20 Essential Tips for Graphic Design Blog Management
Whether you work in some corporate office, small studio, or as a freelance designer, chances are you have a lot to do. As blog owners, we many times have multiple tasks to work on, content to manage, writers to handle, research to do, and more, to increase the productivity and of Course, daily traffic. One way or another, there are many ways by which one can increase the efficiency of their blog.
These tips aren’t meant for graphic design blogs only. They are also relevant with some graphic design related blogs such as web design & photography blogs. I hope that these tips will help you to manage your blogs & help you grow with other graphic design blogs. Remember, your blog is also a property, a virtual property. Just like real properties, you have to manage your property well to make sure people say in your property right? Enjoy!
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Essential Tips for Graphic Design Blog Management
Blogging is a business. Being a business, you need to apply proper business management techniques on running your blog. These are very simple and yet effective tips to manage you visitors and get most out of your business.
01. Try Hard to Write Unique Content
This is one of the most important thing in graphic design blog management. Content is the King! Without unique content, people won’t stay on your blog. Make your content different from other graphic design blogs. I know it’s not as easy as you thing, i experience this too, when i was stucked on finding new inspirations for unique content. Try to read other blogs articles & see how they present their content. You may also use other graphic design blogs ideas for your content, but remember to add something new or in depth analysis, not just copy their idea.
02. Ask Other Graphic Design Bloggers for Friendship
Let me ask you, what do you choose? Blogging alone or have some friends? I personally prefer to have some friends in blogging world. Try to at least contact them via email or contact form at their contact page and exchange link with them (if they want). But if they don’t want to exchange link, just say hi & tell them that you have a similar vision with them to grow your graphic design blog. By having friends, it will be easier to grow your blog than blogging alone.
03. Write Guest Post on Other Blogs
This can be done after asking other blogs for friendship. By writing a guest post on other blogs, you have a chance to get more traffic from that blog, especially if you write guest post on famous blogs. Don’t ask for payment first! Build a friendship first & focus yourself on providing the best content for them. The main objective on writing guest post isn’t for payment! It’s for friendship, okay? If you want to write guest post on other blogs which don’t pay for guest writer, no problem! But you have to proof that you can provide high quality content for them, for example: give your personal graphic design blog address & let them see that you can write high quality content.
These are some blog who offers guest post for their content:
04. Design Your Own Unique Button Design
What i mean on this point is you have to make your own button design for RSS, Twitter, Email Subscription, etc. Most of good graphic design blogs have their own button design which can’t be found on other blogs. Don’t tell me that you can’t design your own button… Your blog is graphic design blog, right? If you don’t have idea of how to make your own button, learn from other graphic design blogs. And remember not to copy from them. You just have to learn & design your own button.
I will give you some examples about graphic design blogs who use their own button design:
05. Search Bar
You have to place your search bar on visible place at the top of your blog. You don’t want new visitors to look for your search button from the top to bottom of your blog, right? If your template doesn’t provide search bar, you can make it with Adsense for Search. It’s very easy to make it & plade it on your top sidebar.
hese are few of many blogs which is using Adsense for Search as their search bar:
06. Provide "About" & "Contact" Page
It’s better for you to provide About & Contact page. Visitors will know who you are, your experience & your specialization from About page. In Contact page, provide some informations to make your visitors easy to contact you. You may provide email address, facebook badge or just a contact form. There are many WordPress plugin freely available to manage and install contact form on your blog. Contact Form 7 is one of many available plugins which gives you very easy solution for your requirements.
07. Categories Management
Place your categories on the top of your blog, so visitors gain full access to explore your blog. Make sure that you limit your categories into some common subject. Do not make too much categories, as it will confuse your readers. Focus on some subjects with some additional categories.
08. Most Popular, Recent Post, Recent Comments
Try to place Most Popular, Recent Post & Recent Comments on your sidebar or footer. This will proof that your blog has some active readers. If your readers are still passive, try to disable your comment form first. After you gain a lot of visitors, enable your comment form to get comments from a lot of readers.
09. Subscription & Twitter Button Placement
Place your subscription & twitter button on easy to find place. Don’t make your readers trying hard to find your hidden subscription & twitter button. Try to ease your visitors to subscribe to your blog. Place it on your top sidebar or top header to make visitors easy to find them.
