Anatomy of a successful blog post design

If you have been blogging a while, or are just starting a blog, you no doubt understand the importance of a quality designed blog post graphic. This blog post design, usually at the top of the page and the first image, provides a visual glimpse at what the blog post is about. Through my experience in blogging, I have found a few foundational elements that create a successful blog post design, to help you get noticed! I also provided a FREE cheat sheet at the bottom of this post, of my personal go-to for writing catchy copy, and brainstorming blog post ideas.

Here are a few essential elements:

Catchy title

Arguably the most important component of your blog post graphic is a catchy + informative title. What is your blog post about? Try to make it something enticing, that causes the viewer to want to learn more. Whether your audience views your recent post from Pinterest, Feedly, Bloglovin or any other social media, they typically see one image and decide within a few seconds if they want to read more. Spend a bit of time developing your blog post titles, to make them want to click through! I find that tutorials + tips are the way to my audience’s heart, am I right?

Hook / descriptor text

A lot of bloggers neglect a hook! The hook is the bit of descriptor text following the headline. Sometimes a blog post doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a hook (especially if it is graphic + illustrative in nature), but chances are you can utilize this copy to provide further insight into a future post. In the PDF, I will provide a few ideas to get your started!

Category

If you have a series on your blog, it might be a good idea to label each post with the category title. Some of my examples include “Lessons Learned”, “Blogging 101”, and “Branding Basics.” I haven’t seen too many other bloggers treating the graphic this way, but I thought it would be a good idea to visually connect each category so my readers immediately recognize the topic and build familiarity with it.

Categories are a great way to structure your blog, I highly recommend it! You can read more about this structure here.

Website

At the footer of each post, I always include my website. I do this not only to protect my images from being stolen + used by another person, but also to provide my website in case the image is somehow not linked. Say for example someone uploads the image to Pinterest, rather than pinning it from my site, and it doesn’t link to the blog post. It is an easy fix for the user to go to my site (listed on every image), and type in the title into my search bar.

The website also builds recognition. When designing my post graphics, I always think with Pinterest in mind. The Pinterest user does not see my post in context on my blog, they just see an image + caption copy from the original pinner. Once they see my site on the image, they will recognize the source and (hopefully) see that it is credible!

Branded elements

It is no secret that I am a fan of a strong + consistent brand! Blog post graphics are no exception. An essential component of a successful blog post graphic is to maintain consistent branding. Make sure to use the same color palette + typography treatment throughout all blog posts. Though you might be tempted to change your designs to follow a new trend or tip that you learned, I encourage you to hesitate before making that leap. Make sure you build a consistent image that is easily + instantly recognizable as uniquely you! If you want to take the leap to changing your branding, do so with intention and not a fleeting thought.