Design Your Page(s)

Every blog host listed in this chapter provides templates that give your blog a professional appearance (see Figure 12.3). Without these templates your blog would just be a jumbled page of text.

Figure 12.3. The same page in three different templates on Blogger.com.

Most blogs provide two-column or three-column designs. Rather than spend weeks designing your blog's look, why not utilize a template provided by your blog publishing software that's already available and spend time getting the content rolling.

You are not choosing a template for life. Most blog software programs let you change templates without disturbing the data already posted on your site.

When you're comfortable with Photoshop and web design, you can use your blog as a guinea pig and redesign it. Check out the Magic and Voices That Matter series of books by New Riders Publishing at this URL for more tips on designing websites: http://www.peachpit.com/series/index.asp.