A blog archive page, also called a blog index or blog homepage, is the main blog page on your website. If your website is a blog, it can also be your homepage.
Intentional blog archive page design can make the difference between people interacting with your blog content or not. Since you want people to read and interact with the individual blog posts on your site, it’s essential that you make sure your blog archive page is meeting best practices.
In this blog archive page primer, you will:
- Find out exactly what a blog archive page is and why it's important,
- Learn what goes into a high-quality blog archive page,
- Get access to a blog archive page template,
- Discover what you need to do to make your blog archive page the best it can be.
Onward!
What is a Blog Archive Page
A blog archive page organizes your blog posts in a user-friendly way and encourages readers to explore various individual blog posts, blog categories, and tags. It also highlights your expertise and the range of subjects your expertise covers.
Note that your blog can have multiple archive pages. Technically, your blog category, tag, and date-specific pages are also considered blog archive pages. But for our purposes here, we are talking about your main blog archive page that acts as the index for your entire blog. With that being said, these best practices also work for those secondary archive pages.
Blog Archive Page Design Goals
One of the great things about your main blog archive page is that you have a ton of flexibility regarding how you design it and what information you choose to feature on it. Regardless of what content you decide to put on it, ideally, it will achieve these goals:
- Quickly capture attention by introducing the name of your blog and what it’s about
- Explain to people what your blog is about and what topics it will cover
- Display useful categories, tags, dates, and filters to make navigating it a breeze
- Feature your latest or best pieces of content
- Provide people with a great resource to come back to
A solid blog archive page that achieves those goals may end up looking something like this:
Blog Archive Page Content Explained
1. Introduce Your Blog by Using its Name as a Headline (H1)
If your blog doesn't have a name, now might be a good time to give it one. When you do, give it a name that explains what it is about and at the same time includes keywords people are searching for in Google.
Using the generic "Blog" as your blog name typically isn't going to be as useful as naming it something like The __Your Product/Service___ Blog. Or, something along those lines.
This headline should include:
- A name clearly explaining what your blog is
- The word blog
- Page’s focus keyword
- Hero image (optional)
2. Tell People What They Will Find On Your Blog
After looking at your headline, people should have a general understanding of your blog. Then, you can give them a more in-depth explanation of your blog in your intro copy.
Your intro copy might include:
- Copy that makes it clear what your blog is about and what it has to offer
- An explanation of the various topics
- Focus and/or secondary keywords
3. List Out the Useful Categories, Tags, Dates & Filters
One of the key goals of a blog archive page is to make it easy for people to navigate to the content that is relevant and helpful to them. Using various filters and taxonomies to organize your content is a great way to achieve this goal.
Navigational elements might include:
- A list of the most common categories and/or tags used to organize your content
- A list of pages that organize your content by date (optional)
- Filters
- Featured categories
4. Feature Your Latest and/or Best Pieces of Content
Your blog archive page also features your best and/or latest content so visitors can quickly get into the topics that may be the most valuable to them.
If you publish on a very regular basis, visitors may be looking for your latest content. Think of a news site. If you publish more sporadically, visitors might benefit from having access to both your most popular content and the most recent posts you've published.
Your featured content might include:
- Popular blog categories or individual posts
- Individual blog descriptions
- Blog titles, featured images, publication dates, category, and author info for each blog
- Calls to action under each individual blog like "Read More"
Additional Elements to Consider
A blog archive page can be made even more helpful when some of these elements are included:
- Lead magnets, content upgrades, and offers
- Search bar
- Author bios
Tips for a Great Blog Archive Page Design
A great blog archive page should be a bookmarkable resource for your target audience. Ideally, it will organize your blog posts to make it incredibly simple for those people to find the kind of content that will benefit them the most.
Here are some additional tips for your blog archive page:
- Make sure your blog is well designed i.e., it should be more attractive than your competitor's blogs
- Use great visuals and graphics to communicate what it's about
- Make sure the individual blog post headlines on it are clear and compelling
- Give people a way to get in touch with you if they have questions
- We probably don't need to say it, but your blog archive page isn't going to matter all that much if your individual blogs aren't valuable for the people reading them. Make sure not to neglect your individual blogs, and you can start by using this template to help you format them.
Next Steps
If you have an existing blog, compare its archive page against the template and recommendations above. You're good to go if it is well-aligned with these best practices.
If not, note the elements that are missing or need improvement. Then, devise a plan of action to improve your blog archive page design.
If your blog is just getting started, use the template above as a starting point for crafting your blog archive page.
Either way, your goal should be to make your blog archive page as helpful as possible to your audience.
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