Do you have an idea of how you want your blog to look for your blog visitors? Do you have any idea of how you want to help navigate your audience's attention?

No matter what your ideas are, it's important to understand that the simpler your blog is, the less complicated your life will be with this blogging thing. You want everything to be seamless and simple not only for you, but for your blog visitors as well.

According to website experts, two-thirds of people would rather read something beautifully designed than something plain in a 15 min period. This doesn't mean you need to get wild with your design, it just means you need to make your blog aesthetically appealing.

38% of people online will stop engaging if the site is unattractive. Also, 39%of people will leave a site if images take too long to load. What do all these stats have to do with you keeping your blog simple? Everything.

For one. You never want your blog visitors to have wondering eyes when looking at your site. This simply means, the less busy your site is, the better chance you will have at keeping people's attention on your most vital content.

Secondly, you don't want your images to be so large to the point where it takes the site a long time to load.

In the case of running a blog, less is more. Everyone wants their site to be awesome and everyone wants their site to be unique. However, you don't want to compromise quality simply by being fancy or being complicated with your blog appearance.

You have to ask yourself, do I want people to be distracted by unnecessary activity on my site or do I want to hold their attention with a healthy balance of visual appeal and great content.

I've always noticed that the best sites are the most simple and most interesting. Take a second and think about all the sites you have ever visited. Think of the layout, the ease of use and how interesting the content is. When you think about it, most people's favorite sites have these simple qualities. Please don't be mistaken. I'm not telling you to build a plain whack site. I'm merely saying, you don't want your site to be filled with fluff and distraction.

Colors

Colors aren't really that big of a deal as long as the colors aren't affecting the overall experience.

Images

Keep your images at a manageable size. That varies site to site, but when you measure the time it takes for your images to load, you will notice whether or not you need to be posting smaller images. Generally speaking, typically, as long as your images aren't 3000x3000 pixels or something outrageous like that, you should be fine.

Bounce rate

Your blog design will affect your bounce rate. The less distracting your site is, the lower your bounce rates will be. A bounce rate is there percentage of visitors who leave after visiting one page. This page is typically the homepage.

What's important here is the simplicity of your blog and keeping the overall experience pleasant for your blog visitors.

As you are building your blog, keep note of the overall feel of your blog. Notice the placement of your images and your videos as well as the colors. Just remember, the simpler everything is the better workflow you should have and the more seamless the experience will be for your blog visitors.