When readers visit your blog, you have about ten seconds to catch their interest and about thirty seconds to keep it. Great content is always important, but so is your design. One of the most common design mistakes bloggers make is cluttering up their main page. Here are three of the most common offenders.
“Visitors from” widget (feedjit)
While it can be interesting to see where all your readers are coming from, this widget and ones similar to it can slow down your site- and take up valuable room in your sidebar. You can track location via programs such as google analytics, leaving your sidebar less cluttered.
Too many badges
While it’s good to highlight communities you are actively a part of, sharing too many buttons or badges on your homepage can take up a lot of space- and even mess with some design templates. Instead of including every badge on your main page, consider adding a page where you can keep them all, and limit the home page to just an essential few.
An oversized header image
Your logo and/or header is a great representation of you and your blog’s brand. However, when the image takes up all of the above the fold space, it can actually hinder your blog. (Above the fold = what most people see on the screen before having to scroll down). Try to maximize the height of your header at 200 pixels at the absolute most. That way, when a potential new reader lands on your blog, you can ensure they will see your content and what your blog is all about.
What are some space-consumers you see on blogs?
About Ashley
True! and too much advertisement grr
I didn’t know that about feedjit and I don’t even look at it, so why keep it on my blog.
And I did change my header a few months back too. I wanted something sleek.
I think blogs with too many adds are such a turn off!
I’ve been thinking about removing the recently visited one I have. Now I know I should!
Check!
Thank you for the wonderful advice. I always believe simplicity is best.
Thanks for the advice, always wondering how I can make my design better/easier!
A separate page for badges and shout-out’s is a good idea. I will be moving mine to one soon.
I struggle with the oversized header issue. My formatting skills on blogger are good but not great. My header is an enormous jpeg file and it definitely takes up all of the “above the fold” space. I’ve tried to resize, but then for some reason it will display on the far left and I’d like to keep my header neat and in center.
My issue is I actually love my header image. It was captured on a tripod, using self-timer, and just after sunset in gorgeous Monterey, CA.. I quite love the effect that it has on my page and I think it grabs interest and attention…but—is a large header really that hindering of an issue that it will harm me rather than help me in 100% of cases?
Thank you for the information. I have only just started my blog page. I can now see that my header is too big. Going to fix it now.
Great tips! Never knew that about feedjit. I do like how it displays where the visitors are from. Guess it’s time to figure out google analytics.
Great tips!
On Blogger, it used to be possible to create another page, and sometimes people put their awards etc. on them, but I think they must have taken this away now, as I tried some time ago to add another page and couldn’t find that bit of the site. If anyone else on Blogger knows, perhaps they could leave a comment.
Thanks anyway for this helpful advice, I will be taking some of the clutter off my blogs now.
Jewel, if you go to your Blogger dashboard on the left you can click on pages. It will then list your existing pages and directly above that list should be a gray button for “new page”. Then you will choose blank page and start your new one. I hope that helps!