Web design for bloggers

One of the main areas of blogging that bloggers often ignore is the aspect of web design. Web design for bloggers is an essential part of creating a successful blog. When one starts a blog, all that matters is writing and publishing articles. However, they make the simple mistake of underestimating the power of effective web design and how it helps a blog succeed. In this article, we will talk about the importance of web design and development and the ways to implement best practices for website design. 

The main objective of blogging is to reach out to an audience. Writing a blog has been around for 20 years. And when we write a blog, we are mainly driven by the goal of influencing people with our work.  We think the content we put out is worth reading and reaching to people. But what happens if it does not reach the people themselves? It destroys the whole purpose of blogging.

This is when having a usable and functional website comes in handy. But don’t worry; you don’t have to be a web designer to design your website. You can follow some simple tips that we will discuss in this article for an innovative web design that stands out in the design world.

Popular 10 Web Designs for Blog Websites

Before designing a blog website, we have to know what we are doing. That comes with planning the design of our websites and gathering the right design inspiration. There are paid and free versions of web templates that you can use for web design inspiration. While choosing a template, make sure to select a responsive theme that offers flexibility for designing. There are plenty of designs according to the blog categories that we can find on numerous platforms. Platforms like Wix, Colorlib, Squarespace, Canva, Site123, Weebly, Blogger, and WordPress are the most popular blog website builders as of 2024. 

Besides, for a new website design, here is the list of the top 10 popular web designs for blog websites:

1. Noter: Noter is a web design template that you can buy for $49 dollar. It is minimal, clean, and is a tech or culture-themed blog website template. It is 100% responsive and easily customizable. Also, it is SEO optimized and performs efficiently. And it actually includes the latest trends in web design, i.e., lotte animation. $49 doesn’t seem that expensive now, right?
2. Scribe: Scribe is another blog template where you can take inspiration for your web design of any category. Or you can buy it for $49. It is clean and has a modern feel to its design. It is easy to customize and is 100% mobile responsive. It has animation and is optimized for SEO benefits. It is fast and has a production-quality build. It is easily customizable and comes with a cms(content management system)
3. Wells: Wells by Squarespace is a popular inspiration for creative businesses to design a website. This template is well-designed with built-in social share icons. It is customizable and has a responsive navigation and layout. Its layout is designed in a way that gives more focus to the specific content of your brand. This template comes with a guide, free to download only after you sign up in Squarespace, with a pricing plan that can cost anywhere from around $16 to $49.
4. A beautiful mess: If you are searching for a web design, especially for food blogs, A beautiful mess website can inspire you. It is not a template but rather a popular food blog website that can give you an idea of what you want to incorporate within your blog website. It uses vibrant color schemes that are usually related to food. The content is presented in a readable format and is well-designed. It is easy to navigate in a fun and engaging way. This is an inspiration for designers looking to build a food-related blog website.
5. Keep it simpElle: Keep it simpElle is a fitness blog website that has a simplistic look. The color choices and typography make it look less overwhelming. This website has incorporated animation styles, making it engaging and playful. The placement of interactive elements takes the cake for smooth and easy navigation. Any designer can take it as an example of building a website, mainly for fitness and health website blogs.
6. Love Nature: By the name, it is clear that this template is for nature bloggers. Love Nature by Astra has a simplistic design with a customizable layout. It is flexible and compatible with web builder platforms like WordPress. Likewise, it has an elegant UI design with a natural color palette, making it look professional. It is free and multipurpose, which means it can be used for other blog categories besides nature. 
7. GetSmarter: Imagine you click on a website, and it is so interesting that you might as well try to implement the exact design elements in your website. This is exactly what the design of the GetSmarter website feels like. Its color consistency and content presentation give an educational feel without overwhelming details. Quickly accessible sidebar menus make navigation easy. It is informative and has easy social share buttons, which is something you would want to implement on your website.
8. The Oatmeal: If you’re looking for a cute, cartoony, fun website, then you can directly visit the Oatmeal website. The exciting part is that this website doesn’t feel like a traditional blogging website but more like a TV screen. The design layout is practical and gives an easy feel. The content is readable, and with a single look, you can tell it is a comic blog website. The design is responsive, with easy navigation and engaging visuals. The theme is consistent across all pages and has social share integrated with it.
9. Awwwards: Designers take inspiration from this blogging website for a sleek and minimalistic design. The large imagery and unique typography make it stand out from other blogging websites. It has a consistent theme and layout with the use of subtle colors.Awwwards website is informative and engaging. It has an easy search feature for smooth navigation. Therefore, due to its unique visuals, it is definitely popular in the design community. 
10. The Everywhereist: One of the most creative web designs can be showcased by The Everywhereist website. The visual icons and color choices make the website and its content pop. The layout for the content does an excellent job of making it readable. Social sharing is integrated with interactive elements. Overall, the design is simple and user-friendly but also informative. Integrated elements, like email listings and contact information, make it engaging.  

