If you are simply using a Blogger or Wordpress based blog, you should be fine with almost anything, as it will generally be a banner with 2 columns and basic colouring schemes. I recently updated my sites banner, as it was originally a horrible Arial font coloured blue with an image to the left of it. You can check out the original and various designs I went through and thought process for my new design at my blog if you wish. My site is not dedicated to web design or blogging tips, but I did do an update detailing my new banner that relates to this topic.

http://thebuypile.blogspot.com/2007/09/bringing-sexy-back-new-banner.html

In the first 1-3 months, split your time something like this:

* 10% initial set up and optimising design.
* 10% promotion. Directories, search engines, networking.
* 80% researching, writing, publishing content.

I blogged this here last week:

http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/05/25/how-to-start-blogging/

Only yesterday, I switched to a liquid, three-column design because a) I am a “liquid fetichist” and b) three columns make it easy to place the ads AND the navigational things (like Categories, search, archives) next to each other.

IMO, it is important to place ads and navigation as high on the page as possible. With three columns, I think I have solved that conflict between revenue and usability quite well.

Now I only have to get rid of that butterfly which is in the template… :)

This is great advice. I find the same thing with a lot of new guitar players. they want to spend money on some fancy guitar b/c they see their guitar hero playing it. But within a few weeks when they realize that you actually have to PRACTICE to get good they give up and then they are stck with a $700 guitar. Sure, it looks cool in the corner of their bedroom. Heck, they may even get a few chicks from it. But all in all, it was a waste of money.

Thanks for the post, i think you gust gave me a good idea for a topic on my guitar blog! i owe ya one!!!

Having said that, my content will always come first, and I try to compliment good articles with a pleasent design.

My advice — unless you’re going to heavily modify it, don’t go for a theme that is popular. I’m probably wrong for this, but as soon as I see a blog using an unmodified MistyLook theme, it has the same effect as seeing .blogspot.com

I am currently blogging on WordPress, and the advice Darren has given is the advice I have been trying to follow.

I picked a theme that works and I customized it a little bit to ensure easy access to content. My blog deals with technical content so I want to focus on creating a solid batch of content. My layout is usable, and being technical I would rather have the response be, good content, could be designed better, rather than pretty but no substance.

I like the house analogy, that is really helpful. Thanks for confirming the path I am following.

Practice blogging for a while, afterwards when you want to start something quite serious, then spend time (or money) on design.

I used the default template from wordpress for months and I built a following. Would a more professional template helped? probably, but since I am a part time blogger it surely would have distracted from content creation, which was much more important in the area I blog in (I’m still not sure what that area is, except it is my observations about stuff). I wish I had time to make a better blog template and I’m always looking for someone to help, but until then I fairly happy with what i have.

I have gotten hooked on this “YouTube”, just about everyone of my entries now has one if not more. Does anyone else use it? I know I went of topic a bit, Sorry.

I spent a lot of time before actually putting my site up into researching a good Wordpress template. I finally settled on one that looked like it was well-written and clean. I think it matches my content nicely, although it may look a little bland.