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Saturday 24 January 2015

Layout I Blogging tips of the Trade #2

Hello humphers

Psssst! I got the Canon 1200d!! All pictures taken by moi!


You know when you do something bad? You know it's wrong but you do it anyway? You don't think you'll get caught. You don't think it's "that bad".

Yeah that's what I thought. I basically had to deal with the punishment.
No Blog!
This time around it will be different. Probably only one blog a week. Saturdays are the only day I get to do "real blogging" so until a time when things are different you're just going to have to deal with it.

I also want to say a HUMONGOUS thank you to everyone who stayed around long enough to read this. For me it seems like years since I sat down at a computer and just typed.

I love blogging so much I really missed it. But coming back online and seeing I still have (an extremely small) bunch of followers. My little honeyboos!

For know I'm going to put up a post I am really quite proud of that I typed out the day before the fateful day! I hope you like. Remember to comment telling me what you've been up to. Have you got a new cat? A dog? A piousness snake? How are exams? What was Christmas like? I want to know people!


Layout l Blogging tips of the Trade


I'm really enjoying writing the blogging tips of the trade series. I find it super fun writing out my tips and advice for you guys to read. Please tell me in the comments if your loving it as much as me! Today is Layout which quite frankly is the hardest and most complicated part of blogging. Blooming getting an awesome header took me about 4 months to figure out! So today I'm going to save you the hassle of being on your computer everyday until next Christmas and just tell you the tips of the trade (see what I did there? No.... Ok) Remember I am in no way an expert at blogging or giving tips so just take what you want and leave the stuff you think sounds as bad as a baboon singing a Christmas carol.

Header




Header is the first thing your reader will see when they go to your blog so it has to look good. There are so many different places you can go to get a header. You can go to a design company and pay for them to design one, You can just use a custom one from blogger (not a great idea), you can use Microsoft Word (PLEASE NOOOOOO NONONONO!!!!!) or you can design your own.
If you have just started blogging then feel free to just keep the header Blogger gives you. But as time goes on you may want to consider getting a new one. However if your reading this having just started your blog (like six seconds ago) then maybe you want to consider creating your header now before you start to write posts. Reading somebodies blog and seeing a snazzy header gives the impression of "they know what there doing"

I have had a few headers over the time I have been blogging and that's okay! It's going to take some time finding the right one for you. For every header I have used PicMonkey which is super easy to use. You can use other programs but PicMonkey is so fast and easy why would you? I will be doing a whole tutorial on how to use it soon. For now though I'll give you a little push in the write direction.

-Don't go crazy with colours and pictures sometimes the simple things are the best
-Don't make it look tacky by putting badly edited photos on it
-Keep it personal to you don't completely copy other peoples
-I always love a header that matches the rest of the blog (eh duh?) No pink header and red background!!
-Make it easy to read. Swirly writing is cute but NOT practical
-Make it big and easy to see. If it's tiny nobody is going to be able to read it.
-Don't make it to big either that's not easy on the eyes!!

Another important thing to consider is making your header related to your blog. If you write reviews on games then your not going to put pictures of Kittens on your header and if you are a beauty blogger then there will be no footballs ... anywhere!!
Make it relate to your blog. So if you do blog about gaming use blues and yellows and blacks with quite a boyish font (unless your blogging about animal crossing the DS game, the game I never had. Childhood RUINED!).

Backgrounds

- Jim                                Mary - 


Admittedly I've gone very safe here! Blue and white! WOW EXCITING!! It may not be incredibly intriguing but it is easy on the eyes and makes my blog seem crisp and professional (or "swish" if you prefer a word with some ponce). I wanted my blog to be white and bright because they're the blogs I like best. Which brings me to the most important thing about backgrounds. Make them you! If you literally have an obsession with Disney Princesses (which I do. Who doesn't?) then put tiaras or sparkles or something fairytaleish. But don't go crazy with pictures cos that's a baaad move.
As you see in the two above pictures there are many ways to make your background. These are classic examples of the right and the wrong. Lets take the first example. Lets call him Jim.
So Jim is bright and colourful and attracts the eye. Whilst killing your brain cells. The pattern may be funky but it will distract from your blogs content and make a reader switch of. They will be distracted by Jim and that is not good!!
Then lets call the second one Mary. Mary is plain and simple. A white colour will not attract the eye. However the picture has texture and looks pretty which is what you want your blog to be. It still looks professional yet has a very simple swirly pattern. I actually really like Mary I think I have a new best friend.

