Technology has really seen the art of the blog come on leaps and bounds in recent years. While imagery and text has always been a staple, it’s now easier than ever to embed and integrate widgets into your work.
If you’re new to blogging, or want to take your blog to the next level, then there is absolutely tons you can do, engaging your readers and standing out from the crowd along the way. We look at the five more interesting features you can start adding into your blog that you may have never considered before…
Video Backgrounds
Video has been a part of a bloggers armoury for a number of years now, but rather than just embedding YouTube videos into your blog, you could transform your design and include video backgrounds.
This is one for travel bloggers especially, integrating videos of their adventures into the background, operating as a more engaging and exciting header.
Studies have shown that video and background videos are a more effective way to grab a reader’s attention, and in the competitive world of blogging, it could make all the difference.
It’s a function that’s becoming more and more accessible to people, with website builders allowing you to implement video backgrounds into designs on various page layouts. If you want to open up your blog with a bang, this is certainly the way to do it.
Maps
Maps are also a useful way to be more engaging, and at the same time include useful information. They are well suited to a range of different bloggers to tell all manner of tales.
For example, travel bloggers can more easily explain where they have been, or how far their recommendations are from each other. Food and drink bloggers can pinpoint restaurant recommendations. Nature or walking bloggers can plot their routes, while photographers can highlight where they got a particular shot.
It’s a much more engaging and visual way to show locations and offers a much more helpful experience reading your blog.
Image Sliders
Imagery will always play a big part in blogging, but rather than creating long pages with images one after each other, integrating image sliders is a much more effective way of keeping your design clean and your readers engaged.
It also means there aren’t huge breaks in copy and the flow of the page is much more user friendly. So many bloggers make the mistake of their sites not being user friendly enough, and most website building platforms will allow you to create image sliders, with many having widgets while it’s also relatively easy to build them, as shown in the YouTube video above.
Weather Widget
Now, stick with us on this one. Again, this is more one for those looking to create successful travel guides, but it can also come into play for other types of blogs too.
If your blog is based upon your travels or travel guides and recommendations, then many of your readers may have come across your blog while researching that particular area ahead of travelling there.
This is likely to be in the near future, therefore including a weather widget, which will tell them what the climate is like at that particular time can be a hugely useful tool and elevate your blog considerably.
You can then firm up the content around that particular city or place, with recommendations for when it’s dry and wet, creating a much more useful guide for people.
Read also: How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger
List Widget
If you like to create longer form blog posts, then the integration of features that allow users to navigate through your blog more efficiently will always prove helpful for the reader.
There are many ways you can do this. Simple hyperlinks at the beginning of the article is the simplest way, but widgets can also be used, which many people don’t think of.
List widgets are a much more design-focused way to either link through to related posts, or to guide people up and down the page. You can include imagery and short descriptions, so users can quickly find the information they are looking for, and therefore have no frustrations trying to navigate, which could lead to leaving the blog altogether.
