Our Favorite Blog Design Layouts for Inspiration:
High readability is key to a great blog design layout. A successful blog layout enhances and emphasizes blog content. The right blog design won’t be overly distracting or detract from the content.
Proper use of negative space, images, font choices, colors, and more are vital points in creating a well-emphasized, polished blog without being overly flashy. Experienced custom web designers know how to implement these aspects without going too far.
Seeing other blogs can increase your creativity and give you ideas for your own design. Below, check out some of our favorite layouts you can use as inspiration for your blog.
1) Help Scout
Website: https://www.helpscout.com/blog/
Highlights: Colors | Clean | Well Structured | Modern
Remarks:This blog is an excellent example if you want a modern but easy-to-read layout and well-emphasized design. The use of simple, bright colors on a white background and on each article’s image is very eye-catching and makes it look clean. HelpScout also features well-structured grids and lists for different categories, making them easily navigable.
This blog combines simplicity with modernity to create a polished, professional layout that entices readers without overwhelming them with unnecessary details. Featured articles and editor’s choice posts are front and center. The interactive elements really spice it up, too! Hovering over different links causes gentle animations that add to the modern and high-quality feel.
2) Fubiz
Website: http://www.fubiz.net/
Highlights: Clean | Modern | Unique
Remarks: Web designer Colorz did a knockout job on this photograph-centric website. The blog maintains a unique vibe with clean navigation features, easily readable text, and a modern, artistic design. If you’re looking for a way to make a bold statement on every post, this is it.
Unique tools allow readers to browse blog posts based on their interests, location, and needs.
Hover over the articles’ thumbnails and the navigation bar at the top of the page—smooth animations and colors emphasize your mouse’s location.
While this blog is packed with graphics and content, its custom features make it stand out from other blogs without excessiveness.
3) Invision App
Website: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/
Highlights: Modern | Fonts | Key Visual
Remarks: The Inside Design blog is a prime example of a high-quality, modern blog. A white background with simple fonts makes content easy to read. The contemporary layout further intrigues visitors with featured articles and a video gallery, while different sections with additional blog posts create opportunities to find similar content.
Key visual elements such as animations and colorful pictures add another creative touch to your experience. Larger sections break up lists of articles, while different sized thumbnails and article lists highlight specific posts without detracting from the content. Automatic suggestions for articles to read next show extreme attention to detail.
4) Webflow
Website: https://webflow.com/blog
Highlights: Modern | Fresh Layout | Clean
Remarks: This blog’s fresh, modern layout is the first thing we noticed. The asymmetrical design is an innovative way to display articles, deviating from the traditional grid or list layout. The responsive design changes the layout to a grid for mobile or smaller computer screens.
The clean design contributes to this blog’s modern look. A sidebar allows easy post navigation, while a white background with highly colorful blog post thumbnails makes each entry stand out.
Notice the frame that appears when hovering over each article. Flashy animations aren’t necessary—the subtle touches on this page make it memorable.
5) Designmodo
Website: https://designmodo.com/articles/
Highlights: Fonts | Modern | Fresh Layout | Colors
Remarks: Easily readable sans serif fonts make this blog easy on the eyes. DesignModo pairs article previews with large, colorful photography as an enticing way to capture readers’ attention. The blog’s modern layout featuring the most popular posts of the week simplifies the navigational challenges of a blog design.
Colors add a welcoming touch to this otherwise modern, fresh, and straightforward layout. Hovering your mouse over the articles highlights them in a brilliant blue, while tasteful animations emphasize each selection in certain sections. Contrasting plain backgrounds with colorful, patterned blocks intrigues readers as they scroll each section.
6) Medium
Website: https://medium.com/tag/ux
Highlights: Simple | Fonts | White Space
Remarks: Medium’s bold logo against the bare-bones design is easily recognizable. Note the contrast between blog content’s serif font and the more blocky, sans serif fonts across tag lists. Basic fonts make it easy to read content (reading intricate fonts requires more effort).
The simple layout is non-distracting for readers. The significant white space indicative of a Medium blog keeps information front and center. Blog posts get full attention as Medium’s sidebars and menus disappear while you’re viewing an article.
Design simplicity and easily accessible related topics give a purposeful impression to Medium’s online presence as a professional blogging platform.
7) Creative Market
Website: https://creativemarket.com/blog
Highlights: Modern | Fonts | Unique
Remarks: This blog’s unique layout makes it stand out against the traditional list- and grid-style designs without maintaining an overly rigid structure or being disorganized. Note how the white background and section blocks keep content forward. Visitors have scrolling lists of featured blog posts, collections of articles for specific topics, and eye-catching photograph-laden features.
Varying fonts between categories and article titles serve as navigational tools between topics in addition to a search bar at the top of the page. Note the minimal use of animation throughout the blog. Aside from scrolling functions, subtle highlighting is the only indicator of your mouse’s location.
