Thanks so much for reading my guest post on how to jumpstart a freelance business in 90 days or less. I hope you enjoyed it and that it helps you with your freelancing goals.
As a freelance UX (User Experience) consultant, I work with major ad agencies and large companies to help them design useful, usable websites. If you’re new to freelance blogging, I thought it might be good to pass along a simple UX checklist to help you make a more user-friendly blog. Use these tips and tricks to get more people interested in and engaged with your content.
1. Site Purpose
Before you open up WordPress or any HTML editor, take out a piece of paper and first think about the purpose of your website and what you want your visitors to do. Do you want them to signup for your mailing list? Do you want them to buy something? Get clear on the primary purpose of your website and write it down. Try to keep it to one singular task. If you ask visitors to do too much you will confuse them and they will click away to your competitors.
2. Who Cares?
Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. Why are they visiting your site? What’s in it for them? What are they looking for and how will you give it to them? How are they viewing your site? Are they using a desktop computer, mobile device, or something else?
3. User Path
Once you know what you want your visitors to do and what’s in it for them, sketch a simple path of how they get from landing on your site to doing what you want. For example, Home Page —>>Read Latest Post—>>Signup To Mailing List—>>Download Free Item.
4. Header and Sidebar Content
Your blog’s header is like the door to a store. And since blog content gets updated frequently, you should keep both your header and sidebar content consistent to give visitors a sense of place, much like a home page would.
Your header should clearly show who you are and what you’re about. A clean and simple logo treatment with a snazzy subhead fits the bill here. For example, Sophie Lizard’s Be A Freelance Blogger site is a great example. The headline clearly states “Be A Freelance Blogger”, and the subhead says “Learn to make REAL money blogging for hire”. This tells people exactly what to expect.
Also think about your sidebar content. It should provide easy access to social icons and/or your mailing list signup offer if you have one. If you want to include a list of categories on your blog, make it lower in priority. The Google Adwords Tool can come in handy here by giving you ideas to name categories after what people are already searching for.
5. Navigation
Now it’s time to think about your navigation structure. Navigation should always be considered in the context of your site goals and what users want, so if you haven’t thought through items #1-4 above go back and check them off the list. Assuming you’re moving right along, your navigation should be simple and to the point. If you can, try to use no more than one or two words for each label. Also consider what are the absolute minimum number of navigation choices you can offer? For most freelancers, the usual About, Services, Portfolio and Contact will suffice.
6. Graphic Design and Color Scheme
While I’m not a graphic designer, using graphic design best practices does a lot to improve your site’s overall user experience. If you can’t engage the services of a professional, pre-made WordPress templates like the ones available at Woo Themes or ThemeForest can help you move in the right direction. Another great resource is Robin Williams’ excellent book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book.
7. Blog Title Page/SEO
Make sure you are findable by Google and other search engines. This can be a relative no-brainer by ensuring your blog title page includes search terms your visitors are already using. Use the Google Adwords Tool to help you figure out findable copy points that will joyfully land your site in front of searching eyeballs. If you have a WordPress site, the All In One SEO pack is a great tool to help achieve this.
8. Are You Mobile Friendly?
Did you know that more than half of the people visiting your site will likely be viewing it on a mobile device? Make sure it looks good by either programming a responsive design or using a WordPress mobile-friendly plugin like Mobile Press.
9. Posts and Subsequent Posts
Next, think about the structure of posts and subsequent posts. As they increase in number over time, your blog will start to scroll endlessly. You can help keep things tidy for visitors by only displaying an excerpt to draw them in, followed by a “keep reading” link. Also think about the visual appeal of each Headline, Author, Post Text and Comments. Most WordPress templates standardize these to look good, so take a look at the most popular templates to get a feel for how this can improve your site’s user experience.
10. Call To Action
Your call to action, or CTA, is where you tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do. Don’t make them guess. Tell them, guide them, and show them. Using Be A Freelance Blogger as an example again, the CTA (as of this writing) is crystal clear: Sign up for the Ultimate List of $50+ blogs. Get in your visitor’s face and tell them exactly what you want them to do.
11. Footer
Last but not least, let’s tackle the lonely footer. You can make it more effective by making sure your posts don’t scroll forever (see #9 above). Your footer is one more place where you can add a call to action and remind visitors of the value you offer.
What’s Next?
Like this list? Get a free PDF version you can print out and keep for handy reference by entering your email below and I’ll send it along (hint: THAT’s my CTA for this page!).
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