8 Blog Design Best Practices To Implement Today

Why Is Blog Design Important?

The term "blog design" describes how a blog looks visually. It outlines how blog posts, graphics, and other content are styled in terms of colors, fonts, and layout.

A well-designed blog can not only help your business increase its exposure and reach, but it can also help establish its authority and expertise in your field.

When writing blog posts, you must put in the time and effort necessary to compete in today's busy digital environment and provide readers with a satisfying experience.

Other benefits of an effective blog design include the following:

• Encouraging brand loyalty.

• Bringing traffic to your website.

• Preventing customers from leaving the website.

• Generating new leads.

• Steadily increasing conversions.

8 Blog Design Best Practices And Why They Work

Now, let’s move into some of the blog design best practices to inspire you.

1. Focus on readability

Though it seems straightforward, choosing the appropriate typefaces for your blog is crucial for its overall look. 

Your font selections should not take away from your content and should be simple for your audience to read.

Typically, you want your body text's font size at least 16px.

One of the blog design best practices is to go with simple typefaces, at least for the body text. It can benefit your readers far more and urge them to continue reading rather than turn around and leave your blog. 

So, choose legible, evergreen, straightforward, and uncomplicated fonts.

Here are some font choices that would look great in just about any blog layout:

• Arial,

• EB Garamond,

• Josefin Slab,

• Georgia,

• Helvetica Neue,

• Playfair Display,

• Lato,

• Roboto, etc.

Avoid any font that feels overly innovative and decorative as a general rule, like Comic Sans, Zapfino, Papyrus, etc.

Before picking a font, try it out and make sure that it's legible for desktop readers and mobile device users for the best experience.

Blog Design Best Practice From Ted

Ted has a simple blog layout with a clean font, which adds to readers’ experience.

With snippets of text, it piques interest and entices users to click on the Read more option.

2. Create your blog posts to be simple to scan

People who read online typically choose simple blog posts to browse and rapidly digest the important information they're looking for.

Most readers will finish reading lengthy articles if they are deeply interested in the subject.

However, many people want to first decide whether to read the blog post by scanning the headlines—and frequently extend that scanning technique into how they read the text.

Here are a few quick tips for blog article formatting:

• Write brief paragraphs.

• Don't use long blocks of text.

• Utilize headers and graphics to break up content.

• Put sections in order using headers and subheaders.

• To break up long passages of text, use bullet points or numbers. 

The ideal method is to show thumbnails for each article in a grid or listicle format.

Thumbnails can help you keep your information accessible and structured while letting viewers rapidly browse through various titles.

Blog Design Best Practices from GetResponse

GetResponse has a pretty organized blog. Different blog entries are categorized under different sections or through the Search bar. 

When you open the blog post, you can also see social media link buttons on the left for easy content sharing.

When you scroll down the text, the Table of content appears, with all the chapters linked for easier navigation and scanning.

It is one of the blog design best practices for quickly finding the information you’re looking for and contributes to a better reading experience.

3. Keep your content organized with the card-based layout

If you have numerous blog posts and struggle to keep them organized, then a card-based design is one of the most UX-friendly layouts to solve this.

To make them easier to comprehend, offer a consistent, repetitive structure but use varied image and letter sizes to convey the most important to least significant components.

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Additionally, be sure to include specific components in the card:

• Featured image

• Author of the blog

• Date of posting/Date of updating

• Category

• Social media buttons for sharing

• Click to Read more

Blog Design Best Practices from Ann Handley

The main image and headline are the two most noticeable features in their card layout.

Additionally, they offer extracts, which can persuade people to click through if they are debating whether to read the entire article.

There are also compelling and humorous images that immediately catch the readers' attention.

4. Include the estimated reading time

An excellent technique to let users know if they will have time to engage with a blog post properly is to set expectations for estimated reading time. 

There are usually two subtle ways to do this. One is to label the piece with an estimated reading duration. 

An alternate strategy is to display the amount of time left to users. It is usually a progress bar that extends as you scroll down the page.

Each option demonstrates a simple approach to assist the user in anticipating what to expect before reading. 

Blog Design Best Practices From Pando

A consistent color scheme and design are crucial components of a well-designed blog.

Similar colors are in the backdrop, highlight bars, and specific text portions of the Pando blog.

But it also makes use of various fonts, all of which, when combined with a similar color scheme, make it look seamless. 

Additionally, the estimated reading time is conveniently placed with the publishing date, keeping readers informed.

5. Use high-quality images

Everyone has heard how engaging visuals improve aesthetics and increase traffic.

The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is undoubtedly true.

But, finding the ideal mix between words and images is crucial.

In other words, carefully pick your images, infographics, videos, and charts before placing them on your page. 

Consider your graphics and visuals essential to the narrative you are presenting.

The more impressive they are, the more impact they will have on your blog's readers. 

Blog Design Best Practices From Visuelle

The Visuelle blog has a straightforward layout, although it could be more apparent that it contains blog posts.

Each post's topic can be seen by moving your mouse over it, then clicking on it.

You can filter your results by using the category links at the top of the blog page.

The Visuelle blog design is an excellent example of visual blog themes like design or photography.

6. Be brand-consistent

Each page on your blog should have a consistent design with the rest of the site.

For instance, you wouldn't want other pages to be in bright colors while your homepage is dull.

Maintain a theme that resonates with you, and incorporate your brand colors or fonts, as well.

Blog Design Best Practices From HubSpot

HubSpot has a simple blog layout that is super easy to navigate.

You can search for an article using the search bar or by categories.

Featured posts are prominent on the right side, while the others are clearly labeled with the date and the author's name.

7. Include related articles

Many visitors to your blog are searching for further information on a specific subject.

Therefore, you should assist in their progress.

The most effective approach is to provide linked resources or articles on the same page for users to access later.

Ideally, these should relate to one another through keywords or topics rather than just any old articles you want people to read.

Blog Design Best Practices From Glorify

Glorify's blog articles are divided into categories like Business, Ecommerce, Marketing, etc.,

or you can effortlessly search them by typing in any keyword.

Related articles appear at the bottom of the blog posts, offering further information on the given topic.

8. Incorporate social media share buttons

One of the simplest methods to get people to share your content is through social sharing links. 

You can expect that consumers are willing to share content on mobile as they are already using their mobile devices to browse social media networks.

So, make sure to include visible social sharing links, for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Blog Design Best Practices From Twitter

Twitter has one of the most minimalistic blog layouts out there.

The clever use of white space and their signature blue color makes this a stand-out blog design.

And, considering this is a social media blog, every part of the content is shareable thanks to the social media buttons incorporated.

Wrapping it up

As you see, blog design greatly affects how well your content is received.

Thus, engaging visual content is essential to increase interaction and build stronger brand identification. 

So, if you apply these blog design best practices, your blog will surely stand out, attract, and keep readers.

With Glorify, you can create any visual, even if you don't have any design experience.

Designing with Glorify is straightforward:

• Select a template – From eCommerce, social media, ads, and ebooks, you can find anything you need by browsing by category or keyword.

• Brand it – Using the Brand kit, apply your logo, custom font, or color palette from one place.

• Enhance your image – Apply or change backgrounds, icons, elements, effects, borders, shadows, etc. 

• Resize any image instantly using the Smart resize feature, or remove the background in a single click.

If you need a second opinion, invite your team members to brainstorm using the Infinite canvas, or send them your design via link or email.

Sign up with Glorify today and discover infinite possibilities for perfect images that convert!