Is It Obvious What You Blog About?

You’re stumbling on a new blog for the first time. You land on the homepage, but is this blog worth checking out? Does it talk about the topics that interest you?

Maybe you came there for a beauty tutorial you found through a search engine. Was that a one-off post or does this blogger churn out lots of amazing tutorials?

The answers aren’t immediately clear, so you click the Back button and mosey along to the next blog on the list.

This happens every single day because so many blogs don’t make it crystal clear what they blog about. Can you fix that? You bet.

Challenge: Take 3-5 seconds to look at your homepage with this question in the back of your mind: is it clear – TO SOMEONE NEW – what I blog about?

Why: You only have a few seconds to make a first impression. It’s especially hard when your blog name may not give any hints as to what you blog about. But often even a super-obvious blog name needs visual support to make it stick in the visitor’s mind.

Lifestyle blogs are often the hardest because they cover so many topics. But you can still highlight your key areas of awesome within those few seconds of a new visitor scanning your site.

The area of your blog before you have to scroll down, aka “above the fold”, is your place to turn haze into clarity. No matter what you blog about, by taking charge of your own “above the fold” atmosphere, what you blog about will be as clear as an ice cube. Yes, ice cube (you know, those fancy clear ones, not the foggy-but-still-useful ones that pop of out your ice machine).

How to Do It

Give your blog a once-over… from the mind of a fresh new reader. One who’s never heard of you.

Would YOU know what your blog was about if you were new? Yes? Then well done, friend.

But if your blog’s point-of-view is a little lacking, here are a few ways to make what you blog about more obvious (pick 1, 2, 3 or ALL THE THINGS!):

1. Add a tagline.

A tagline gives the reader a little more info about what they’ll get out of your blog. Taglines usually go right beside your blog name or somewhere else within your header.

Depending on other elements in your design and layout, you may or may not even want one. This post can help you decide whether or not to write a tagline.

2. Add top blog categories to your navigation menu.

A quick scan of someone’s navigation menu instantly tells me what topics they find most important. What about your navigation bar? Do you have at least a couple of tabs that link to blog posts or pages about certain topics?

If your navigation menu is pretty full, you can either create a secondary menu (like I have on this blog) OR do this little exercise to see which tabs aren’t getting clicks.

3. Add an About blurb on your sidebar.

This is hands-down the best way to greet a new visitor to your blog. This typically includes a headshot of you and a short bit of text about you and/or your blog. People love seeing a face behind the “curtain” and it gives you a chance to tell a new reader EXACTLY what your blog is about.

No guessing or assumptions needed.

4. Add a supporting image or graphic element above the fold.

This could either be a part of your blog header OR a design element as part of your sidebar. We process images way quicker than words. So images can instantly provide context or reinforce your blog name. Plus who doesn’t want some color on their page?

5. Add a Call-to-Action.

A call-to-action is a word or phrase used to prompt someone to take an action: to subscribe to a newsletter, to follow you on Pinterest, to buy a product, to download a printable. Your call-to-action may be any number of things: a Hello bar, pop-up window, email sign-up field, etc. This can help visitors figure out what your blog is about even if your call-to-action is seemingly unrelated.

For example, my pink Hello Bar at the top of the page encourages visitors to follow me on Pinterest, but reading it gives you a good idea what I blog about (even if you saw nothing else on my page).

Your Turn

Can you figure out what your blog is about at first glance of your site? What changes do you plan on making?