Carma Spence-Pothitt's Website.
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A blog for business is a bit different from a personal blog, as you probably already guessed. When you plan your blog for success, you should also give some thought to what your business blog will look like.
Your blog’s layout and design plays a big role in how effective it will be. Here are a few tips to make your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs out there.
* Your Navigational Structure
How do you want to structure your navigation? What is the hierarchy of your pages and posts? How do you want people to move about your site? Do you want navigational links to be across the top, down one side or the other, at the bottom, or a combination of these? Do you want the home page to be unique or the same as all the other pages? What will appear on your home page: a static page or your blog posts? Before you even think about design, you need to have a good idea of how you want people to navigate your website. This information, as well as who your audience is, informs the design of the site.
* Personality
What is your brand’s personality? Is it perky? understated? creative? professional? The colors and layout you choose should help communicate the personality you want for your blog. For example, I chose vibrant colors for this blog because I felt they expressed the “turbo-charge” nature of the information, along with my quirky personality. The Women’s Business Gallery uses a more down-to-Earth color palette because it is much more “business” focused. Because I’m going with a “vamp” theme for WordPress ReVamp, I chose a sultry, simmering color combination. Get the picture?
* Advertisements
Will you have advertising on your site? What kind? Will you be advertising your own products and services, like I do on the home page of this website? Will you advertise other peoples products through affiliate links? Will you sell advertising space? What about Google Ads? You need to know what kinds of advertising, if any, you want on your website so you can incorporate space for them into your design.
* Your Header Banner
This is the image and text that appears on the top of every page. In the case of this blog, it is where the name of the blog appears and has the imagery and tag-line beneath it. This is where you put your logo and most of your branding imagery. It also sets the tone for the rest of the layout. When I’m customizing Wordpress themes for my clients, this is the first part of the design I work on.
* Give Your RSS Feeds Some Flare
Using FeedBurner, you can give your readers two ways to subscribe to your RSS feed: through their favorite RSS Reader or via email. Giving them this option can increase the number of RSS subscriptions you get. Also, if you use Aweber, you can create a “Blog Broadcast” and automatically send summaries of your blog posts to your subscribers.
* Audio and Video
You don’t have to limit your design and content to just static images and text. You can incorporate audio and video components to liven up your site. It is better to know you are going to do this up-front, so that you can work these elements seamlessly into your design. Podcats and Vidcasts are one option, but you can also post interesting video from YouTube, as well.
* A Favicon
This is the little image that appears next to the URL in the address bar. Having a unique, branded favicon makes your blog look that much more professional. There are lots of ways to add one to your website, but, at least for WordPress websites, I’ve found using the MaxBlogPress Favicon plugin to be the easiest. And, generating a favicon in the correct format is pretty easy, too. Just go to www.favicon.co.uk, upload the image you want to use as your favicon and follow the directions.
Blog Design for Business - To learn more about this author, visit Carma Spence-Pothitt's Website.
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
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