Unusual design descisions for blogs
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If you haven’t heard yet, Smashing Magazine, the blog that, uh, smashes web stuff into your screen has redesigned. The thing i noticed the second the page loaded was their navigation. They moved the menu on the very top of the page, even over the Smashing logo. The new design puts the focus on the current news and the popular posts sidebar which sports over 50 of the most popular posts (i stopped counting at 50). This is a great way to reduce bounce rate by providing a long list of past content and smashing magazine has a huge amount of great information in older posts.
The color scheme and style of the site remains pretty much the same, so it’s not going to surprise many of the old readers. For a blog, it’s a really big decision to move the navigation and topics on the very top of the page.
Northxeast.com also has an unusual design for the main page. The only news that appear on the main page are posts titles, and not a word from the article’s content. NorthxEast can do that because they already have a reputation for solid writing and informative articles and their visitors are sure to click on links if they like the title.
The Northxeast titles are some of the best entry titles i’ve seen on a blog, if you need some title inspiration for your entries, definitely take a look at the posts they publish.
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:52 am
A site i though looks nothing like a usual blog is http://www.baekdal.com/. he has three different news areas on his site, one for real news and two for other things.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:57 am
Northxeast gets pretty effectively around one of the my own pet peeves about blogs - only really showcasing the latest entry. Just scanning down the Northxeast title list (really, awesomesauce titles) basically tells you everything you need to know about the blog, without some silly “this blog is about…” box.
Great way to pull people in, but a strategy that would effectively tank without these kinds of titles.