The 5 Consequences of a Bad Blog Design
So you may be thinking, “My blog design doesn’t matter very much. As long as people visit my blog, it’s all good.” But the truth is, it DOES matter. Blogging is a very visually-driven industry. 9 times out of 10, people are drawn in by the visuals first. This could be the photography that you use, the graphics that you use, and how your website is laid out.
Research shows that you only have about 7 seconds to capture someone’s attention once they land on your website. Yes, SEVEN seconds! Not 70. Not 17. SEVEN seconds. Lol. That’s such a short amount of time, so to be sure you’re making the best impression and really maximizing the traffic that comes to your site, you must make sure your blog design is on point.
When I was blogging on natural hair a few years ago, I got featured on the popular natural hair website, CurlyNikki.com. I got a ton of traffic from that feature, but because my website design wasn’t on point, I didn’t really retain any of that traffic. I had a lot of one-time visitors who never really came back.
So to keep it real with you, and to help you avoid making some of the same mistakes that I made, I wanted to share these 5 consequences of having a bad blog design.
1. A bad blog design confuses your website visitors.
Your audience should be able to EASILY navigate your website and understand what your blog is about. People who are on the internet browsing around aren’t doing it to be nice or to be like, “Aww, she’s cute, let me give her some page views!” They’re typically visiting blogs because they’re looking for some information. If they feel like they can’t find what they’re looking for on your website after a quick glance, they’ll quickly bounce to the next website (hence the term "bounce rate").
Related: How to Grow Your Blog Traffic with Google Analytics
2. Bad blog designs make you appear unprofessional.
Let’s face it, there are thousands of people with websites sharing information online these days. Some of the information is good and some of the information is bad. But guess what helps to increase your credibility and professionalism in a sea of endless blogs? A visually-appealing and intentional blog design. By putting some time and intention into your blog design, you’ll immediately make a much better impression, than if you do the bare minimum.
“By putting time and intention into your blog design, you’ll immediately make a much better impression.”
3. A bad blog design results in fewer purchases if you’re selling products.
For people to spend their money on your products, they need to trust you. You’ll come off as more trustworthy if you have a high quality blog design that shows that you really care about what you’re doing. You have to show that you value what you’re doing for others to value it.
“You have to show that you value what you’re doing for others to value it.”
4. A bad blog design makes you less appealing to brands for partnerships.
If you want to work with brands for paid partnerships, it’s crucial to have a high quality blog. Your blog appearance and consistency tells them how serious you are about it. It also shows them if you’ll even be able to showcase their product in an appealing way or not. If your blog design is bad, they’ll see that you won’t be able to make their products look appealing to an audience because your own website isn’t even appealing.
5. A bad blog design doesn’t bring you the outcomes that you really want.
So if you had to choose your #1 call-to-action for your blog what would it be? Would it be for website visitors to sign up for your email list? Would it be for them to shop your affiliate links? Would it be for them to book you for consulting? If your blog isn’t designed well, the most prominent call-to-action won’t be clear for your website visitors and you’ll be wondering why no one is signing up for your email list or purchasing your products. People can’t sign up for something if they don’t know that they need to sign up for it. If you have your email signup forms hidden away in the footer of your blog or if you have affiliate links only in one random blog post, you’re not going to see very many people take action, which means you'll see little to no progress towards the results that you want.