8) Airbnb Design
Website: https://airbnb.design/
Highlights: Unique | Modern | White Space
Remarks: This blog uses considerable white space to improve readability. The contrast between negative space and large article thumbnails creates a streamlined layout. Article headlines and titles with different font formatting give insight into content before reading.
Hovering your mouse over each title activates underlining animations. The blog’s minimal animation usage gives it a modern, purpose-driven feel. Different fonts between headings and the rest of the content implement a unique style, while articles categorize into various searchable topics.
This blog’s modern yet straightforward design offers enough to get the readers’ attention. At the same time, the openly displayed content features keep them reading more.
9) Creative Boom
Website: https://www.creativeboom.com/
Highlights: White Space | Colors | Unique Layout
Remarks: Creative Boom’s blog uses considerable white space to break up posts without dividers. Alternating sections of white space and bright colors highlight featured articles, and columns break up trending article lists. Animations are minimal throughout the site, allowing readers to focus on the layout and content.
Small, colorful details spice up the primarily plain, white background design, and larger color blocks introduce new categories and calls to action. Another notable feature is the logo at the top of the page. It follows your cursor around the screen like eyes and provides comedic relief on a relatively busy blog page.
10) The Inspiration Grid
Website: https://theinspirationgrid.com/
Highlights: Modern | Fonts | Custom Photography
Remarks: The Information Grid’s blog exudes modernity thanks to tasteful animations, structured layout, and bold fonts. In addition to a navigation bar at the bottom of the window, readers can distinguish between sections with new featured articles and different styled text. Sans serif fonts make the blog easily readable if you’re scrolling through.
Intriguing artwork keeps readers entertained and engaged. Instead of relying on generic vector art for articles, we love that custom photography is standard among these blog posts. This blog also offers multiple tag categories for each post’s navigation and puts less relevant sections at the bottom of the page.
Eight Essential Elements of a Great Blog Design
What makes a great blog design? Independent of the SEO elements of creating blog posts, considerable analysis goes into choosing the ideal elements for your blog to ensure the highest reader conversion rate. Different post categories, a search bar, related articles, a table of contents, and modern sharing features are among the most necessary features of an excellent blog design.
Additional design elements such as typography and background space are crucial design elements that many companies overlook. By including the following elements in your blog, you can:
- Increase your blog’s conversion rate
- Improve organic traffic
- Ensure the highest level of readability across your blog
A great blog design gives your readers the best experience. From snappy page loading times to simple sharing capabilities, all aspects of your blog affect its success. You need the right balance of features, content, and ease of use to engage readers.
Your blog could be a leading example for other businesses. Including the right elements and essential characteristics help you increase organic traffic, create visibility, and offer readers a memorable experience. Consider the following features for your blog design and layout.
Categories
Organization is vital to success in any area, and it’s no different with a blog. It can be challenging for readers to navigate blogs with many scattered, disorganized posts. If you frequently make blog posts, you need a way to organize them other than by their upload date.
Utilizing categories is a valuable way to sort your blog posts. By including tags in each post for dedicated categories, your readers can access posts on specific topics without searching your entire blog. This solves navigational challenges and helps readers pinpoint the information they need quickly and efficiently.
You should use categories regardless of whether you post about many subjects or just one. Subcategories also increase navigational ease significantly.
Search Bar
High findability is a hallmark of a great blog. Your blog’s design should include multiple ways for readers to find articles that interest them. While navigation menus are a traditional way to find content, a search feature is especially powerful for improving findability across your blog.
Using a widget like the Google AJAX Search API, you can incorporate a Google search box into your design, making it easy to find posts within your blog. Place it in an easily visible location, such as at the top of the page.
Table Of Content
A table of contents gives readers a preview of the topics in a blog post and increases the chance of interesting them within the first few seconds of visiting an article. Linking an article’s headings to the table of contents allows readers to jump to specific points easily.
While a table of contents may not be necessary for every post, it improves readability. Research shows that it significantly increases the length of time visitors stay on your blog. Better user experiences lead to more conversions, and the convenience a table of contents adds is instrumental in creating this excellent experience.
The table of contents also contributes to blog visibility. Google’s algorithm recognizes the table of contents as part of your blog’s content and displays it on search engine results pages to encourage users to click on your website.
Social Sharing
Social media integration is a core way to increase your blog visibility while giving readers a way to share your posts. Your blog design should provide readers with an easy way to share important information on their social media accounts. Include buttons on article pages and allow readers to share entire post collections.
Some of the most popular social media and networking websites include Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. By using scrolling social media buttons versus stationary buttons at the top and bottom of the page, you could increase post sharing by 25%.