10. Retweet, Digg, Google Buzz & Facebook Share Button
Most of famous blogs use these retweet, Google buzz (recently released) & facebook share button on their articles. This makes readers easier to share your content if they feel that your content is good enough. They can be placed before or after the article. For Example, Psd-tutorial.com uses Retweet, Stumble Upon, Google Buzz & Facebook Share on their every articles.
11. Use Good Looking Template
This is very important. If you have very good contents & your blog designed like 90’s style website, i guarantee that there is very small chance people will stay on your blog. If you can’t make your own template, buy it from professional template seller like Elegant Themes or Theme Forest. If you don’t want to use paid template, use original one. Search for the best free template.
12. Wise Placement of Advertisement Banner
I’m sure that you visit other blog to read their content, not only watch their advertisement, right? Most people don’t like to see a website full of advertisement. Manage your advertisement placement wisely, to make visitors able to focus on your content first, no your advertisement. I’m also sure that you won’t come back to websites which are full of banner advertisement. It’s very annoying, right? Speckyboy.com & Tutorial9.net has very neat placement of advertisement. Instantshift is also nice too.
13. Sign Up at BuySellAds
If you want to manage your banner advertisement easily. Just sign up at Buysellads. It allows you to see how crowded your traffic is. Buysellads enables you to see your impression as well as your blog statistics. Most famous blogs use Buysellads to manage their banner advertisement. It’s simple & easy. But it you want, you can manage them yourself. But if you want a semi-automatic banner advertisement management, sign up at Buysellads.
14. Submit Articles to Other Blog User News
By submitting your articles to user news, you will get some other traffic from them. Currently this is one of the most famous ways to promote your blog. Most of them are free. The only website requires a payment I know is Design Shack, which require $3.50 for every article. Maybe they have so many traffics inside? But others are free.
15. Always Use High Quality Images, If Don’t Have, Make it!
I learn about this from Hongkiat.com when i was at the beginning of my blogging activity. He always makes his unique original style of making his title image at the top of all articles. He often uses Futura font & typical adobe photoshop blending options. I learn a lot from his style & now i have my own style of making my own image to support my articles.
16. Simplify Comment Form. Better not Using Captcha
Most people don’t like to leave their comment on other people blog. If you make it harder to leave comments by placing a captcha, very few people will leave comment on your article. Just leave it as it is & let Akismet filter any spam comments. Or try using very simple alternates of captcha, just like what InstantShift.com is using in their comment form.
17. Don’t Use Too Much Plugin
If you use too much plugins, it will make your blog very slow. Just use some important plugins like All In One SEO Pack, Google Analytics, Sociable, etc. For WordPress use, it will be very nice to read these articles about important WordPress plugins :
- 11 most important WordPress plugins to build traffic
- 15 Important WordPress Plugins
- 9 Best WordPress Plugins
- Permanent link to 15 Important WordPress Plugins
18. Use Meebo Bar
Meebo Bar enables visitors to share your post and image easily. I know about this from Hongkiat.com. You can see how often visitors use this tools to share your articles. The way of sharing image is also unique. It requires you to drag image to Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, Email & IM. If you want to try it, visit my blog Psd-tutorial.com.
19. Provide User News Submission Page
By providing this, you may receive traffic from other people who wants to submit their article. You can also read their news from their blog. Sometimes their submission could contain useful information, right? For example, InstantShift also provide user news submission page.
Following are few good sources for news submission to tweak your daily traffic.
20. Learn from Other Blogs
Don’t be satisfied with your blog now. Keep learning from other blogs. Even though you have enormous traffic, you have to develop your website consistently to keep on fast development of internet & technology. Don’t stop learning, always humble & learn everything to keep you on the top!
Further References!
- How to Blog With 6 Fail Proof Blog Management Tips
- 8 quick ways to improve your blog management system
Image Credits
Find Something Missing?
While compiling this list, it’s always a possibility that we missed some other great tips. Feel free to share it with us.
One of the best article i have ever read about blog management.
This week i will change my theme and this article reminded me so mant things
Thanks albertus
Good to great tips…thanks a lot.
Yes, it’ll better to use nice theme to keep your visitors come to your blog. I did this to make sure my blog is worth visiting.
Very good advices. Thank you.
Very informative and interesting one. Enjoyed reading
Excellent post – I like the fact that it has many unique and very helpful ideas.
I’m glad you put unique content first, because that still is the most important of all. Thanks for the great article!
nice article and just buzzed with google. need more post like this l think.
