You’ve promoted your site, you work hard on writing great content, you network with other bloggers.  You get a decent amount of traffic, but you notice that you’re not really retaining as many visitors as you would like.

There might be a few “tweaks” you can do that can help your site immensely.  For example, how usable is your site?  Is the layout optimal for new visitors who don’t know their way around?

Everyone wants a blog that looks cool or different, but at the end of the day it still has to be usable and easy to navigate. Your readers need to understand how to get around, otherwise they’ll get frustrated or lose interest.

So here are five things you can do to make your site more appealing to readers:

1. Think about your site’s first impression

First Impressions are everything, so ask yourself: What does your the top of your layout look like?  This is the first thing your readers see when your site loads.  Will it be a banner?  A headline?  An ad?  If you want to hook your readers on your content, you’ll want to make sure that’s one of the first things they see when your blog loads.  If they see a large ad taking up the entire screen, they might decide not to stick around.  So think about what your readers first impression of your site is.

2. Put your tool bar in a prominent place

The navigation bar is the main tool your readers will use to explore your blog.  You want to make sure they can find what they need as quickly as possible.  Don’t make them go digging – chances ar they’ll give up.  You want to put this somewhere prominent, where readers will easily be able to spot it.  Traditionally, bloggers will use a horizontal tool bar going across the top of the screen.  Readers will be used to looking there.  Some things you might want to have in a navigational tool bar: home, about the writer, disclosure policy, guest post policy, advertise policy, archives, etc.

3. Use titles that make sense

You might have creative titles for things, but do they convey the message properly?  Do they help your readers understand what each section is about?  Also if you are using creative words, you might want to reconsider for SEO purposes.  Using concise and keyword-rich titles could not only help your readers understand where to go, but could help the bots that are crawling your site understand how it’s organized.  This can help your ranking in Google and help you get more organic traffic from search results.

4. Use color to get your readers to notice something

Sometimes what looks good doesn’t necessarily help readers find things.  If you want something to stand out, for instance, you can try using a color that maybe doesn’t match.  This will catch your reader’s eyes and help them locate something specific.  Something as simple as color can help your blog earn more income.  For example, you can use color to direct your reader’s attention to a Pay Per Click ad.  Put your PPC ad in a different color box, use a border, or use different colored words next to the PPC ad that explain the benefits they can get from going to that website.

5. Use a clean and simple layout

Think your awesome, flashy layout is so cool you’re bound to get visitors?   Be careful because it might actually be scaring them away.  Some layouts are just too complicated and impossible to navigate. The main that that readers go to your site for is your content. So you want to make sure that, above all else, they have easy access to read your content.  Clean and simple layouts are great for this.  If your layout is confusing your readers, you may want to simplify it and clean it up a little.

These simple layout tweaks can help your readers navigate your site better and that will mean they’ll keep coming back, helping your blog traffic increase.  An easy to understand website can also help you get search engine traffic because Google will better understand your site structure.