How To Make Your Blog Look Cuter

image from here

Okey doke - so you're all set - you've set up a little weblog of your own, you have so much to say, in fact you can't stop posting. So you've got that in hand. But you're not sure how to make it look great. My advice is to set aside a couple of hours to give your blog a bit of a make-over.

I'm not going to go into customising your blog template - it scares the spaghetti out of me - I've heard some horror stories about lost posts and things like that - so these are all more cosmetic, quick-fix blog beauty tips. You'll need to ask someone else about that stuff!


Your blog will look extra-cute if it expresses who YOU are. It should be full of the things YOU love. The sidebar should be full of links and lists and images that are true to you. Don't be afraid to have a play about and move things around a bit. Just take it slowly, changing one thing at a time over a lovely cup of tea. Get inspiration from your favourite blogs. Look at them from a layout/features point of view - and think about how you could make YOUR blog terrific too.

You might like to upload a cute picture of you as a 5 year old, or a photo of your lovely Mum, or images of something you have made, or your favourite place, or something you cooked, or just something that inspires you. Let your blog tell a story in pictures, as well as words.

Images
Yup.. You know I go on and on about this - but that's because it's important. I know it can be tempting to whack up a photo that's not quite up to scratch. Sometimes the light is fading and you wanted to photograph something anyway. Or maybe someone looks a bit spotty. Perhaps the colour went a bit freaky. My advice is to edit your photos before you upload them. Use your photo editing software or a site like Flickr or Picnik to fix those crap snaps. Put on some nice rounded corners a la 1970s Kodak. Maybe that image will look better in black and white? Or sepia? Turn up the colour Lomo style. Correct the exposure. Sharpen it up. Make that photo look great!

Ultimately, be sure to take all your photos in great light to start off with. And have a good read of the manual that came with your camera to be sure you are getting the best photos you can.

If you still don't have a good image - have a look on Flickr. Just because you are writing a blog post about sewing a new purse, doesn't mean you need a picture of that very purse to start with - especially if that picture is dark and blurry and has someone's finger in it. Take a photo of your purse tomorrow when the light is better. In the mean time, why don't you try searching for 'cotton spool' 'vintage pinking shears' or ' fabric stash'. Chances are you'll come up with a lovely finger-free, beautifully lit photo that will look much better. You must credit the original image source, but it's a great way to keep your images lovely, and it might just inspire you to be a better photographer. Then add your own photo as the next post, so people can see your much improved photographic skills.

What's a widget anyway?
A widget is a piece of code that you can insert as a page element in the layout section of your blog - in the sidebar or at the bottom of the page, depending on who you blog with. This piece of code instructs your blogging software to load whichever super-cute tool you have decided on - from an outside source. It's basically a tricked up link. It might be a badge showing your Flickr ID, it might be a clock, it might be a list of your favourite books which links to an online bookstore, it might be a poll asking whether people prefer their crumpets with jam or honey....

Widgets help to personalise your blog. They can also help your readers have a really fun time at your place! And they can be useful. Have a think about what YOU like to see when you visit a blog. Perhaps you love seeing other people's Etsy Favourites? Maybe you're a little pushed for time and are soothed by clocks and calendars? You might love the quick-fix of a 'recent comments' widget - so you don't have to take all that time trawling the comments sections. Or you might want to add a button so that readers can add your blog straight to Bloglines or whichever RSS feed reader they might use. Try to upload features that will make your blog informative, interesting, personal, easy to navigate and pretty too!

Before you're tempted to start adding 'Crazy Frog' or a 'Homer Simpson Donut Dunking Animation' - here's a list of nice, clean, useful widgets you might like to add to your blog. You should, of course, check what your blog software has to offer first - because usually there are heaps of standard features you can utilise really easily. Or you can get blingy and use some of these basic widgets:

So, you might like Clocks
Calendars could be good too
Image Link Generator - in Blogger you can just do this by adding a picture as a New Page Element - I'm not sure of the procedure on other types of blogs, but if in doubt you can use this to make any picture link to any web url.
Mixtapes and more Mixtapes - your readers can listen while they browse - and the mixtape shows up as a cool animated retro cassette playing happily on your blog.
Visitor Counter - visible (and invisible) counters to display how many peeps you have - if you like to show off.
Add to Bloglines Widget - so readers can quickly add your blog to their Bloglines reader account - it's a great way of gathering lovely, regular, loyal readers of the type that can't always be bothered to ACTUALLY click over to you.
Recent Comments Widget for Blogger - it's good because it displays comments in a little box in your sidebar as they come in - your readers don't have to click each post to view comments on your posts if you don't want to - (but I always DO read through all the comments, not just the highlights). It's a good preview of what's going on, and what people think is comment worthy.
Recent Comments Widget for Wordpress
Bookmark Button - so your readers can add your site to their favourites, Google Bookmarks, digg, stumble upon and lots of other social networking sites - it's all about sharing - and it's a nice way to publicise your blog to readers who might never find it otherwise
Contact Button - so your blog readers can email you via a fancy schmancy contact form
To Do List - fully customisable - for some public ticking off!
Etsy Favourites - click the YOUR ETSY tab - it will show any items you favourite while you browse etsy - and updates every time you add a new favourite, so it's ever-changing and super-interesting and supports handmade too!
Etsy Link - show your love of Handmade and send your visitors to Etsy too.
Flickr Profile Badge - previews and links to your Flickr photos and profile
Search Box - for Blogger so people can search the content on your blog (scroll down a bit on this link)

Widgets can slow down the load of your page quite dramatically - depending on your readers internet connection speed - so don't go overboard and add 30 different widgets. Be selective.

Think About Your Layout...
You don't want to go mental adding too much stuff. I know it's tempting to have all sorts of bells and whistles, but keep it classy. Remember, your sidebar should not be longer than your actual posts! No one will bother to scroll down that far, for starters, and it just looks too junky.

You need to balance a nice amount of texty links with a lesser amount of image links. If you want to add long link lists in your sidebar - like your blogroll - you might want to adjust the amount of posts that show on the first page of your blog so it is nice and long. This will stop your blog being side heavy. (In Blogger, to do this, go to LAYOUT, then SETTINGS, then FORMATTING and change the SHOW number of posts to about 10 or so - however many you need to make your posts as long as your side-bar).


What to Put Where..
If you've got an online store - you should have a link to it at the very top of your sidebar. Your shop is important! So give it Position Number 1! If you have a subscribe button from a service like Feedburner - put this close to the top too. You want to help readers to view your blog in whichever way is easiest - and what could be simpler then having it plonk into your inbox every update?! You should also keep your Profile details or About Me section at the top - because if someone clicks over and sees your smiling face (or whatever cute pic you have uploaded as your profile pic), they might be more inclined to want to be friends with you.

Then, it's really up to you where you put things - there aren't any hard and fast rules, apart from keeping your store, subscriber button and profile near the top - for handy quick clicking.

Advertising...
I am by no means an expert on this, but I know what I see. If you are going to put ads on your blog - you want to be sure it's worth it. Ads can really junk up a blog. There are a lot of blogs I never go back to because the advertising is either ugly or not relevant to the blog. On the other hand, some of the bigger blogs have some really nice 'block' ads on them - simple and nicely designed - of course, these sort of ads are only relevant for sites that get a heap o traffic. (Which might be you if you make your blog super good and post regularly, huh?!)

If you sign up for Google Adwords, be aware that ads for dating sites and other such tack are amongst those that will appear on your blog. Do you really need to cheapen your site for a few (measly) bucks? Perhaps you are better off putting your energy into creating your own online store via Etsy or Big Cartel. At least your blog will still look cute. And that's what we set out to do, right?!

Other Stuff
Big Huge Labs now have a header generator - you can upload a photo from your computer or flickr and it will convert it into banner size for uploading to your Wordpress blog. I'm not sure how it will work for other blog types, so I might have a play around and try and fix my own ill-fitting header. You will need to save it and open it in a Paint or Illustrator type program to add in your text (the name of your blog). Then load the whole gamut back into your Blog as a header. Headers (and profile pics) are reader's first impression of you and your blog - so make your header gorgeous. You can also google 'Header Generator' or 'Banner Generator' for free, customizable header creation.

Affiliate Programs and Links
You've seen these - little images of book covers or CDs in people's sidebars. They look cute, show what you're in to and they link to websites such as Amazon which offer incentives for affiliates who display their links. If your readers click over and buy stuff from their site, you get a (teeny) commission. So you might like to do that. It can make your blog look good, and people will know how super-interesting you are too. And what good taste you have.

xx mikes

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