This is a guest post by Peep Laja, CEO of Traindom.
People judge books by the cover, and other people by their looks.
Take a look at these two men:
Now answer these questions (you can’t choose “neither”):
- Which one would you rather ask investment advice from?
- Which one would you rather have babysit your children?
- Which one would you rather have cook your dinner?
… and so on. You don’t know anything about these men. Yet you make assumptions and can even take decisions based on their looks.
What does that have to do with your blog? Everything!
"As aesthetically orientated humans, we're psychologically hardwired to trust beautiful people, and the same goes for websites. Our offline behaviour and inclinations translate to our online existence."—Dr. Brent Coker
Dr. Brent Coker studied the impact of attractive websites on human behavior. Websites that are more attractive and include more trimmings create a greater feeling of trustworthiness and professionalism in consumers.
People judge your blog based on the design
If somebody knows you well, they don’t care about your looks that much. If they see you for the first time, looks matter a lot.
The content of your blog is always more important than the design, but you need to woo people with your design first. You draw them in with design, and keep with content.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”—Steve Jobs
The following advice will help you design a better blog and this in turn will help you sell more (whether you’re selling free sign-ups, coaching sessions, products, or whatever).
Make it easy to find stuff
Who is your site for? What are they looking for? Value function over aesthetics: 76% of people want it to be easy...
