Tim at Penfriend
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I spent 22 hrs redesigning one blog header - worth it

I spent 22 hrs redesigning one blog header - worth it

Five above-the-fold fixes that keep readers in the building (tested on Penfriend).

Tim Hanson
June 20, 2025

_{Day 122/100}

Hey—It's Tim.

Yesterday I doom-scrolled half a dozen “10x your conversions” threads.
Same recycled advice:

Tweak your hero > add social proof > test the button colour.

urgh. Boring.

Cool. Love that for them.
But here’s the thing nobody seems to clock:

Search traffic doesn’t land on your homepage.
It lands on the blog post you wrote three coffees deep at 11 pm.

So if the above-the-fold of that post looks like a 2012 Tumblr theme, every pixel you sweated over on the main site is pointless. Long-form content is the front door for content marketers, yet we still design it like an afterthought.

That’s why today, I’m skipping landing pages and going straight for the jugular: blog design that keeps readers in the building.

This is literally our blog. And honestly, one of the designs I’m the most proud of.

The Scorecard (fits on one sticky note)

Check	Why it matters	10-Second Test
Hook ≠ Headline	The first seven words decide the next seven seconds.	Read it aloud. Would a stranger care?
Visual Proof	Screenshots > stock photos. People trust pixels, not poses.	Does the hero image show the product doing its job?
Social Cred	Logos, numbers, faces—pick one. Instant legitimacy.	Can you spot proof without using the scrollbar?
Obvious Path	One page, one job.	Close your eyes, open them. Is the primary CTA undeniable?
Zero Guilt Pop-ups	Interruptions kill curiosity.	Refresh. Did anything slap you in the face?

Draw Me Like One of Your SaaS Funnels

Content marketers get roasted for their landing pages: flashy gradients, testimonial carousels, exit-intent confetti.

But when it’s time to publish a blog post we turn into 2008 WordPress dads-slapping a random stock photo of a laptop and calling it a day.

So while we’re sharpening pencils, here are five “above-the-fold” dos & don’ts for long-form content (pulled straight from the Penfriend blog, because if it ain’t scientifically backed, you know I’m not going do it):

✅ Do	❌ Don’t
Craft a benefit-driven headline “Steal the 3-Step Audit That Doubled Our Traffic”	Lead with “Ultimate Guide to Growth” and hope intrigue magically appears
Use a visual that proves the topic (screenshot of the traffic spike, hand-drawn framework, etc.)	Insert “diverse team high-fiving” because Unsplash said so
Deliver a crisp promise in two sentences	Ramble about “the ever-changing digital landscape”
Keep the canvas distraction-free (no pop-ups, no slide-ins, just words)	Punch readers with a newsletter modal before they finish line one
ToC. Sticky. On the left. The science backs me up on this one. 👇	Let a 27-item ToC shove your headline below the fold

For us?

MASSIVE HEADLINE.
I personally draw all the feature images for the blog
The first line is everything.
Pop ups appear when you’ve spent more than 45 seconds on the page. I even removed the pre nav-bar CTA to keep you focused on the blog
Table of Content is my love language. But, I wanted to put a few other CTA’s in the side bar, so ours collapses into a sub-stack style TOC on the left.

I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m saying I spent 12 hours researching why I would make these changes and a further 10 re-designing it.

I’ve written a lot a lot about this.
We are visual creatures after all.

The entrances to this rabbit hole.

✌️ Tim “Paint Me Like Your French KPIs” Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. Send me your ugliest above-the-fold pages, and I’ll send the best (worst) ones a $10 coffee gift card as your start to fix it.

All masterpieces start with caffeine and a little chaos.

Penfriend.ai
Made by content marketers. Used by better ones.

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