5 Proven Ways to Make Your Blog More Attractive

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We usually neglect small things in our blogs. Sometimes those small changes can bring us massive results. Successful blogging requires right Blogging tools and efforts to stand out, but with the blog marketing space growing so crowded it can be very difficult to select the right platforms to stand out from the crowd.

Now, like every person, the blog has their own personality, which is visible in the form of content, design, and elements on your blog. You can easily distinguish between a blog that is maintained professionally and a blog by newbie blogger.

So, how about we enhance the personality of our blog and give a great impression to readers. There are many things which we can do to make our blog attractive and I’m sure you must have planned many things for your next blog redesign.  Everyone wants to make their own blogs look better and attractive.

To do that right, read and try to implement the following methods to drive better results.

Changes which will make your blog Attractive and appealing:

Here I’m creating a list of changes or suggestions which you can implement on your blog and give it a more professional outlook. Yes, your content will matter the most but it’s your design and other factors, which will make visitors stay and become a reader. So, let me start with Email form:

1. Email opt-in forms placement

Email Form placement
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The best way to grow your blog quickly is by building an email list for your blog. When it comes to building your email list there are certain ways to grow it fast. You can do it either by guest posting and linking it to your subscription page or by placing opt-in forms in the right place on your blog.

There are many Email services, offer list building features for example: Aweber, Getresponse and none the less, free Feedburner.

The following are the 3 best places to put your opt-in forms that no one ignores:

  1. Above the fold
  2. Top of the sidebar
  3. Below each post

1. Above the fold:

This was introduced by Derek Halphern from SocialTriggers.com. Later everyone noticed the importance of having above the fold placement. Because this is the most visible place when someone first visits your blog. If you provide it with actionable tips or a freebie, you can definitely create a rapid growing list for your blog.

2. Top of the sidebar:

This is the second noticeable email opt-in place. Even if you are using ‘above the fold’ for your blog, it’s always better to use this email opt-in placement also, because when someone clicks on a blog post to read, then this can come in handy to grab their eyeballs.

3. Below each post:

If someone really likes your post, they definitely can’t ignore taking an action! That may be either by making a blog comment, sharing your content or subscribing to your blog. So why not make most out of it by placing opt-in form at the end of the posts? This is one of the effective ways to grow your list.

2. Blog design matters

You can never create a great impact on your first-time visitors by using cheap or free themes. Here are a few tips to make your blog design more attractive.

Use a better theme:

Most of the bloggers are using free or cheap themes on their blogs. They may be free but it’s also easier to walk away from the blogs! I don’t suggest you to hire a professional to design your blog.

But at least spend some money on buying a better theme if you really consider blogging as a business. When you buying a theme, take care of SEO and another aspect like support and updates in the future. You can consider selecting any good theme from these popular WordPress theme clubs.

Fast loading site:

fast loading blog
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This is the 21st century, speed matters more. If you can’t make your blog loading time faster, blame yourself! Don’t use too many widgets, plugins and don’t make your sidebar clumsy. It can ruin your loading time.

Above is an example of such a slow loading site, and would you wait for 11.44 sec for a normal blog page to load?

Good typography:

Don’t use tiny fonts that are hard to read. We are creating textual content most of the time, so don’t make your readers hard to read your content, they will immediately leave the blog. Anything around 12 to 16 px of font size is good to read on the web.

Social media icons:

If you want to connect with your readers out of your blog, social media is the only option. Make your social media buttons like Facebook, Twitter, or RSS feed visible. Check out: Must have subscription options for every blog.

A simple tip: Add a “Return to Top” link in the footer. You can manually do this by placing the following code in your footer.

<a href=”#header”>Return to top</a>

Or you can use “Dynamic To Top Plugin” to do the same.

3. Readable content is King

Content is not King actually. Readable content is the King. If people love to read your content and connect with you, what else do you need to make your blog more attractive & addictive?

Here are a few tips to create readable content for your blog.

Killer titles:

 “How to Get More Blog Comments“, “How to Get 1500 Comments Within 2 Months“. Tell me which sounds more attractive? Certainly, you will go for the 2nd option. Why? It’s certain, effective, and strong. Use these 3 things to make your titles go viral.

A strong call to action:

Call to action buttons
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Without calling your readers at the end of the post, you can’t get comments. If you want more comments, then ask them to comment or ask them what did they really like about the post. It would be always a great idea to end your posts by saying ‘Over to you’ or ‘Your turn’ etc terms, this can help your readers to act.

Use quality images for your blog posts:

Many new bloggers are making a big mistake by simply downloading the images from Google. Don’t use Google images for your blog posts, most of them are copyrighted and you may face copyright issues sooner or later. Still, if you want to use free images, there are so many sites out there to download by giving proper credit(a link back to their sites).

