Any blogger will tell you that unless you have great content, your blog will not attract readers nor retain readers. With great content comes great responsibility, wouldn’t you agree? The problem with many blog authors is that they don’t bother to meticulously redesign or create a new theme/layout. Little do many people realize, but in addition to great content, you have to have a great layout so that it is visually appealing to visitors and grants them easy access to the information on your blog.

Learn some HTML and CSS

Honestly, HTML and CSS are extremely easy to learn. If you harness the power of Google or any other search engine, you can easily learn the basics of HTML. In my case, I compose all of my posts using the HTML editor in WordPress, hence, it forces me to learn some of basic HTML tags and write my posts in code. Did you know that the CSS (cascading style sheet) that comes with your theme is where most of the customization takes place? This is where you can define colors, margins, images, and much more. Think of CSS as a library that has a list of all the “decorations” your website can use. Once you start editing the PHP files (the PHP files are where your layout is actually coded), you can call upon certain elements within your “library.” If all of that sounds confusing, don’t worry, it’s not at all. I happened to learn CSS just by reading my own CSS file and experimenting, not to mention that I also used Google.

Study other blogs

Spend some time looking at other blogs. You don’t necessarily have to look at blogs that have good layouts, look at the bad ones too. See how blogs that run ads look and what kind of layout they use. Thousands of blogs use the MistyLook theme, which is a very good theme to start out with. One of the things you may want to remember is the fact that implementing ads does affect layout and how your posts look, so be aware of that. Compare the benefits of three column layouts versus two or one column layouts. My blog is now using a three column, fixed-width layout, which is far more versatile than a two column layout, in my opinion.

Start with something

I spent a few hours trying to design my own theme from scratch and guess what? I could not do it! It’s not because it was too hard, but it was very time consuming and required way too much creativity that I just could not muster. So what did I do? I did the next best thing and spent some time trying to find a theme that was as close to what I wanted. For the most part, I was looking for a three column layout that would have my posts in the middle and a left/right sidebar. Once I found the theme, I then went about and customizing the hell out of it. I changed the colors, graphics, width, layout structure, and even added new pages. By no means am I done with everything, but I am learning quite a bit about how WordPress works.

Is it all worth it?

Is all of this work really worth it? Well let me ask you this, “how serious are you about your blog?” Are you blogging because you want to make money? Unless you are willing to blog seriously, you have no reason to spend so much time to make your blog look nice. However, in the event you are serious, spending the extra time modifying the theme and personalizing your blog will complement your content greatly. In addition, if readers like the content and layout, the better the chances of them coming back regularly. There is nothing wrong with using someone else’s theme, but personalize it to your preferences. Your blog is your thoughts, so it should display your mind as well.

Resources

HTML & CSS Guides
• HTML Tutorial
• Introduction to HTML
• CSS Tutorial
• The Complete CSS Tutorial

WordPress Themes
• WordPress Theme Viewer
• Additional WordPress theme resource