If you have a WordPress blog and you feel like it is time to really tighten up the look and function of your plug try navigating through through some of the thousands of plugins or even themes out there to help you really spruce things up. WordPress has made it so easy for non code writing individuals to have a real savvy looking blog to be able maximize their potential.

Writing lots of content on a blog is very important but user experience when a visitor gets to that blog is also very important./ You want to keep that user engaged and navigating through various pages and looking around and reading other posts. One plugin that every WordPress blog should have is the All In One SEO plugin. This allows you to customize all your meta information on every page and even posts as well. In my opinion this should be one of the very first plugins downloaded. If your blog consists of many different pages or even a few different pages you will want to have custom written meta tags and descriptions to go along with those pages so people can find you. If you plan on depending on your blog for income at some point you will have to get really serious with it and really promote it through all the various social networks. Not only is this important from generating traffic but when people come to your blog it is important for them to see that you are active on other areas. This will build brand for your blog and others will find you. There is an abundance of social networking profiles from Flickr RSS to Twitter updates and also Facebook connections. Keeping your blog connected with all communities will help you build traffic and also a following. If you someday plan on selling ad space or trying to monetize your blog these steps will be important.

There is more to blogging than just getting a free blog on blogspot or wordpress, it takes some time, effort and patience to really get your blog visible. You know the old saying don’t judge a book by it’s cover? Well people do and they will.

If your writing is great but your design is sloppy you won’t get people to stick around for very long. The design aspect is a very important factor for your blog’s success. Website visitors want to see great design. if sections are disconnected and out of order you bounce rate will increase drastically. Great blog design keeps your web traffic wondering and looking for more. It will entice people to scroll and visit other pages. Before you build loyal readers you need to grab the trust of your web traffic as soon as they land on your website. A blog should have its own identity established. You want your web traffic to have something to remember you by when they are not searching around online. The tighter your blog design the wider of an audience that will appeal. Chances are your blog will have competition in the search engines so it is important to compete with them visually so that you can attract some of that audience. Once a blog has loyalty and readership it will take a great deal of effort to pull that loyal reader away from that blog to have them read yours.

The recent release of Google’s own version of a browser, Google Chrome, appears to have issues with CSS when it comes to some blogs. If the browser takes off then many blogs will need to have their blog design checked.

In the past, it was always advisable to check you web pages out on both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Now it may be necessary to check them out on Chrome.

Websites, your blog included, are representative of you and your business. If a visitor arrives they expect to see a properly formatted page. There are times when a page will look good in Firefox and look terrible in IE6 – or vice-versa. Since these two browsers make up 75-90% of all traffic, it makes sense to ensure your pages render well in each browser.

With a third browser coming on line, it has the potential make live even harder. Microsoft through Internet Explorer has tried to re-invent internet standards. Internet Explorer doesn’t recognize many of the current standards which can cause problems.

The question that many have asked is whether or not Google Chrome will be written in the future to a standard that forces publishers to choose. Render your sites IE compatible or Chrome compatible – you won’t be able to have both since the code required for both will be different.

Time will tell. First, the general public has to take up Chrome and use it. Until then, it is only a browser puppy. Even puppies grow however.

SEO friendly themes, particularly free versions, have become extremely popular over the last 12 months. The problem is, whilst they claim to be SEO friendly, is that they are not truly SEO friendly. So what makes a theme SEO friendly? To avoid confusion, the term ‘theme’ and ‘template’ are basically the same so I will stick to the term ‘theme’.

This question is debatable since many SEO friendly themes are relying on plugins that every theme can use to improve their blogs SEO outcomes.

If you ignore the plugins which assist with keywords, tags, descriptions and titles, and the content that is generated by the blog owner, there is only a few areas remaining that can help with a blogs SEO.

Page loading sequence can certainly help. Having the header load followed by the content before the sidebars is an import issue. If the pages code is going to break it is generally caused by a widget in the sidebar. If the content has already been spidered, then this does not become a big issue. Many SEO friendly themes still load the sidebars before the content. This is one area that is quick and easy to check yourself.

Another area of your blogs design that can help with SEO is in the categories and archives sections. If these only produce snippets of each post them you will avoid any issues with duplicate content. You can use a plugin, however the fewer plugins you use the better. Again, many SEO friendly themes do not use snippets. They use the full posts.

The final area that needs close inspection is in the footer. Because some of these themes are free, the links to the theme creator can be sold resulting in a link to sites that you may not want to be associated with. Check each link the footer carefully to ensure it does lead to the themes creator’s pages.

Before jumping on an SEO friendly theme, make sure it is ‘friendly’ first.

There is more to running a blog than just content and blog SEO. The blog design needs to be right as well and by that I mean it needs to fit the niche you are writing in. Many bloggers just grab a free theme they like, install it and away they go.

I don’t have anything against free themes per, especially if you are first starting out and are don’t have many readers or visitors. However as you start to build a name and reputation of your blog online you need to think about a theme that is unique for your blog. Your theme becomes a part of your branding – a part of your image.

Free themes come with several problems, the first and obvious being that many others share it. While this may not be a big problem, it can be for your image and branding – remember, you need to be unique – to stand out in the crowd of the millions of blogs active on the web.

Other problem associated with free blog themes includes hidden links in the footer that may go to sites that may hurt your SEO efforts. This can be a serious problem you can lose visitors as well.

Your blog theme is the first thing that visitors see, well before the content. It has to be attractive and inviting while selling you and your brand and image. It needs to convey a feeling of authority, even if your site is just full of jokes; it still needs to sell that feeling.

Free themes won’t cut it in the long run. They won’t support your image and they won’t help to sell you. Getting your own theme designed is not always that expensive, it can however make a huge difference.