Tip #6 - Making your blog look good

I had originally planned to use this space for another tip, but instead figured that since there have been two questions asked about blog aesthetics, I figured I would address the issue right here and right now. First, I'll address link buttons.

Link Buttons: One of my tips for gaining traffic to your site is exchanging links with other blogs that are like yours. You can exchange a text ad, but if you really want to make a statement about your blog, give them a button to click on, and a button that looks good. If you have Photoshop, or another photo editing program, and feel that you can make a good button, you can go further down in the blog where I will tell you how to make the image into a link. If you need some help making a button, don't worry, there are plenty of resources on the web to help you. Cooltext.Com is one of the best, but you will have to make the text size small because there is no way to make the image a certain size (you'll want the button to be small). This site gives you a small, but somewhat generic button. This website gives you animated buttons. Finally, this one gives a good design for your button. There are not really any really good free button generators online, so if you can do it yourself, its better that way.

Uploading and Linking: Once you have your button, you can upload it to your website, or if you can't, upload it to ImageShack. Now that you have the image hosted, the next step is to make a button code to give to other websites to add to their links list. How? Use the following code:

• After the "a href" put in the link to your blog. For me, it would be "blogging-4beginners.blogspot.com"
• After img src, (inside the quotes), put the link given to you from imageshack for your button. It should end in .jpg, .png, .bmp, or another image format.
• After alt, (inside the quotes), put the text that you would like to display when the user puts their mouse pointer over the button (but doesn't click on it)

Themes: If you think your blog theme or template could use a little work, check out Adobe Kuler. Kuler allows users to create and post color themes that they believe look good for a website or blog. You can check out color themes that users have created and voted as the best, or try out a combination of colors that you came up with. This site is also good. If you want your color choices to have a deeper meaning, go here. If you want another site for blending colors, go here.

As always, if you have any questions, leave a comment. If you want me to address a certain topic, just leave me a comment.

Good luck!