Are you looking for a way to jumpstart traffic to your green living blog?
Green living is becoming an important lifestyle these days, and people are constantly looking for ways to live more sustainably. The market exists for your blog, but sometimes it can be tough to actually get the traffic.
Luckily, refreshing your blog design can go a long way towards increasing traffic to your site. With a handful of redesign tips, you’ll be noticing a spike in visitors in no time.
Read on to learn more about our effective redesign tips for green living blogs.
1. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
This is a golden rule when it comes to redesigning your green living blog.
Green living, after all, is all about living more simply and effectively. Why not reflect this in the actual design and presentation of your content?
This also is a good principle to follow for any blog design. Visitors respond to simpler content because it’s easy to read and quick to digest. It also happens to look good–and look professional.
This doesn’t mean just incorporating a lot of hanging white space. It means using space wisely but not overwhelming it.
Un-clutter your pages as much as possible. Use images strategically but don’t overwhelm posts with pics. Write boldly and directly–you can use the Hemingway App for free assistance with this.
As much as possible, opt for a minimalist and streamlined organization. Be intentional with your design choices and you’ll be sure to end up with a simple design.
2. Free Up Navigation
High bounce rates–the number of visitors who navigate to your site and then instantly leave–can come about because of websites that are confusing to explore.
You want your visitors to your green living blog to find interesting info right way, and know where to go if they want to learn more, search topics, and contact you.
Do a quick check of navigation. Are your tabs clear and straightforward? Is it easy to get places? How about the integrity of your links?
Doing a “dummy run” like this can be super helpful in elucidating the work you need to do to free up navigation on your green living blog. After all, green living is about efficiency!
3. Place Images Well
Consumers are visual people, and response rates to blogs depends upon the right choice and placement of images. Freshen up your green living blog by choosing the right images and putting them in the best places.
You definitely want to incorporate one image (at least) per blog post. Don’t drown your words with too many images.
When choosing images, try not to opt for generic ones. A Google image search isn’t always going to be the best solution for finding pics. Take your own, choose something unique, and go for a fresh aesthetic.
Also don’t just place images willy nilly in the text. Follow the rule of thirds for important images, so that you can compel your users’ eyes to the crucial content.
4. Change Your Font Game
Font really does make a difference when it comes to blog design–more than we know. Font can give readers a sense of your personality and even convey a specific tone.
Choose a font that matches the themes of your green living blog. Make sure it’s large enough to read (at least 14 point), clear, and professional.
Divide content into headers and subheaders to give variety of your font. But in general, keep the same font throughout.
5. Make Use of Footer and Header Space
Successful bloggers take advantage of all areas of their blog page, but they do so deliberately.
Your header is often what strikes readers’ eyes right away. Make sure it’s large enough to get your brand name across. You want to make the most of this header space.
But don’t drown your page with your header, either. Your header should be right above your menu tabs, which should be clear and accessible.
Take full advantage of footer space. This is a great place to incorporate other links, copyright information, and archives.
6. Incorporate Social Media
Maybe you’ve already included links to your social media accounts on your blog. But why not give these a re-boot?
Make sure these links are visible–you don’t want readers hunting for them–but also discreet.
A good place for social media accounts are in the footer space of your page. Remember that social media should be secondary to your blogging efforts–they’re your channels for getting more readership, not the other way around.
7. Choose New Colors
Color can play a huge role in determining our psychology. It is significant in many marketing efforts and can definitely influence the amount of readers who come to your green living blog.
Green living is all about psychology–it’s a lifestyle and an intention. Freshen up your current color scheme by choosing hues that resonate with these ideals.
Some ideas include dark greens, blues, white, and black. These can convey a more grounded and earthy tone.
Or you may want to emphasize lightness and ease, and opt for colors like pale yellow, cream, gentle blues, and violets.
Play around with color scheme for a while. Remember the best tip of all: the simpler, the better.
8. Bring in an Organization Standard
Consistency is an essential component of successful blogs, and it’s really important for your green living blog design. Make sure you set an organization standard for all pages–and stick to this no matter what.
Every blog post should have a similar length and format. Every page should be organized in a similar fashion.
Stay on top of your organization game by making heavy use of bullet points, headers and sub headers, and strategically placed images. Make sure everything lines up nicely and that pages are comfortable to look at.
9. Shrink Pages
Web pages continue to grow, and it’s tempting to cram a lot of content and images into a page at a time.
But overloaded pages can lead to a slow loading website and higher bounce rates. They can drown out your best content and give readers a poor first impression.
Shrink your pages as much as possible. Keep individual posts to a concise length (500-1000 words is always good). Try to keep archives trimmed and accessible.
10. Write Timeless Content
It’s important to dive into content no matter what redesign strategy you have in mind for your green living blog.
If you’re trying to get past a lull in your online traffic, shift into writing content that is timeless. For example, instead of writing about an oil spill that happened last week, write about going solar in the Inland Empire. Solar energy is something that is ongoing and always relevant.
This is also known a “evergreen” content. The more evergreen your material, the more authority you’ll have as a green living expert. Valuable and relevant content also tends to jump to the top of search listings.
11. Optimize For Mobile Use
If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to design your green living blog so that it adapts to all screens. This is especially important because more and more people access online content through mobile devices.
Make sure you choose a hosting platform that enables mobile optimization.
12. Put Your Best Foot Forward
Not sure what to do with your front page? Most bloggers tend to post recent posts at the top of a homepage. But in reality, you want to put your best foot forward.
The first thing readers see should be your best content. Whether this is a high-performing post or hot topic, make sure it’s at the top of your homepage.
From there, organize posts according to performance and relevance.
13. Moderate Comments
If you’ve got a lot of blog traffic, great! Sometimes posts can get a number of comments and discussion chains if they are popular. This can eat up page space and even distract readers from other posts.
Moderate comments as much as possible. Make sure that extended comments are collapsed so that visitors have to click a “See more comments” button to read all of them.
Redesigning Your Green Living Blog
It is possible to get the traffic you desire to your green living blog by changing up your design game. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking for a refresh, there are plenty of tips at your disposal for an update.
Begin by simplifying your content. Choose a deliberate color scheme that reflects the tenets of green living. Free up your navigation to make it easy on users to explore your site, and make sure you’ve optimized your site for mobile use.
Generate content that is timeless or evergreen to keep readers coming back for more. Choose images well to go with this content and stay on top of comments to keep your presentation on point.
At the end of the day, design your green living blog so that it reflects what you would want to see as a lover of green living.
Found this post useful? You can find out more about blog design and become a blogging expert simply by browsing more posts on PSDLearning.com.
Take a look today so that you can leverage your full blogging potential!
