blogging trends for 2015
Can you believe it’s 2015? If you are like me, this is the time of year you have the most energy and enthusiasm for new ideas. And, it’s also a great time to evaluate where you are with your blog and where you want to be twelve months from now. In order to help you with that, we’ll be spending the next few weeks offering information and ideas for getting the best start possible for your blog in 2015.
This week, we’re kicking off with four of the big blogging trends I’m seeing in blogs right now. Some of these are not new to 2015 but they are all important ideas to consider as you look at your blog goals for 2015.
Trend #1: Post Less and Longer
Breathe a sigh of relief because unless you are a deal or coupon blogger, posting less is the way to go! Even blogs who most more than three times per week are not writing full posts every day. For example, Michael Hyatt shares the link to his podcast on Wednesdays and often has guest posts on Saturdays.
Connected to the posting less is the trend of longer posts. With fewer posts per week, you can go ahead and give those 600-700 word posts an opportunity to shine. Here’s the caveat: Don’t write more unless you have more worth writing! Make sure every word is useful and relevant.
Trend #2: Be Mobile Responsive
Over 50% of people are reading your blog on their tablets or phones. Your job is to make sure it looks good there. If your theme isn’t mobile responsive, get a new theme!
Also, be aware of the importance of shorter paragraphs, bullet points, and larger font sizes on images for reading clarity on smaller devices.
Trend #3: Use a Clean & Casual Design
With the importance of images continuing to rise, your design should never compete with images on your page. This is one of the main reasons I changed my child theme to Beautiful Pro by StudioPress {affiliate link}. I wanted to eliminate as much clutter as possible.
In addition to a clean design with plenty of whitespace, many bloggers are finding a more casual feel better connects with their readers. But remember, casual doesn’t mean sloppy. Some examples of designs or redesigns with a more casual, welcoming feel include:
Trend #4: Create Excellent Images
Once you’ve eliminated the clutter on your blog, make sure your images are amazing! Spend time finding great images and be willing to pay for stock photo sites as needed.
Some other tips about images:
- Be consistent with fonts. I often recommend choosing three fonts and using them on all your images. This is a great way to brand your images. Tricia Goyer always uses the same fonts on her images regardless of where she posts. I can spot her posts on Pinterest and Facebook because of the font choices.
- Make sure your feature image dimensions work well within your theme. You don’t want the image to appear awkwardly cropped.
- Know what images work best for the different social media platforms you use. You may have to create multiple images for each post but it’s worth the effort to have sharable images.
- Create a consistent “feel” with your images. While I write the blog posts for Design by Insight, Erin creates the images. All the images have the same general feel.
Some bloggers who have always have great images:
Those are four of big trends I’m noticing right now in blogging. As the new year kicks off, now is a great time to evaluate your blog in all areas: content, design, and function. I hope knowing what some of the trends are will help you plan for your best year yet in 2015!