Clarifying Blog Purpose and Audience

Having a website for your blogs means you are already making a brand of your own. That also means your blog should have a certain purpose, which is to define the brand. An objective helps to set the target audience and what readers expect from your blogs. And with the design of your blog, you can communicate the objective of the brand. The UI design of a website gives the first impression to the website visitors. So, we can make wise use of design elements such as color schemes, logo design, fonts or layout in our website.

Knowing your target audience helps you design the website as well. Suppose your blogs cater to a specific demographic, such as teenagers interested in tourism. Then, choosing green color palettes and the latest design trends for that website can be a wise choice. We can also use layouts for the website to clarify our blog’s purpose. This not only helps reach the target audience but also generates organic traffic. On top of that, including relatable content in the websites can help resonate with users, which can be beneficial for emotional connection. 

Selection of Responsive Theme

In technical terms, responsive means accommodating to all sizes of devices. But why is it important for it to be responsive? In the web design industry, one of the important things to consider when designing a website is responsiveness. While visitors can use various devices to access your website, the website should also be adjustable in different sizes. It helps ensure the consistency and functionality of the website, even across multiple sizes. It also helps in making the website look aesthetically pleasing in all sizes. Having a responsive website lets you have more control over customizations and how you want them to be presented on different-sized devices. 

Nonetheless, selecting a responsive theme for your website makes up for the smooth and seamless interaction within the website. That means the visitors are likely going to stay on your website for a longer period of time. There are chances that they might even return to your blogging website, i.e., more user retention. Moreover, we can also make use of design resources for a custom template of responsive themes. Hence, having a responsive blog design makes it more usable. There is a high possibility that with a responsive layout, the website can rank higher in search engines which can attract a wider audience.

Optimize Performance and Speed

We all love an easy and fast-performing blog page /website. In fact, we all want our website to be flooded with positive feedback about its performance and speed if it represents our brand. To optimize the website, web designers and developers often use optimized images. Compressing images and videos into smaller sizes without compromising the quality. Likewise, choosing a fast-hosting service can also help achieve fast performance. Overusing plugins and features can slow down the website, so we should use them carefully. If you are planning to use a custom template for your website, try to choose one that has flexibility in terms of customization.

All of these can be very beneficial in terms of SEO rankings. When a website has a higher ranking in organic search results, it is more likely to drive more traffic to the website. And the whole point of blogging and creating blogs is to reach readers. So, optimizing performance and speed is very fruitful for bloggers. Moreover, with new and unique visitors, it can also help to increase conversion rates. This means the ease of use of a website can help turn visitors into long-term customers. This can help in monetizing the blogs and content to maximize sales and revenue.

