Web Marketing

How to make a Better First Impression with your blog without breaking your bank

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Much had been said first impression. Your best friend advised you on it before your first date. Your mother nagged you on it while you were getting ready for that important interview. The real estate agent brainwashed you on it when you wanted to sell your house. So, yeah, first impression counts… What about in blogosphere?

Talk about a blog’s first impression and instantly one would think about impressive layout and professional design. Well, from my experiences, the truth can be further away than many of us may realize.

But hang on, that doesn’t mean that a blog’s layout and design will have no effect on your readers’ expectations of your blog. They do and you’ll definitely get the oohs and ahhs. However, professional blog design can be costly and for some of us, a little too costly!

My point is that while an expensive professionally done blog design can help draw in visitors to stay longer, there are many other factors that will reduce bounce rates and hopefully, increase your conversion rate. Let’s have a look at some affordable and free options at creating a better first impression with your blog.

  • Creative Header

    The first thing that catches a visitor’s attention is your header. And like a store’s sign, it sets the expectation of what to expect from your blog. If you have limited funds to invest in your blog, then my suggestion would be to get a customized header. And a creative blog name goes a long way.

    The rest of your blog can be a default theme with a few customizations here and there. With the array of website themes these days, there are plenty which are free and looks amazing and at the same time allows you to customize to your requirements and liking.

  • Attention Grabbing Titles

    Address your readers’ concern or problems in your posts’ titles and offer solutions. Consider the title “How to Make A Better First Impression With Your Blog Without Breaking Your Bank” vs “Designing A Better Homepage”. Which would you want to read? Readers are generally scanners and having keywords in your title definitely would be attention grabbing, not to mention making it more SEO friendly.

  • Include Images

    The stronger the better. Why do magazines and papers generally have huge and colorful images on their covers? They know that they have just a few seconds to make that first impression and persuade someone to buy them. After all, pictures say a thousand words, right? Same goes for your blog. There are many resources on the internet. Just remember to give credit to your source.

  • Play With Colors

    Remember what your arts and crafts teacher used to tell you in elementary school? Colors play an important part in creating a better first impression. Use contrasting colors to highlight your contents ie. light background and dark text or vice versa.

  • Maximize Loading Speed

    Make sure your page loads quickly. Surfers are generally impatient people. Anything that takes more that 5 seconds to load would be quickly dismissed and may not be given a second chance. Maximize your loading speed by removing unnecessary graphics, plugins, javascripts, CSS and etc. Reduce the size of the files that you need on your pages.

  • Remove Popups

    At least when your readers first landed on your homepage! I find popups very irritating. Don’t you?

    I am not even given the chance to read the contents and I have this popup being shoved into my face! Definitely not a good first impression. If you insist on having them, then I would suggest in placing them when your readers want to exit, perhaps as a reminder to subscribe to your newsletter.

Why bother with all these hard work in creating a better impression?

Well, that’s because it increases traffic and subsequently, makes your readers stay longer and eventually increases your profit! There’s no point in writing great and informative posts but is not able to draw your visitors to read them in the first place. That’s why you need a positive image, preferably original and one that makes you stand apart from all the other blogs.

Give your readers a reason to return and read your posts. And when they do, you’ll know that you have made a good first impression!

Image Credit:Tasha Jean

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15 comments

tinafreysd April 16, 2012 - 3:51 pm
Blogs allows you to create and upload content easily, without using FTP, enabling you to create posts from anywhere you have an internet connection.
Alicia April 17, 2012 - 3:45 am
Yes, WordPress is a very easy to use content management system. It can be used as a blogging software, a general website, or even as other CMS websites, with the use of plugins and customized themes.
alanc230 April 16, 2012 - 5:41 pm
You are so right when it comes to pop-ups. They make me crazy. Some websites have a pop-up that re-pops on every page. Can't stand it. I don't stay on those very long.
Alicia April 17, 2012 - 3:47 am
Haha, popups within popups, these are really a nuisance!
Pamela April 17, 2012 - 2:19 am
Learning how to come up with a good blog name can easily be narrowed down to just a few short steps. In the following article you'll discover how to come up with a good blog name you're sure to be happy with along with a few other highly useful tips you will need..
rich internet applications April 17, 2012 - 3:20 am
First impression is really very important for all pages. Although content is the king but color combinations and images gives more impact to this. Color should be attractive but it should not be so bright. It should suits to your stuff what you are writing. and the more important thing is don't over optimize your page.
Goa trip April 17, 2012 - 3:45 am
Yes i am totally agreed with you if really we want to impress our clients then we should remember one thing always in our mind ""First impression is the last impression"" and we should keep away these two problems on our site/blog : 1. Loading time 2. Pop ups
Stacy Summers April 17, 2012 - 8:30 am
Color is a strong influencing factor in design and in the world around us. Each color has its own meaning to us based on culture, education, personality and a myriad of other factors. Thus, colors can strongly influence us in subconscious, natural ways. Use color wheel :) The color wheel is particularly useful for showing how the colors relate to each other and how you can create new colors by mixing two or more colors.
tinafreysd April 17, 2012 - 9:00 am
Blogs now hold a lot of important information aimed at a target audience. Many blogs are created daily, but it is difficult to make your blog more popular than the rest.
Alicia April 17, 2012 - 12:33 pm
Nothing is easy. To make a blog popular, we have to work hard, and use some of the tips I outlined above.
Aasma April 18, 2012 - 2:57 am
First and very important point is to build a fast loading blog, use some interesting and attractive images. Plus how can you forget about informative and quality content.
sara April 18, 2012 - 4:36 am
It's not easy to make a impressive blog. Wordpress is usually a good blog cms system. To make your blog more amazing, please find a amazing template. And reducing the time of page loading and pop-up windows is really important.
Shalu Sharma April 18, 2012 - 5:34 am
Some brilliant ideas. It is so important to create a good impression so that visitors come back again for more. Once you fail to impress, you have lost visitors for ever. By the way, I hate popups, I hardly revisit sites with popops.
Nick Stamoulis April 23, 2012 - 10:14 am
The title is what gets someone to read, or not. People only have so much time to dedicate to reading blogs. If the title is boring or doesn't really explain what the post is about, people will most likely just pass over it.
Egan Energy April 30, 2012 - 1:33 pm
It is important that the blog is attractive. You need to consider the crowd that you want to attract. Customized settings and style can be learned and this is a good way to save money as well. Make sure that the contents are as good as the layout or design of the site.
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