Does Your Blog User Experience Rock or Stink?

  October 14, 2021 blogging tips 🕑 3 minutes read

Yangon Myanmar

 

Blogs grow or die via the user experience.

 

Think about that for a moment. How users perceive your blog determines your success or failure.

 

If no one visits your blog, you have a cyber diary. Being your sole reader does you no good.

 

But crafting a pleasing user experience accelerates your success. Happy readers make for happy bloggers.

 

Do you stick your blogging head in the cyber sand regarding your blog UX? Do you stubbornly cling to how YOU want your blog to look? I did. For many years I pictured the ideal blog design for me but rarely pondered what worked for my readers. Fast forwarding a few years created a more seamless UX on Blogging From Paradise.

 

How do you know if your blog user experience rocks or stinks?

 

Check out this video:

 

 

The turning point: ask yourself this question and wait for an honest answer.

 

Waiting for an honest answer opens you up to reader feedback. Readers may point you in the direction of a more helpful UX. Readers know what they want. Readers can freely share how you can help them through your blog design.

 

The ego hates getting feedback. Park your ego at the curb. Honestly assess whether or not your blog UX needs some work.

 

A few ideas to keep in mind:

 

  • Is it easy to read your blog content?
  • Is it easy to scan your blog content quickly?
  • Is it easy to comment-engage in response to your blog content?
  • What type of content do you publish for readers with varying preferences? Video? Text-only posts? Podcasts?
  • Can readers search via a search bar for what they want and get it, quickly?
  • Does the search bar yield accurate results?
  • Do you give readers easy access to your premium products and services like courses, coaching and eBooks?
  • Do you post ample images to spruce up blog posts with pleasing eye candy?
  • Do you read and reply to blog comments?

 

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes before planting yourself firmly in your ego’s desires.

 

Put yourself in your reader's shoes before planting yourself firmly in your ego's desires.Click To Tweet

 

Your readers will offer helpful feedback but seeing your blog through their eyes – via your imagination – opens your eyes swiftly. Prepare to feel an ego sting, in some cases.

 

I recall visualizing a visit to Blogging From Paradise through the eyes of my readers. Imagine if a reader wanted to get specific information fast. Unfortunately, I embedded no search bar up until that point. My ego intended to force readers to:

 

  • read content I had recently published
  • buy my eBooks
  • buy my courses
  • comment on content I had recently published

 

However, readers do not do what your ego wants them to do. Readers do what readers do.

 

Accepting this truth, I added a search bar to my blog sidebar because I saw my blog through their eyes. Heck yeah readers want to be able to query a search term and get blog posts, ASAP. I created a more pleasing UX by honestly seeing my blog through the eyes of my readers.

 

Other friendly UX updates over the past few years:

 

  • I opened blog comments
  • I removed links from blog comments to improve the UX by vastly cutting down on spam comments which bogged down my server and littered my blog
  • I included more pictures of my world travels to add a more playful vibe to Blogging From Paradise
  • I added more valued links in and links out to publish through blog post resources

 

Everything changed the moment I asked myself: does the BFP UX rock or need some improvement?

 

Ask yourself a similar question. Wait for an honest answer. See your blog through the eyes of your readers.

 

Improve your blog UX to create a more pleasing environment and to accelerate your blogging success.

 

Your Turn

 

How did you improve the user experience on your blog?

 

What can you do now to improve your blog UX?

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  1. Donna Merrill says:
    at 4:08 pm

    Hi Ryan,

    Love your blog because it is clean and neat with no pop ups to confuse things. I can navigate your content quick and easy.
    Too many bells and whistles will only distract the readers. The only thing I have on my blog is a new chatbot. She is only there because I’m selling chatbots lol.

    -Donna

    • Ryan Biddulph says:
      at 4:38 pm

      I dig her Donna; fits seamlessly into your blog and hey, may as well sell, right?

  2. Gaurav Kumar says:
    at 4:16 pm

    Hi Ryan,

    User experience is the key to success. Even the biggest brands like Google and Facebook are there in business because of the awesome user experience they have created.

    Thanks for sharing!

    • Ryan Biddulph says:
      at 4:37 pm

      Those 2 examples Gaurav are shining bro. 2 of the most successful and well known brands on earth because they bend over backwards for a positive UX.

  3. Erika Mohssen-Beyk says:
    at 10:02 pm

    Right, may have so many pop-ups that I quit looking for the content and leave the blog.
    it is a hassle, and I think maybe it is not worth the time to continue if the content is hidden like this 🙂

    Recently, I even quit visiting the blog of a blogger friend where I used to comment sometimes when he does tag me. Clicking on his link takes to a totally different page. 🙂 Is this not stupid?
    Thank you for talking about this
    Erika

    • Ryan Biddulph says:
      at 11:02 pm

      Ah yes Erica; I know what you mean. Force is fear, fear negates, and when people make it hard to read their stuff because they fear missing out….they miss out LOL. My blog gives you content in a split second. No barriers. Just content.

  4. Lisa Sicard says:
    at 3:32 pm

    Hi Ryan, oh I’ve backed away on many a blog that had ads or popups everywhere. Yours is nice and clean, easy to use. I think mine is but I need more call to action on it.

    Another issue is the font size, a few blogs have either a hard-to-read script or too small text. Reverse color can be difficult to read as well.

    • Ryan Biddulph says:
      at 10:02 pm

      Ditto on your blog design Lisa; clean, neat and simple. Small font can be really tough on the eyes for sure. Large font wins!

  5. Poulomi Basu says:
    at 5:46 pm

    Hi Ryan,
    Great post, and a very important topic. I made plenty of mistakes with my UX in the beginning. Like there was too much of a purple color, which was putting off my readers, especially men. Once I removed it, it was definitely easier to read.

    Since I didn’t have any other specific feedback, I visited 50 blogs of websites which had a similar target audience like me, but more traffic, and noted everything they had in common regarding their UX. I chose the ones that fit me the best, and finally created a template for my blog posts. For e.g., how different headlines and sections should look.

    Having a template is really key, I think, as there is consistency among all the posts, and drives a sense of familiarity with readers.

    I have one question, though, because I haven’t found an answer yet. Some blog post formats include a sidebar, and some don’t. Which one do you recommend? I still have a sidebar, like you, but I have been wondering if I should make the post centrally aligned. Like that of Ahrefs or Backlinko. Of course the search option stays, at the top of the page.

    Would be great to have your perspective!

    Cheers,
    Poulomi

    • Ryan Biddulph says:
      at 10:01 pm

      Great question Poulomi. I’d think about your intent; do you want readers to focus solely on your blog post content itself or do you want to divide their attention between the blog post content and sidebar? I go with the sidebar because most readers seem to dig enjoying a blog post but also scanning the sidebar, at least on the laptop. But with so many folks reading on mobile these days the sidebar pops up below the blog post content, anyway. I’d trust your intuition but ultimately, as long as you publish helpful content and keep your design clean the UX will be A-OK.

  6. Kuldeep Yele says:
    at 5:29 am

    User Experience is damm important, because it tries to fulfill the user’s need!
    And also user experience indirectly defines the Brand

    • Ryan Biddulph says:
      at 9:30 am

      We need a solid UX to make our reader experience pleasing. Thanks Kuldeep, wise words brother.