This is an article by Jim Wilson. He is a reputed blogger and web developer. You can also read many books written by him. He has also written guide on how to make a goal-driven blog to help his readers achieve higher success with their blogging adventure.

5 Pro Tips on Successful Business Blogging and Experimenting with Web Designs

Blogging is now considered as one of the most effective and reliable avenues to generate business and actively engage the target customers. If you own a business, even if it is a small local business, you can try blogging to enjoy more recognition and exposure, which will entice more people to check out your store or try your product/service.

However, before you dive into blogging and expect to reap its benefits, you should know that the blogosphere is a highly crowded place. With countless number of blogs out there, it is very important for the new bloggers to ensure that they do something to stand out in the crowd. For this, you need to have something creative, informative or clever to tell the audience. You can gain dedicated readers and devoted followers only if you offer something unique.

If you are all set to start with your blogging endeavor, here are 5 killer tips to take you on to the podium.

1. Choose an ideal blogging platform

You may be amazed to see the options while choosing a platform for your blog.

• Apart from the conventional mainstays such as WordPress and Blogger, there are more innovative ways to express yourself through Squarespace, Tumblr, Ghost and many more.
• You can even code it all by yourself from the scratch to create your own unique blogging platform.
• Most of the popular platforms can be used for free. So, you can just give them a try and see which works.

2. Content is the king

If you don’t want your blog to get lost in the crowd, you must devise a top-notch content strategy. It is also important to keep revising the strategy as new updates are released.

• Blogging just for the sake of having a blog is pointless. And it will soon become a boring affair to you and more so to your targeted audience.
• You can learn a lot from other popular blogs in your niche. See what type of content they are working on, how frequently they are posting new content, and how they are sharing their blog content on social media.
• An important aspect of doing blogging from the marketing point of view is to attract quality links and to grab top ranks in search engines, for which relevant content is the key.
• If you run a promotional blog for your business, it is always smart to invest money on quality and experienced writers.

3. Always keep it simple

Simplicity is the success mantra when it comes to new age blogging. It can be tempting to go crazy when you start a new blog. However, a rainbow colored background with a plethora of fonts will only help to avert those who wanted to at least have a look at it.

• By effectively embracing white space and thoughtfully positioning the content, you can make your website attractive and easy to follow for the users.

4. Keep your blog goal-driven

You need to stick to the exact ideology while planning for any activity on your blog, starting from the very first move of creating it. If you maintain the blog with the objective of gaining business conversion such as leads, enquiries, or sales, then everything else comes only second. Keep these three key prepositions on mind.

• Topic: What is your blog meant for?
• The value proposition: What do you think makes your blog unique?
• The target audience: Whom do you want to communicate with through the blog?

To enjoy conversion, your blog content needs to have strong and tempting call-to-action in every design element. From the headings to even the minute aspects of navigation, the design should be specifically goal-driven. Try this expert guide on how to make a goal-driven blog.

5. Design Experimentations

People always want to get something fresh and exciting. So, you don’t necessarily have to stick to the conventions. You can try something innovative to attract users. However, such experimentations shouldn’t make it difficult for the users to enjoy your blog. Elements such as confusing navigation protocol or unclear call to action can drive users to leave your blog. As web designing is a key aspect when it comes to user acceptance, let’s discuss it in more detail.

• Choose layouts to let your content shine

The design elements should allow the readers to focus on the message without tampering the view or flow. The concept of design has really shifted in the last few years with more focus on content than graphics. So, always choose a layout which serves this purpose at best.

• Ensure effective collaboration between designer and developer

As discussed, design has taken an influential role in shaping business lately. So, more attention needs to be put towards effective collaboration of designers, who take care of various aspects of designing, as well as the coders, who bring in the functional features to the designs and layouts.

There are plenty of tools, which have risen in the last few years from CMS platforms to shared templates. In 2017 also, you can find plenty of enhancements and new versions of these coming up to make the tasks easier.

• Choosing the big, bold type

As mentioned above, the consensus of the design world is more on content. To serve this purpose, majority of the winner sites now follow a very inspiring copy set to create a big and bold statement. However, big and bold is not literally the size of the font you use. It is all about a solid, simple and all-encompassing statement about the value of your product or service.

• Try more SVGs

Scalable vector graphics (SVGs) now offer a lot of advantages to the designers over the traditional images such as PNG, JPG, and GIF. SVGs are highly scalable and vector with crystal clarity. It is also an advantage that SVGs don’t require HTTP requests. You can also animate them as needed.

While practicing each of these, you need to keep in mind the nature of your business and your target group. As a businessman, outsourcing the task of blogging and designing may not be just a one-time task, but you need to keep a track of it consistently to keep it on the right track.