When you first began your blog, you chose a design template that best fit your idea of how you wanted it to look. That was fine for a while, but now you want to build a brand for yourself and to express your personality.

Using a stock template on your blog makes it difficult to stand out from the crowd. Try these suggestions for ways to customize your blog design without rebuilding your template from scratch.

Find good HTML and CSS tutorials and remember to save the changes work every step of the way.

Start a test blog and copy your current template to that blog. That way, you can fiddle to your heart's content without frustrating your readers. When you've decided on your template changes, save the template and upload it over your old one. Ask your visitors for feedback or suggestions.

Create a custom header for your blog. Find a picture or create a logo that really suits your content and your personality. You can choose an ornate first letter for your blog's name, a photo related to your topic, or even a picture of yourself or your cat. Use a place like flickr or photobucket to host your images.

Personalize whatever image you choose so that no one can download and use an identical item from somewhere else. Change the colors or crop an image to change its focus. Add your blog name and description in a font compatible with those used for your posts and sidebar. Presto! You have a custom-made image. Use the image or a small section of it as your avatar for social media sites on-line. Soon your readers will recognize you anywhere.

Speaking of fonts, take a look at yours. Specifically, consider the contrast between the font colors and your background and the size of the letters. Are they easy to read? Is the background so busy that the letters blend in? Do you need to lean in to or squint at the screen to make them out? Do the serifs on your letters blend into each other? Experiment with typeface and size to find a font that you can read easily without it overwhelming the screen.

If the background of your blog interferes with your font (or is so busy that it distracts from your blog's content entirely), ditch it. Don't hesitate to toy with colors and subdued images. Your blog design should have a set width for your main content and a separate background the shows around the edges if the reader has their browser window wider than that. You can be wild with the static background, but provide a solid field or an opaque overlay on which to display your text.

The key to improving your blog's design lies in customizing for yourself while remembering your readers. Not all of them will see as well or use the same display settings as you do. Use a service like Google Analytics or BlogFlux that will tell you the browsers and display settings that your readers use. Design the column width and font size for the majority.

Blend any ads into your blog's color scheme as much as possible. They will be less obtrusive to new readers and will show everyone that you have put time and effort into creating a custom blog design. Google AdSense and many other ad sources offer ways to customize how ads display so that you can monetize your blog without being alienating readers.

Look at successful blogs and read about blog design on other blogs and on discussion boards. Experiment until you find a balance between creative elements and expected blog design techniques that make your blog feel like home, without alienating readers.

Learn more about this author, Mel Bergen.
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