Use of Friendly Navigation for Users

Another usability feature that is very useful while designing a website, whether it be a blogging one or others, is friendly navigation. For growing dedicated and loyal readers, one thing we should focus on is usability. If it is user-friendly and easy to use, then it will have a positive impact on the visitors. While designing, the blog layout should be easy to navigate. To implement this in our blogging websites, we can follow these simple tips.

1. Prioritizing featured content: It is important for visitors to know that your website provides exactly what they are looking for without having to spend too much time. This can be done by prioritizing important content first on the website.
2. Simplistic layout: By building a minimalist and simple blog, users can easily navigate through the website, making it more engaging. We can achieve this through the usage of visual cues like icons or arrows. 
3. Accessible features: Including accessible features like a screen reader or a language conversion feature can be beneficial to reach a wider audience. 

Therefore, having a user-friendly navigation gives SEO benefits. Also, users are unlikely to leave the website as fast as they enter, which means reduced bounce rates. You can look up a list of web design blogs; most of them approve that having easy navigation is an important part of the design process. Overall, this feature makes the website engaging, and users are more prone to take more action within the website.

How to Make an Appealing Blog Template

We can use various design tools to make an appealing blog template. We can follow latest web design trends in digital design to build a blog. We can find various articles on web design that cover topics related to design concepts. You can also follow other types of content for web designers, such as tutorials on graphic design. These guides can help us to come up with new ideas required for creating a blog website. Furthermore, we can take advantage of web design portfolio builders that offer custom templates and resources for designers. 

Likewise, to make an easy and creative design, we can take design ideas from blog articles. They cover a wide range of topics, such as choosing color schemes and themes, using layout, responsive design, and related features. You can also consider Design Shack as an option to find customizable themes for your website. Similarly, if web development is not your strongest skill, we have listed some design topics required to create a great web design for blogging websites.

Readability

A website should be readable. Everyone knows that, but practicing design tips is really helpful for if you want to maintain the readability of a website. Choosing the right font and typography is easily one of the ways to help with content readability. Having an accessible feature to increase the font size can help as well. Furthermore, we can use white spaces to gain attention to the main content. 

System for Commenting

Every website needs feedback to grow and be better for customers. Whether it is positive comments or negative comments, these kinds of feedback are essential to know what is right or wrong for the website from the target audience’s point of view. Therefore, we can integrate a system for commenting on our website to know what the website can do to improve. 

Integration for Sharing on Different Platforms

Social integrations help in driving traffic to the websites. Social advertisement is a thing for websites to reach more readers. On top of that, we can also include buttons for easy sharing of feedback or the website itself. We can use different platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms for this purpose. 

Clean UX Design and Minimal Design 

A simple and minimalist design is the way to go if you do not want to overwhelm the visitors of your websites. Prioritize the main content and present it at the top of the page in a clutter-free way. The use of visual cues for easy navigation is another tip for web design. Many web design blogs may encourage the use of plugins but try not to overuse them as they can cause the website to be slow.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a good blog design is very important to bloggers who want to make an impact on their targeted audience and engage them fully. To achieve the best design, we can use a responsive web theme. It makes the website look fantastic and work perfectly across all devices. Thus making sure the user experience is excellent. Optimizing performance and speed will keep readers happy and encourage them to visit again.

An attractive blog combined with readability-focused design choices makes content accessible and pleasurable. Implementing a commenting system helps users to stay engaged within the website community. Likewise, social media sharing buttons as an outreach strategy are helpful for international exposure. Lastly, clean and simple designs help create a great blog and improve the usability of the site. 

Designing an effective blog covers all of the above-mentioned points. Therefore, there are many blog design examples that you can take from web design blogs. If you are making it from scratch or using templates, you can follow the best web design blogs. You can read web design blogs to gain the design inspiration that design blogs provide. Even web developers with design skills need some guidance before building a good website. You can find many web design tools and resources on web design ledger. This website also provides design projects for web and graphic design. Overall web design is important to bloggers who aim to build a beautiful blog with a strong focus on digital design and marketing. 

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