We have all seen some extremely attractive blogs online.
Many of them are quite impressive and you can tell that the people that took the time to design them have taken great care to make sure they reach their target audience.
Of course, in the end you still have to be very mindful of how well your blog functions.
The last thing you want is for visitors to come to your blog only to leave in total confusion.
The blog design many of us are accustomed to is where the most recent post always appears at the top of the page underneath the header.
This is accompanied by a sidebar that is often located on the right side of the blog.
While sometimes we may see the sidebar on the left side or even on both sides, it seems that the right side is most commonly used.
There is nothing wrong with this design as it is very functional and visitors are accustomed to navigating within this format.
When you first set up your blog, most every blogging platform will provide at least one default template which is generally presented in the basic layout we described earlier.
The first recommendation that I will make is to get a premium template.
Why? Simply because many experienced web surfers instantly recognize these default templates and will leave your site immediately regardless of how well the content is written.
Like it or not, this is just the fact.
Secondly, premium templates usually do not have any of the problems, bugs, and technical issues that you will find with free templates.
Also, you get no tech support for the free ones.
When it comes to premium templates, you will see an assortment of layouts and design formats.
I urge you to be very careful with some of these as they can get extremely advanced.
For instance, you will probably come across those that have a magazine layout.
These blogs can be quite appealing, but they require a lot of planning and know how.
If you don't know how to set them up properly, then your visitors will become quite confused.
Remember this, most of the time a confused surfer will move on to the next site.
If you're not sure, then I recommend you stick to the basic layouts.
The next thing I recommend is that you get a header designed and customized for your business blog.
If you have a logo, then you want to include it in the header.
If you don't have a logo, then get one designed as your blog would be a great place to start circulating your brand.
And the best way to start building your brand is by having a logo.
Take some time to determine what your color scheme will be.
If you're having problems, then have a designer come up with some suggestions for you.
If creativity and graphics are not your forte, then the simple thing that you could do is to start looking at blogs to mimic.
For a week or so you may want to start bookmarking all the blogs that you have come across which have designs that you like.
As you collect more and more these, you will start picking up ideas from each one of them and hopefully can apply those to your blog.