The Blogshop’s business blogging services revolve around one primary aspect – communication.
Each business blogging strategy we develop and implement has the first and foremost aim of raising the level of communication between the company and their customers.
However, just like there are numerous by-products of an effectively implemented business blogging strategy, there’s a variety of sub-aspects that need to be considered when developing and maintaing a business blog, with the blog’s design being a prime example.
Generally speaking, a business blog is all about the content. People visit blogs to read whatever the company has published. They want to find out more about the company’s products or services; understand more about what it is they do.
But how appealing would the blog be, irrelevant of the quality of the content, if it was just black words printed on a white background? No colour, no images and no kind of formatting. Just text.
Honestly, the blog would probably succeed.
Content reigns above all else when it comes to a business blog and so as long as you’ve got the right content up there, the design is essentially irrelevant.
But not completely irrelevant.
We all know the saying ‘you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover’, but the simple fact is, most of us do. We open up a website and unless we’ve been recommended to visit it because of its fantastic content, if it isn’t aesthetically pleasing, there’s a very good chance we will click off and try another website.
This doesn’t mean we won’t visit it again, but it means the organisation has, at best, temporarily lost a potential lead. They had the opportunity to grab a reader’s attention – a reader who could turn into a customer – and they failed to do so.
A blog’s design also comes into play when you’re looking to push your readers towards a certain goal, whether that’s drawing their eyes to a particular part of the page, clicking on a link through to a product or asking them to sign up to your company newsletter.
By removing any type of design from a blog, you’re relying solely on the content to draw people in and move them towards a specific goal. There’s no doubt that this is a possibility, but it’s one that is extremely difficult without any type of formatting, imaging or layout – all basic principles of blog design.
Having a great blog design isn’t a necessity. Just like there are no real ‘rules’ as to how you should blog, there are no requirements for you to have a blog that stands out from the crowd because of its design.
But although the importance of a blog’s design isn’t often understood properly, the truth is the right design can take words on a web page and turn them into the pinnacle of perfect business blogging.
We’ve reopened the ‘Best Blog Design’ category in The Blogshop’s Best Blog Awards 2012! Got a great blog you’re proud of? Enter it via our Best Blog Design Entry Form before 5.00pm (GMT) on Tuesday 13th March 2012 to be in the running to win!