Read more to write better:

It may be not possible for you to write as much effect as a native English speaker. But, you can certainly become a better writer if you read other content daily.

Slowly you will notice the results which can lead you to write more effectively. If you are an iPhone or android reader, I recommend you to try Feedly or Flipboard for reading and discovering new articles. Also,  Reddit is also very useful to find content based on our interest.

4. Make your blog a learning spot

Well, the design does matter but by the end of the day, it’s always your content matters the most. Publishing new articles every day will never guarantee your blog success but you need to come up with interesting topics and ideas for your blog post.

Interact with your readers: 

Did you know the blogs with better interaction make more money from their blogs?  Being a busy blogger and a successful online entrepreneur he always responds to most of the comments on his blog. This doesn’t mean that he has more free time, he is smart enough to know that, blog readers are the real assets to create a profitable blog. And that’s the truth!

If you want to build a better blog, build a thriving audience first. The best way to do this is: responding to the comments. Respond to at least those who really need help. This shows that you are interested to solve their problems and it creates a great impact on your blog in the long run.

Write actionable tips:

Write really helpful tips to solve your reader’s problems. They should be able to implement on their blogs immediately after reading your blog posts. I know it may be not possible for you to create this type of content every time, but you can always make it in small chunks.

Remember, no post is better than the worst post. You must convince your readers to take action to build a better blog for themselves if you want to grow your business.

5. Don’t overdo with the Ads

Too many blogs (especially the new blogs) have every ad under the sun. What’s the use if you put them without having enough traffic? It also slows down your website loading time.

Focus more on driving targeted readers to your blog and make them loyal. Sooner or later they will certainly prefer your services be it buying an eBook, signing up to your membership program, or something else.

You are not running a blogging agency, don’t plaster too many ads, it may kill your blog’s credibility. And, even if you wish to start, put 1-2 ad units without hampering the readability of content. Especially, avoid putting ads in between the article and avoid pop-up ads.

So ditch the unwanted ads and promote the right stuff which suits your blogging niche.

Extra tip for ‘Shout-Me-Loud’ readers – Analyze popular blogs

The blogs which are popular take every single point into consideration and they spend a lot of time analyzing what really works for them! Now take a look at your favorite blogs once.

And observe where did they put email opt-ins, social sharing buttons, and what they are using on their sidebars, etc. This can give you a better idea of what to use and what not to use on your own blogs.

Moreover, you will see regular design changes on popular websites, and following the trend and benefits, you can integrate some of such tips to make your blog look more attractive.

Well, such tips are endless like you can always make your contact form attractive, neat, and clean layout, and many more. The idea is, make a list of changes that you like to add and things suggested by others. You can make changes and perform A/B testing and see which one works. Here is an ultimate guide to A/B testing, which will help you to get started.

Over to you

Did I miss anything? Or any extra tips would you like to add here?

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Authored By
Editorial Staff at ShoutMeLoud is a team of writers led by Harsh Agrawal.

7 thoughts on “5 Proven Ways to Make Your Blog More Attractive”

  1. Garren Martirossian

    Hello Rahul,

    Thank you for the wonderful post and proven points that work well in any situation. I do my best to implement that fun, simple, attractive, yet interactive environment in my own writing blog.

    Best,
    Garren Martirossian

  2. Anup Kayastha

    Nice points. Every bloggers much know these things. The first thing a person notice is blog’s design and then looks for the content. Site loading speed is important too.

  3. Amit Shaw

    Hey Rahul,
    Thank you for sharing the article. Interaction with readers is very important. Less adds is another good points. Good points!
    Amit

  4. Ehsan

    Hey Rahul,
    It’s nice to see you here at Harsh’s place.
    I think I’m following the 90% of the tips you shared in this post. I will focus more on the growth of my blog to make my blog more attractive.

    Neil is really a smart man. You are right, He always replied to my comments whenever I left a comment at QuickSprout.

    Thanks for the tips, I can’t close the page without leaving a comment after reading your post

    1. Rahul Kuntala

      Thanks for stopping by everywhere pal 🙂 I really like your insights and comments not only because they are BIG enough to read, they also have good MEAT!

  5. P K Arun

    Good points.. one more thing what I would like to add is, avoid putting up too many ads on your blog especially inline ads should be avoided. Most of the users/visitors feel it has a link and thus waste their time by clicking on it.

    1. Rahul Kuntala

      Yea Arun, I also hate them. In fact, everyone does(including with the users!). But they don’t have any other options in most of the cases, that’s why they use. But I strongly believe that user experience should be given top priority than Ads!

      Thanks for leaving your views.

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