Todays topic for the 'Girls Guide to Beauty Blogging' series is blog design; so whilst I am not all that clued up on it, I will endeavour to try and give you my best tips possible because, whether you like it or not, people are greatly swayed by aesthetics and it could be the deciding factor as to whether someone actually follows you or not.
My first tip would be to try and have as clean a layout as possible. By this, I just mean the simple things - keep your main body of text an easy to read font, don't try to play around with funny cursors and pop-ups, and keep your background minimal. You really want people to be focusing on the content you have created, rather than worrying about everything else that is going on, so try make it as simple as possible. One of the best ways of increasing ease of navigation is by making full use of the sidebar and navigation bars to provide easy links to social media pages and other widgets, such as 'Popular Posts' and the 'Search' function. I also really like it when people have a 'You may also like ...' type widget at the bottom of each post as not only do they make it easier for viewers to get around, it will increase the amount of time people spend on your blog, as they get an easier view of more content.
I think white is probably the best background for your text, as it is the easiest to read on, but don't be afraid of adding your of your own color and personality elsewhere on the blog. You want to show your personality so try experimenting with the header, and livening up your theme a little, photos will also help when they are added to posts. Play around with different fonts and try adding some illustrations, mix it up and create something unique that relates to you and your blog. I like to use photoshop for this, but there are some great online editors like PicMonkey if you don't have access to this, and you can find and download free fonts all over the internet on sites like dafont.com
Another important tip that I would make, is to have your photos as big as possible, especially when writing a beauty or fashion blog, I think it is so important that people can see what you are actually talking about (more on the actual photography next week) but play around with the HTML coding to see how big you can make them. Talking of coding, pretty much all you need to know can be found on google, or if you have a techie friend, they can be a great help too!
If you don't have the time to do your blog design yourself, you can always pay someone else to do it for you. Etsy is a great place to look for custom designers, or a quick search of google can find you some really great designers. I actually got my blog designed last year (and have since redone it all myself) but it was honestly just such a help to have someone else deal with the HTML, it gets me all in a twist! I would definitely recommend it if you are serious about blogging, it just makes everything so much easier.
Let me know if you have any other blog design tips, and don't forget to check out what Sinead and Brittany have to say!
