How do you pick a blog layout?

A couple weeks ago, I talked about how you should choose colors for your website, and today, I want to continue with picking a blog layout. While many of these principals will correspond with a complete website as well, I am specifically focusing on just blogs…not a blog integrated into a website.

When you create a blog layout, there are 3 areas you need to think about:

Navigation: Your blog should have at minimum a contact page and an about the author page. These pages will allow the reader to interact with your site more effectively. But, there are many ways to show off that navigation. The design for GalleyGirl utilizes the traditional top navigation, which is most common as it is the easiest to find and use. Another great option is in the sidebar, either as text or as buttons. I prefer the buttons like in LifeIllustrated. Of course, there is also the footer navigation. This one I don’t usually recommend as it can be forgotten about very easily, so I don’t have an example of it…but it can be done.

Content area: The type of content that you share is going to heavily affect the layout of your page. If you are sharing videos, you will need the content width to be at least 650px wide (about the width of my content area. This will allow for large videos that are easy to view within your blog. This way, you don’t need to direct them to youtube. if you are just sharing text, you can have a narrower content area, even just 400px wide is okay. This will allow for wider sidebars. Finally, if you are sharing mostly photos, you will want a content area that is as wide as possible – in fact having no sidebars would be ideal so that you can have 850px+ for the pictures.

Sidebar: RSS Feed button, email button, twitter, facebook and more. This is where people expect to find the ways they can connect and subscribe to your content. While some blogs are moving this to the header area, it is still most commonly accepted in the sidebar (either to the left or right of the content). Your sidebar can also include advertising, links to other sites you recommend, your categories and archives. In fact, you can pretty much put whatever you want on there. Whether it is simple, like MarnieStyle or busy with buttons like OrangeCountyDailyPhoto, it is a great place to keep things you don’t want your audience to miss.

Of course, there are tons of ways to combine these 3 into the perfect design, but the more you know about what you want, the easier it will be when you talk with a designer!

Related posts:

1. Take your blog to the next level: Website layout
2. How do I pick colors for a website?
3. 5 elements every blog design needs to have