What Every Good Webmaster Should Know About Blog Design
As a new webmaster, there will be times that clients ask you to do things that might make you cringe.
If you want to be a really good webmaster, be sure not to make some of these mistakes.
It will be important for you to let your clients know what the basic blog design do’s and don’ts are and as their webmaster, create for them the best design possible.
And if you’re the webmaster for your own blog, one of the most important points that you want to remember is that people visit your blog with a particular purpose in mind. They have questions and they’re looking for solutions. As the webmaster for your own blog, consider designing it not just to sell your services and products, but to answer the questions your visitors may have. In reality, the look, feel, and content of your blog is what makes the sale happen. Make mistakes with the blog design and you could be shooting yourself in the foot before you ever get started.
What Every Webmaster Should Know About Blog Design
1. Be careful of being more concerned about when your blog is published than what is actually published.
If you are the webmaster for someone else’s blog or website, especially from a business standpoint, you’ll no doubt have many deadlines that you MUST meet — without fail. I understand this all too well. However, try to never make the mistake of compromising on your blog design or content to meet a deadline. As the webmaster, you must be sure that you’ve conducted proper research and you know what audience you’re creating a blog for before you start.
What I mean is this… If your target audience is older, maybe you should make the blog design with a larger font. If they’re younger, maybe you should be sure you’ve included smartphone compatibilities. If you want your blog design to work well for your client, knowing their target market should be the first priority of every webmaster.
2. Don’t design your blog to be too flashy or too busy.
This is a problem that almost every amateur webmaster makes. They often think that the more “bells and whistles” they can add to a blog design, the better. WRONG!
If you want to come across as an experienced webmaster, don’t make the mistake of focusing more on a flashy blog design than you do on the marketability of the blog. When it comes to being successful online, the right people reading the blog and making purchases is what you need most. If you’re hired as a webmaster, you want to build a design that will attract visitors, but you want to make sure that once they arrive on the site, they’re directed to exactly what they’re looking for.
Another important point to remember… because so many people use wireless devices to surf the web, you need a blog design that will look good there, too.
3. Be sure your blog design includes a clear call to action.
Let’s say that you’ve been hired as the webmaster for a brand new client. Have you asked them what they want their readers to do once they find themselves on the blog? Sometimes, your client might not be sure what they want, so it will be up to you to dig a little. For instance… do they want their readers to buy something, contact them for something, subscribe to something…? Whatever the case may be, as the webmaster, you should create a design that makes it very clear what the next step is… and ideally… they should take that step right now!
To make it easy to make sure you’re heading in the right direction, answer this question for your visitors. “What’s in it for me”? Once you’ve answered that question, tell them what to do next to get “what’s in it for them”.
4. As an experienced webmaster, you can get paid well for your services. So, price yourself right!
When you start to market yourself as a webmaster or one who can create good blogs and websites, you’ll come across people who are extremely cheap, who will want the whole world on a platter for next to nothing. On the other hand, you’ll also find those who are willing to pay a lot of money for a good webmaster who can deliver a great product. Here’s the deal-breaker. What can you deliver?
Don’t promise the moon if you can’t deliver a paper airplane… and don’t sell yourself short if you do good work. You may need to play around with your pricing structure before you land at your own sweet spot as a professional webmaster.
Every webmaster should approach each project as though it were their own. When people come to any site, they expect to find information that’s correct and current. This doesn’t pertain just to the information given about the blog topic, but about the products and services as well. In other words, if you offer a service that was once $47 but is now $67, don’t forget to update your site. There’s nothing more unprofessional than having to say to a potential customer that “this product is no longer available at that price… sorry, I just haven’t updated my site yet.” Trust me… that would not be a favorable impression of you or your business.
6. Don’t make the mistake of making your target market too broad.
This goes back to knowing exactly who your target market is. You don’t want to try to target everybody — just the select few who actually want what you’re offering. If a webmaster tries to accommodate everybody, he’ll end up making his client look like a ‘jack of all trades and master of none‘. Figure out what the “avatar” of the people who will frequent the blog looks like and build the design and content around providing those people with the best online experience possible.
7. Don’t play the “Guessing Game” — Don’t Play the “Guessing Game” Don’t Play the Guessing Game!!!!!!
If you’re a new webmaster and you don’t quite know what you’re doing, it’s okay. Everybody has to start somewhere. Just don’t be afraid to ask someone who does know. Attend some classes, buy some courses, get some personal coaching… Do whatever you need to do to offer a good webmaster services to your clients, as well as for yourself. Make sure your blog design clearly defines the brand, the service, the products… etc., and is being presented in the best way possible.
Remember… the visitors to your client’s site do not know them. The first impression that your client gives is going to be based 100% on what a person see’s when they first visit the site. Is the brand clear? Is the focus clear? Do people have a good understanding of what they can expect from the site? Don’t force your visitors to assume anything. A good webmaster will make certain that these questions are answered clearly on the site.
Your client may have the very best product or service known to man. But if their webmaster designs a blog or website will stop most people from ever finding out because they won’t go any further than first base if your blog design is poor.
If you’re the webmaster for building a brand new blog, for starters, know how to set up the basics the right way. If you haven’t grabbed my FREE course on setting up your WordPress blog properly, grab it now! In this business, “do-overs” don’t work, so you want to get it right the first time.
If you have some webmaster experiences that you believe will help our readers (me included) please share. This is a platform where we all learn and grow together. And don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up-so-date with what’s happening at our site!
Tagged: webmaster
 Rosalind is the author of this blog and the founder of the 10K Inner Circle. She's an expert trainer on blogging and internet marketing, and a sought after speaker among her business peers. She also builds a successful network marketing business. If you enjoyed reading this post, be sure to get more tips here. |
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