I love technology (.org)

While setting up this blog, i thought it would be interesting to study which designs were the most popular amongst the Top 20 Technorati blogs.

First, i studied the layouts in terms of sidebar & content locations on the page. The top 20 Technorati blogs all fitted within one of the four following categories:

• sidebar on the left, content in the middle, sidebar on the right
• sidebar on the left, content
• content, sidebar on the right
• content, first sidebar on the right, second sidebar on the far right

Check out the graph below for an overview of the Top technorati blog layouts:

While there are two clear favourites in terms of layouts, it is interesting to note that both have the content on the left.

I then looked at the colour scheme used on the page. You can find the analysis on the graph below:

There is no clear favourite colour; however, i found that most technology oriented blogs favoured a blue colour, while gossip and celebrity blogs favoured red or pink (counted as “others”).

What conclusion can you draw from this? Use a layout with the content on the left side of the page, and use the colour scheme you like

Additional resources:

“10 remarkables (and free) Wordpress themes” http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/01/19/10-remarkable-and-free-wordpress-themes/

“blog design for beginners” http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/17/blog-design-for-beginners/