Blog Business Style

Whether you started you blog for fun, for backlinks, for page hits or to post reviews, you need to consider how the blog is part of your brand.

If blogging were the same as writing professionally, then there would be no need for bloggers to call themselves, well, bloggers. They would just be writers.

But the tone and style with which one blogs is different than the tone and style of an article. Blogging is more casual.

But how do you incorporate casual with business?

Business casual style in the workplace is a step up from jeans and a step down from suit and tie. The same style instruction can be used for your blog.

If you’ve got a look set for your site, carry it through on your blog. If your blog is a stand-alone site then you’ve got a bit of design to consider.

Ideally, you will have thought about your brand and branding before you started your business. Sometimes though, the eagerness to launch the business gets the best of folks and they find they’re already selling before they know exactly how they want to pitch.

It’s always good to start with a list. What are the key attributes to your business? What purpose is your blog serving? Is it information? Reviews? Sharing How-To’s and experiences?

This will help you decide on a style for the blog. As fun as it may be to try out different fonts, colors, headline sizes, even tags, if each post looks different, your style is unprofessional.

Cursive fonts might be beautiful, but your posts need to be easy to read. And widgets and plugins are great, but if your page is crowded with polls, weather updates, games and RSS feed, your readers won’t know where to look.

Of course, simple doesn’t have to mean spare and bare. If there’s nothing on the page but solid text, readers might find the blog dull.

As in life, you need to find balance. Social bookmarkers and related widgets (especially ones that enable emailing) are a great way to encourage your readers to pass along what they like about your site.

Eye-friendly font and sizing is important, as is sensible archiving. Scrolling down a long page is not as user-friendly as straightforward archive or topic links.

If you have a colorful personality, then create a colorful masthead, or make your headlines bright and bold.

If you’re a visual person, incorporate photos, either in posts, reviews or to illustrate a step-by-step process.

The business elements of style are those that make your site user-friendly and promote your brand, the casual elements are those that make your site’s style reflective of you.