Smart features that follow the reader’s activity increase engagement because they don’t have to go through extra steps. When they want to share your content, the options should be available. Limiting it to three choices keeps your social media traffic high.
Using Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are a popular element of many blogs to retain a reader’s contact information. You can create a list of prospective repeat visitors by offering a valuable resource in exchange for an email address or phone number. From there, you can implement marketing tactics to target them.
A lead magnet is versatile enough to provide genuine value to readers and create brand visibility. Examples of lead magnets include pre-recorded webinars, digital templates, or a PDF or e-book.
If you’re looking to expand your visibility and entice visitors to return to your blog, implementing a lead magnet helps. Include calls to action at the end of your blog posts and throughout your blog where they’re relevant.
Related Articles
Once you’ve hooked a visitor, their engagement shouldn’t end after they stop reading. Readers often want to see similar content after viewing something they enjoy. Your blog layout should feature a section of related articles in a sidebar or at the bottom of each post.
Don’t make your related articles section too large, or it will distract readers. Using a sidebar to promote related articles allows visitors to focus on content and provides quick navigation. Placing a sidebar on the right of your content encourages them to read content, then visit other posts.
Positioning the related articles at the bottom of a post is ideal for a non-distracting blog layout.
Using Easy To Read Widths
The font you choose sets the tone for your brand, improves content readability, and gives your blog a distinct style. Many serif fonts feature wide lettering and give your blog a classic look, while sans serif styles are more modern. A blog using easy-to-read font widths increases readers’ activity across posts.
A font with narrow lettering can be challenging for readers to look at, especially in longer articles. However, letter and word spacing that is too wide can also be hard for the eyes to track. Using 11- or 12-point for the body of your blog posts helps reduce eye strain—fonts bigger than that reduce conversions.
White Space
A simple design works best for blogs. Keep your website easily navigable with a spacious layout and utilize white space. A solid, white background is non-distracting and provides adequate contrast against darker font colors.
White space allows readers to focus on the most critical elements. Readability is the priority, so a complex blog design isn’t necessary. A design that puts content at the forefront of your blog attracts readers.
You can also use white space to sprinkle tasteful photographs throughout your blog. Use white space to break up walls of text, pictures, and other necessary elements for a clean and modern look.
A note on the best blog designs
Blogs cover various topics, with some covering multiple and others covering only one subject. While optimized blog content may be enough to draw visitors to the page, that doesn’t mean they’ll automatically convert. A great blog design layout is crucial to retain and convert website visitors.
Readers visit blogs to obtain important information, learn about industry trends, and entertain themselves. Blogs that find the perfect balance between knowledge and entertainment can be incredibly successful. The right blog design layout allows visitors to navigate your blog easily and get the information they need quickly.
Virtually every website has a blog nowadays because blogs are a key way to establish authority in your industry and rank in Google search results. Making your blog noticeable among others is half the battle in fast-tracking you to a consistent stream of traffic.
We highlight the importance of blog design, share some of our favorite designs, and give you insight into the essential elements of an excellent blog design.
The Importance of Blog Design
A blog’s design sets the stage for the rest of the brand. An easily recognizable blog design is memorable and stands out among competing blogs, making it easy for visitors to find. A custom design can be more impactful than a preset blog design layout. Still, stock layouts are easy to set up out of the box with tried and tested layout options.
Making a good first impression on visitors draws them in and gives them an idea of the rest of your brand. With the right blog design, you can share your brand’s message in seconds. Your success level could rest on your blog design and the mental picture readers form when they think of your blog.
Additionally, a blog design keeps people reading. Displaying content in easy-to-read manners allows visitors to access information without straining their eyes, getting confused, or losing interest. Interactive or animated features are an enticing way to engage readers.
A blog’s design also allows visitors to dig deeper. Links to other blog posts, articles, other parts of your website, and even external sources help readers find more information on the topics that interest them. Visitors appreciate helpful navigation links and intelligent functions, such as social media integration, that allow them to dive into your blog’s content.
Without a good blog design, you lack many necessary elements to establish regular traffic.
Design the Optimal Blog with Connective Web Design
With a great blog design layout, you can increase visibility, scale your brand, connect with your target audience, and gain insight into your visitors’ priorities. Simple layouts with helpful navigation tools go far in creating return visitors. Adding necessary elements such as a table of contents, a search bar, and a related articles section encourages readers to visit other pages and spend more time on your blog.
Many of today’s blogs are adapting to blog design innovations. From tools to boost visitor conversation and lead magnets to gather visitor data, these are becoming essential inclusions regardless of niche. A professional blog design expert can assist you further.
Take your blog design layout from drab to dramatic with help from Connective Web Design. Our expertise, attention to detail, and enthusiasm make us an asset to your team, no matter your web design needs. Contact us today to learn more.
