How Does Your Blog's Template Design Affect Your Blog's Traffic and Appeal?

When we read about blog money making tips or "how to" articles of increasing our blog traffic, we usually get the "CONTENT IS THE KEY" tip. Yes, I definitely agree that what makes readers interested in our blogs is its content; how important are the things we say to actually affect how our readers live their lives or at least a part of it. However, have we ever considered how our blog designs or templates affect our blog's appeal, and how it can possibly turn on or turn off the readers' interest? Well, I have, and I hope this article can also enlighten you on how important our blog designs are in improving our readership.


My first ever job was being a copywriter in a company that makes greeting cards, books, gift items, paper products, etc. As a copywriter in the advertising department, my main tasks were to write messages for greeting cards, write copy for print ads, press releases and provide texts for all their other products. Eventhough the company was quite big, do you know how many writers we had? Only two...me and a guy named Richard. But as for the designers, there were probably around 40 artists! That's how important the designs are for the products. For greeting cards for instance, of course the buyers would really consider the message the main factor in their decision to purchase the product, but if it had a crappy design that doesn't suit the message or is simply not appealing at all, then sorry for the writer who gave much thought on the content because chances are the buyer would put the card back on its rack and find a better one to buy. That's one of the things that came to my mind when I thought about blog designs. So, how exactly does our blog template designs affect our blog's readership? Here's my theory.

For New Blogs or New Bloggers:

1. New blogs need tons and tons of promotion aside from the useful content. As a new blogger or as someone with a new blog, submitting your blog to search engines and directories would be one of the first steps you'll take to gain readership. In adding your blog, you have the option to upload an image of it in your profile. Since, the readers could not right away see the usefulness of your content, and all they could see is your blog title and image, it would do you much good if the image was appealing. The more appealing it is, the better the chances of others to view your blog and get to read your content.

2. Upon joining blog directories such as BlogCatalog or MyBloglog, you'll most probably add new contacts or make friends, join forums, leave messages or write comments on other people’s blogs hoping that they’d visit your blog or comment on your blog in return. Well that’s a good way to start, don’t get me wrong, but if they do visit your blog and saw your choice of template (which some would have chosen in a whim, or was used because that’s the best template they could find that Blogger/blogspot offers) and saw that 1.]it was not well thought of, 2.]or that it’s too ordinary, 3.] or that it doesn’t enhance the blog’s content at all, you’re in for a possible reader turn off. Why?
*1st- If they thought your blog theme isn’t well thought of, they’d probably think your content may not have been well thought of as well.
*2nd-It’s too ordinary. How many blogspot bloggers are out there and how many blogger templates are offered by Blogger? Got the idea? Although Blogger templates are nice (and I’m hats off to their makers ), they’re just too few to choose from. Perhaps there’s a hundred bloggers out there using the same template you’re using, and maybe some of them even tackle the same subject. In a blogosphere of thousands or even millions of bloggers, you certainly want your blog to stand out, and that won’t happen if you don’t take time in making your blog attractive enough to be remembered.*3rd-It doesn’t enhance your blog content. Supposing I’m very smart (yeah, the content of my head is nearly Einsteinlike for instance) yet I look like I haven’t bathe for months and all you could see are my teeth and eyes because I’m black with dirt all over, would anybody in a science convention even let me in to join? If someone cooked very delicious food but it resembles a smelly stool, would anyone eat it? Same goes for our blogs. The content is like the meat inside a meatbun. Its taste is what we’re after, but if the bun itself is soggy and unappetizing, we might not finish eating the bun and that’s such a waste.



For Existing Blogs and Bloggers:

1. If you’re tracing the path made by JohnChow or Yaro Starak, and your blogger already has a multitude of consistent visits, then you probably think you don’t need this piece of advice anymore. But I’ll think twice if I were you. No matter how good you are in any field, there’s always room for improvement. Besides, the more popular a blogger you are, the more pressure it has on you, because you wouldn’t want people to think all they heard about you and how good you are were just plain rumors.

2. Improving one’s template /blog design or changing it every now and then would give the readers an impression that you take effort in further improving your blogging craft.

3. Furthermore, if you already have a steady number of readers interested in what you have to say, improving your template to blend in with your content would attract other types of readers you haven’t reached yet. Not all people are verbals, meaning not all enjoy reading texts alone. Some people might be interested in your ideas, but having a boring template discourages them to read what you have to say. These people, like me, are more into visuals. We are not interested in reading chunks of long texts if there aren’t any nice background or pictures or artworks to look at.(of course the designs should be in harmony with your content and should not cloud the posts but enhance them instead) If you improve your template, you also improve your chances of getting more readers.
Well, that’s all for now. I hope I was able to give you an idea on how your templates’ design could actually affect your blog’s appeal and traffic. Watch out for more articles like these soon. See ya!