Yes, Nick. No doubt that content is the most important factor of successful blog. IMO, blog layout & design are important too. Blog is a matter of visual representation of its writer. To make visitors stick to your blog, you have to satisfy visual needs of visitors.
Awesome tutorial! Similar to number 2, it’s also important to always ask for help. It can get pretty lonely in the blogging world when no one is around to help answer your questions.
Very Good article, need more post like this l think. i really like it
Wonderful stuff
Thanks for spending time to create this awesome article.
Very prolific and unique tips and knowledge has been shared. Thanks for sharing dazzling knowledge.
hi how r u good stuff!!!
This was a really helpful and concise article. Thank you!
I am going to add the news submission button!
Thank you for linking to my website :)
Nice article!
yes, news submission is important not only for driving traffic but also learn about actual news from other bloggers
This is a great post and very helpful for new bloggers.
05. “You have to place your search bar on visible place at the top of your blog.”
You are breaking your own advice here. You know how long it took me to find your search field? Well, I couldn’t until I used the Firefox Find and typed in search and it helped me find it amidst all the other stuff on the right side of your blog.
Move it to the top!!!!!
One word Awesome
Regards
Rupam
Good to great tips!
we really appreciate you for this helping stuff.
thanks！
thanks!! very helpful tips,..
Yes, it’ll better to use nice theme to keep your visitors come to your blog. I did this to make sure my blog is worth visiting………..
Also… add an SEO + Google Analytics to the list. 9/10 on the post ^ . ^
Nicely written and it looks great with the pictures to illustrate your points.
Great list, thanks for the sharing.
14. Submit Articles to Other Blog User News
I would like to mention that its very cocky and selfish to charge people to submit design news. Plus this blog gets way more traffic than Designshack.co.uk, so if i were you i would submit my story here than there.
Just because you get alot of traffic doesn’t meant you have to be greedy and make people pay, i think you should give back to the community that made you.
Great post – some really useful information that i’ll be using for my own blog
Some Excellent tips to make a graphic design blog work. I like it!!
Cheers
Egidius
I just mention this “link is the queen and content is the king”.
great designs for any blogger after seeing this i am gonna design a tweeter button of my own
Great share thanks for teh post!
Good share thanks!!
Great tips. I’ve never posted as a “guest” on a blog before, I should really try that, sounds fun :D .
Wow, you have a great research here. It will help a lot of people which is so kind of you.
Thanks for sharing..The following tips will help you to manage your blogs & help you grow with other graphic design blogs…Another yet an important element of your website’s overall appearance/performance. Your logo must reflect your company and the kind of services you offer. It is important that your company logo is designed professionally and that it mirrors your professionalism and quality of service.
Thank you very much for share. Very informative post, I think it will be very helpful for blog design management.
Excellent post – I like the fact that it has many unique and very helpful ideas.
Thanks for posting essential tips. Obviously these tips will be helpful for graphic design bog management.
great design tips..really it is helpful to me..
thanks
Very Cool tutorial! Similar to number two, it’s also important to always raise your hand and ask for help. It can get pretty lonely in the blogging world when no one is around to help answer your questions. Thanks
These are the best tips you have given for graphic designers. Nice blog.
Very informative. Great post.
//Beth @ the Phoenix Marketing Agency
Great share thanks for this post!
Excellent post and research about graphic designing. These are very unique and informative as well as helpful. Thanks for sharing :)
Your collection is very well. It is useful for me. Thanks for posting it.
Nice post!! I am greatly benefited by this tutorial. keep posting this kind of useful article.
Very effective & helpful tips. Thank you very much for sharing
I normally struggle with the quality images. Finding the images on a stock website is useful, but sometimes you don’t find what you are looking for.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the subject.
Thank you
Actually, we need more this type of post from you. It’s helpful and very useful.
Thanks.
wow, superb! we need more this type of post from you. It’s helpful and very useful.
Thanks. keep it up.
Great tips for writing great content. we always searching for great which are rank well in search engine. This content must be helpful for me. Thanks a lot for share 20 tips. I will bookmark this site and follow you again.
I like you write style. thanks for an awesome trick.
Your blog is very nice.
Wish to see much more like this. Thanks for sharing your information!
This is very informative and interesting post.
you wrote a wonderful article sir this is really helpful. You should post more article like this
well explained sir.
Wow, cool.
wow, cool stuff.
Very Informative!!
nice post you write I read your post thanks for sharing me valuable post…