How messy is your website these days?

Before I continue, get paper and pen. Take notes to implement some of the following suggestions to get your website in tip-top, visual shape.

 Do you have a sloppy, messy looking Blog? Let’s clean it up by doing a few simple things, alright?

First, WHY would you WANT to clean-up your blog? Heck YOU may not think it’s messy but your audience may think so.

As a blogger with several years of experience, I dived into the universe of learning, observing, copying , and following what others were doing, and FINALLY, do my my own thing.

It took a lot of time to “find” my own “pizzazz” shall we say (everyone has their own uniqueness) to let it show here.

I’ve seen a lot of different blogs, good and bad,  which were great visual learning resources. All of them helped me to develop the blog I have now.

Right now I organize a group of bloggers and we visit each others blogs, comment on their posts, like, and syndicate their content. Some are new bloggers and some are seasoned.

There are a few challenges with a blogging group like this. But what  I’m about to share is for anyone blogging, and of course, this is only my opinion.

Some challenges I see are the following:

• No current post to comment on
• Quality of presentation of the blog itself
• Quality of the content which doesn’t resonate with the reader = no comments, likes, or syndication for

And, I understand this. But most bloggers are new, don’t know what to do next, don’t take it seriously, or put the time in to respect their online “Asset”.

Yes! Your blog is an ASSET because it has the potential to earn you money. How? Because it’s the “storefront” of you – where visitors get to know, like, and trust (KLT) you.

So let’s explore the above three areas:

1.No current post to comment on. Well, this happens often. But creating one, new post per week is ideal. Then the rest of the week can be spent on updating older posts – that’s fine. Updating means adding new, related content to the post. Then scheduling it by changing the publish date. Which is very easy to do. In your WordPress Classic editor, look to the right sidebar. Where you see the box “Save Draft” you’ll see some options. Click on the one “Publish Immediately (Edit)”. This is where you can reset the time and day to publish your post.

2. Quality of presentation of the blog itself. This is all about what your audience sees when they visit your website. How you visually present the style and content on your blog COUNTS! And I’m not kidding. I’ve seen websites that give me a headache in just seconds. Why? Because the attention span for visitor viewing is 3 -4 seconds! That’s it.  So, what can you do>

3. Get rid of the clutter! I understand you want to show all your accomplishments, all your awesome ADs, all your opportunities .. do you really think your visitor cares? No. They will not stick around to discover it all. UNLESS, you simplify, create curiosity for your audience to learn more. A website is not a buffet. It should NOT look like a breakfast bar at the Holiday Inn. It should entice, draw your viewer in so they want to read more. Here’s a quick assignment – who do you follow? Check out their website. What do you notice?

The KLT factor is more important today than it ever was because the internet and social media now relies on ENGAGEMENT and quality of content…

If you have a blog and you’re just slapping stuff up there, not giving a thought to presentation, layout, and navigation, you will never build visibility online because no one will want to share it. It’s just the way things are..

So take a good look at your blog ….

Here are some suggestions:

• Clean up your menu. Organize it, put similar topic titles together. For example : Menu Title – ABOUT SUE. Subtitle – WORK WITH SUE,  CONTACT SUE,  SUE”S OPPORTUNITIES…  and so on. Don’t have them as a separate menu title. This example would “SCREAM” SUE!  Don’t repeat your name so much either. It’s obvious they’re visiting your blog if your name is the domain, right? Instead – Menu title: ABOUT SUE. Subtitles – CONTACT, COACHING, OPPORTUNITIES

• Clean up the sidebar. So many blogs just plaster their sidebar with Ads, Facebook widgets, Affiliate opportunities.. it’s such a distraction. Do you REALLY think someone is immediately going to click on your opportunity or opt in?  The philosophy of “less is more” generates curiosity and entices a visitor to want to know more.

• Check your spelling. This for some reason really bugs people. I’ve gotten a few emails telling me I spelled something wrong. So now I look things up, and use the spell checker. If you speak a different language and trying to write in English, ask for help in saying what you want to say in the right English format.

This all points to one thing – looking and presenting yourself as a professional blogger. How you come across through words, images, layouts, presentation, navigation all tells a story about who you are.

Your blog deserves your best attention online.

I bet you have something to say about this! What is it… share in a comment below.. thanks 🙂