30 Blog Design Tips Part 4

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24. Plugins
Only use plugins or widgets that enhance or support your content or that help build your community and deepen your relationship with your subscribers. Avoid using those that distract from your content. Here’s a list of widgets currently installed on this blog:

• Akismet - Checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.
• Breadcrumb Navigation XT - Adds a breadcrumb navigation showing the visitor’s path to their current location.
• Get Recent Comments - Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar.
• FeedBurner FeedSmith - This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.
• JAW Popular Posts Widget - Adds a sidebar widget that shows the most popular posts. Requires the Popularity Contest plugin.
• Limit Posts - Limits the displayed text length on the index page entries and generates a link to a page to read the full content if its bigger than the selected maximum length.
• MyBlogLog Widget - Adds MyBlogLog widget to your blog.
• Popularity Contest - This will enable ranking of your posts by popularity; using the behavior of your visitors to determine each post’s popularity.
• ShareThis - Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.
• Top Commentators Widget - Adds a sidebar widget to show the top commentators in your WP site.
• What Would Seth Godin Do - Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors.

25. External links
Links to other sites should be kept to a minimum. I recommend none above the fold unless they are to your own products. You will notice that there are no external links immediately above the fold other than those which might appear in my post area.

Links to pages on your blog or site should open in the same browser window. External links and even links to your own products should open in another browser window. You want your blog to remain open in your reader’s browser.

26. Comments
You want to encourage participation so leave the “follow attribute” but just limit the number of comments displayed. I recommend a top comments widget over simply listing the last comment posted. This rewards the more active readers by having their link displayed on your page.

27. Ads
Don’t use them. I hate visiting blogs full of ads. When I see a site full of ads I navigate away. Unless they are for your own products I would not recommend and even then they should be subtle.

Obviously this depends on the type of blog your creating. If you are reviewing other peoples products, you are an affiliate marketer or you make a living from adsense then this is different. If it is for your personal blog limit them and place them below the fold. This is just my personal view.

28. New Visitors
Don’t welcome everyone at the top of your page or in your header. My tip is to use the What Would Seth Godin Do? plugin. I have mine set to welcome new visitors on their first 3 visits though some might say 7 times might be best. Test and find out what works best for you. If you use this plugin, encourage new visitors to sign up to your list or feed.

29. Exit Popup
I don’t have one of these at present but this is something perhaps you should consider. I know many marketers who say that this substantially increases their opt-in rate. Offer something of value in return for your reader’s email address. Usually a product that you could get away charging money for. Offer it for free. Be careful though as a lot of people do not like popups of any kind.

30. Stats
You are proud of your blog right? Display an Alexa Traffic Rank Button on your blog, don’t be afraid to show your stats even if they aren’t that great at present. I’ve heard the act of putting this button on your page alone actually helps increase your ranking! Let your readers know how popular your blog is. Since you are always going to be working on improving those stats then let everyone see just how well you are doing. This is also a great personal motivator to drive traffic to your pages.

I hope you have enjoyed this series of posts as much as I enjoyed writing them and find these tips to be of use when thinking about starting your own blog.

Is my blog perfect? No way! But it does adhere to most of the above criteria and will adhere to all over the coming weeks and this will give my blog the best chance of success.

Some of you may disagree with some of the points above. The point is you have to do what’s right for your business and niche. There are no hard and fast rules but use these ideas as a guideline and you won’t go far wrong.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below. Don’t forget if you enjoyed this post then please feel free to share.