I know I wanted those visits and I got them! Further more, I kept on getting lots of new visits for a long period of time. Even now, almost 3 months after.
For me, a blog’s design is always a key element (of course, along with content) in deciding whether to come back and read again, or not. I know, I’m a designer and I have an appetite for good looking websites. But then again, would you prefer reading the same content in a unique, beautiful layout or a poor, overused one? This is one thing I’ve already told you in my past blogging tips articles, now let me argument that!
When launching Blogsessive I had to deal with the choice of winning time buy using a free, but customized theme, or creating a new one from scratch. For 2 weeks I used a free template, until I finally managed to find time to develop the one I currently use.
Beautiful easily turns into popular
When I applied the new theme to my blog, I took the time to submit it to almost every important design gallery I’ve found on Google, and went through all of them from the first 2 results pages. Although I’ve submitted to about all of them, the most active was the listing on CSS Mania who sent Blogsessive about 2000 visits in a matter of 3 days.
The total amount of visits from these galleries finally peaked at about 4000 visits, but that’s not all. Every week I keep getting hundreds of visits from those listings or from design blogs that linked here (adding to the Technorati authority).
How many of those visits have been converted to readers? That really depends on your niche. If you have a design blog, you’ll probably convert quite a few of them, but as your topic get further from design, you’ll convert less. Still, it’s a great jump start for a blog that would get little to no traffic at all. In the end, it’s similar to getting a good Stumble Upon reaction.
Before the listings, nobody knew about Blogsessive. The next day I started receiving organic traffic for the “Blogsessive” search.
Where to find a good designer
There are many places where you could find professional help in designing a beautiful, unique theme for your blog. You could post a listing on Elance or Guru, or use Google to look for freelance designers, but remember that most times, high quality comes with high investment. Make sure you take a good look at your future designer’s portfolio and references and see if the investment is equivalent to his job quality.
Daniel Scocco wrote a great ProBlogger guest post a few days back on how to get a professionally designed blog. It’s very informative and you should read it. Also, take a look at the comments too. Some interesting things were mentioned there.
Don’t be shy
If you’ve already found someone but you’re not quite sure about the price-quality balance, I’ll be happy to offer my views on the matter, just drop me an email.
Be inspired!
Photo credits to Zoran Ozetsky.