Squarespace is a Webware 100 Finalist -- VOTE!

Squarespace is incredibly honored to be selected as a finalist for the Webware 100 award! Please take a moment and vote for us! »

How can someone leverage their sales with a blog?

Excerpted from my contribution to Blog Design Fatalities by author Ryan Jackson.


It depends on how the blog interacts with your sales, I suppose. Say you are an online retailer of Sci Fi DVDs. You could include an “Ask the Expert” type blog, and perhaps a news blog. Within these blogs, you could create direct links to pages where related merchandise could be purchased. For example, if you are announcing a new cast addition to Battlestar Galactica, you could link the words “Battlestar Galactica” to a page of DVDs from previous seasons. Or, if you are answering a question regarding Firefly, within your answer you could link key terms like character names, or references to specific episodes, to the DVDs they appear in.


Design wise, you could emphasize these links in a bold color, and perhaps add a hover style that changes the color of the background, so it is very obvious to a user that the word is a link.


If you are using your blog to sell items (and don’t have a separate store) the best advice I’d have is to create a purchase button. Make it obvious that this is what needs to be clicked to buy, and have it go directly to a screen where you can make a purchase. Confusing graphics, bad placement and/or too many clicks can lose a sale. Don’t be afraid to experiment — on our front page, we actually experimented with several locations for our sign up button before determining the best conversions in terms of placement.

What are the most common mistakes to avoid in blog design?

Excerpted from my contribution to Blog Design Fatalities by author Ryan Jackson.

One of the most common mistakes I see in blog design are layouts that are image heavy — especially when the images are not
optimized for the web. This can cause extremely slow page loads and
you could lose a visitor if you make them wait too long for your
content. It’s best to use a combination of CSS and small repeating
images whenever possible, and optimize your images with editing
software such as Photoshop.


Another big error I see is sites that are not tested in multiple
browsers and screen resolutions. I test my work in various browsers
on a new Mac running 10.4 with a widescreen Cinema Display, and an
old Dell PC laptop running XP. You can’t always get it perfect in
every browser, especially colors. But at least you can say “Ok, my
site looks great on newer bigger screens, and not too horrible on a
little laptop with a limited color range.” This also allows you to
make sure all of your code renders properly — sometimes you can
have
a small mistake in your CSS that won’t affect Firefox but will look
horribly askew in IE.


Of course, there are many sites where style trumps usability,
especially in art and entertainment. If this is the case with your design, it’s
helpful to include a statement on your front page or footer, i.e.
“This site is optimized for Firefox at 1280x800 screen resolution.”
Also, if your site requires Flash or a PDF Viewer, include a link to
download what’s needed.

Create Blog Community

Thanks for all the comments! The Squarespace community is already thriving, which is much sooner than some blogs that don’t already have the attention of awesome, blog-savvy people. Of course, if you don’t have this network available, how do you build a community on your blog?


There are lots of blogs out there that have a big following and they always seem to have many posts every day. While posting often is definitely a big component, keep in mind that these blogs most likely didn’t start out this way. If you have some content that is worth reading, people will read it, and if they like it, they’ll stay. Fairly frequent, insightful commentary and content comes first, ramping it up into a major portal comes later, bit by bit.


Also, if there is one person who has left comments on multiple entries, consider reaching out and connecting to them. One engaged user can encourage many more commenters in a lead by example sort of way. On some blogs, you don’t know if it’s “okay to leave comments” even if comments are enabled. A blog that has someone already engaging in the conversation tends to collect more replies. This can be even more effective if the blogger gets involved in responding directly to these comments as well.


Ask for input. If you’re on your soap box and don’t seem receptive to comments, you probably won’t get them. If you engage with and are interested in a community, that is the kind of environment you will encourage. Ask questions; your readers know a lot.


Once you have a loyal group, be loyal to them. You don’t want to shun them at the first sign of trouble. Getting through and embracing the tough times when your audience disagrees with you can lead to a more dedicated group in the long run.


If you appreciate your readers and give them something a little different, you’re more likely to keep them and get them involved. These are just some thoughts of mine. What do you think?

SEARCH!..

Ridiculously fast, accurate, relevant, full-site, audience aware search is here. Go add it to your site today!

As noted on the entry over at the Squarespace service blog — it’s completely impossible to replicate results like this using an embedded 3rd party search service (Google, etc.).