Text:

From personal experience with my own blog and reading others, text is a huge deal. Remember that when your making your blog you want it to look pretty but your followers need to be able to read it! I went through a stage with pretty swirly writing and believe me that was a mistake. My blog has only started gaining a couple more views over the past few months when I finally realised that the font I was using literally gave me a migraine to look at. The text on your blog should be simple. Think about the people with really bad eyesight (I feel for you guys I'm nearly blind no exaggeration!). They want to have a nice easy font to read. Think about either rounded texts or something simple like mine. You also don't want to make your text to big or to small. Blogger gives you a font when you first begin so it's easy to keep the font to the right size. If you really don't like the size of font Blogger has given you try to only go a couple of sizes up or down but nothing to crazy. If the font is to big all your gadgets down the side of your page will be bloomin MAHOUSIVE (and fuzzy and hard to read.) But if you make it to small there will be people sitting on there laptops like this...



Point proven?


Widths:





Widths are pretty darn simple if I'm truly honest. Lots of people ask how to get a good proportion between text and side bar. How to make there main text bigger, gadgets smaller ect. And it's really easy. Simply use this pictures as a guide. Try and have a big main text and a smaller gadget section this will make your blog look so much better:

-It makes your blogs wider and shorter looking instead of really long and full of text
-It will stop squished up hard to read text
-An open plan blog which can be more appealing
-It will attract readers to your main text not your gadgets
-You can have really big pictures.

Pictures: 

Slippers from Tescos F&F
Pictures are a big part of your blog. This section isn't on how to take the perfect photo because to be honest that is a skill I will never have. However I can tell you where to put them how big ect. ect.
As you can see this photo is very big. Thats good! Don't be worrying about making your blog posts seem to long because your pictures are big. They actually break up the space and make your blogs seem smaller and easier to read. Personally I prefer pictures that are spread out across the blog. For example if you were reading my November Wishlist (oops sneaky link) and all the pictures were at the top and your half way through reading and you forgot what a certain product looks like. Then you have to scroll all the way back up loosing your place. So my advice is keep your pictures spread out through your blog .If your talking about a lipstick then put a picture beside that text.

Gadgets:


Gadgets are and always will be complicated. I'm still confused about this gadget. Some gadgets are useful and some are plain stupid (the daily puppy really?). I personally think that the gadgets I have on my blog now are more then satisfactory.


-Bloglovin Follow Me button (you should probably click that one! ;P )
-The amount of views I have however if you have a lot a lot of views you might not want to have this up it can seem like bragging
-Google Followers You should probably click that one to! ;)
-Blog Archive here you can look at my first ever posts *cringe*
-Popular posts
-Search Bar

These are all good gadgets to have. You can also put things like your YouTube channel link if you have one or links to social media (before you ask I don't have any). You can also have things like The Daily Puppy!!!
NO! That was a joke. Gadgets are a great way to make your blog easier to navigate and also make it seem more intelligent to the untrained eye. But remember if you don't feel comfortable with having links to your social media or you don't really want to have a search bar that's totally fine your blog really won't suffer because you don't have one.

Layout in a Nutshell

-Make your header using an easy program and make it clear, easy to read and related to your blog
-Have a plain background so that it isn't distracting to the blog
-Make your text easy to read and a good size
-Have your main body text bigger then your side bar to attract people to the text
-Make your pictures big and clear and spread out through your blog
-Have useful gadgets that will make your blog better and remember what ever you do
THE DAILY PUPPY IS A NO GO!!
-Make your Layout you and don't be afraid to make it stand out. The world would be boring if we were all the same!

humphrey xxx