On October 06, one of my most successful blogs, WpRecipes, get its first birthday. To celebrate it, I decided that the site needed a facelift that will make it look more profesional. Without loosing any time, I asked my favorite artist to design a background image as well as a new logo and of course, my cat mascot, which is my personal branding.
As I guessed, the new design brought a lot of visitors and the post announcing the new look of the blog received more than 35 comments in a week.
4 reasons why a great design is important
It looks unique : Creating and developing your personal branding is indeed very important because people will later recognize your brand very easily. As an example, think about the Apple logo.It looks professional : When you see a blog with a polished, detailed and professionally looking design, you can be at least 90% sure to see quality content on that blog.
It is enjoyable : It is always better to read something on a website that looks good, with a great typography and beautiful images.
It will bring new visitors : have you noticied that many websites as such as We Love WP or CSS Gallery features the most beautiful designs? There’s no doubt that a blog that looks good will have its place on that kind of sites, and will receive clicks from their visitors.
Can you succeed without a cool blog design?
Even if it can sounds weird at first, lots of extremely successful websites are ugly, or at best, not beautiful. A very good is the popular classifieds site Craigslist : Designed in the 90’s, it was never redesigned or polished. Though, it is probably the most successful website of its niche.
Same goes for blogs: Seth Godin blog is a basic, plain white page with black titles, grey text and a simple logo. But this blog is probably the most popular marketing blog in the entire world.
So, you can be sure about it: A great design will not transform a crappy blog into a popular website. But it can bring new readers, and help you to be taken seriously.
How to get a good looking blog
Hire a designer : The best way to get a great design is of course to hire someone that can make you one. More profesionnal designers will not work for under (at least) $1500/$2500, but you can easily find a student or a talented amateur that will create something cool and unique for a lower price.
Customize a WordPress theme : If your blog is powered by WordPress, a great idea is to get a theme you like, and customize it. For example, you can integrate your logo, change colors, modify the layout…
Buy a premium WordPress theme : Premium themes are an excellent way to get a not unique, but very good looking, blog. Sites likes WooThemes, ElegantThemes or WpZoom sells gorgeous designs for less than $80.
And you, do you think that a great design is an important factor of success? Let me know in the comments!
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Bon article qui résume bien les choses. Je pense que même si le design d’un blog n’est pas la condition sine qua non pour réussir, c’est tout de même un facteur clé de succès.
De plus design et ergonomie vont souvent ensemble, et là où l’on va ajouter de l’expérience utilisateur l’autre peut réellement faire fuir.
Totally agree, a good design means in most case great content. And great design is always better than a bad one :p
Web Designer Wall really have a great design!
I really love the new WpRecipes.com design. How did you get the idea of that cute cat?
@Pedro : Thanks! The cat mascot is just a drawning…of my real cat! I always loved animals so I thought it will be really cool to have my cat as a mascot for my blogs
hehe nice =) And why cats who blog haven’t any cat mascot o_O ?
@Pedro : It will have one soon, just be patient
We’re all looking forward for your redesign. Keep us posted!
I agree. Great and original blog design holds an important role because some design blogs out there like to feature great designs on their blog, and if they got featured, it will just bring more visitors to their blogs. Blog with plain design but awesome contents took a longer time to get more visitors. That’s what I think.
BTW congrats for the launch of Catswhoblog!
Really great Jean!
I thing too that a good website design is one of keys for its success (I made a good experience with it… a new theme tripled my visitors on 1 day !)
@TuniLame : That’s great to hear! In fact, a good design can bring lots of new readers!
Hey Jean!
I just want to say that there is no search forum on this site…
I totally get this, but I would say _effective_ rather than fancy.
Currently, I don’t believe my design is nearly as effective as it could be. Opportunity for the new year!