Everyone who intends to create a blog faces the struggle of choosing a right template for it. This guide is for people who have never had a blog before, have no idea about what such a template should have and how templates differ one from another.
1. Bet on responsiveness
Nowadays people browse websites even during a family dinner. That’s why a website should be equally well displayable on various devices – not only on computers. Information on whether a given template for a blog is responsive should be found in its description. If there is no description, it’s ok.
You can check accordingly: reduce the size of the browser window and simply stretch it several times in different directions, into rectangles and squares to see how the page will behave in different sizes of the tab. Whether the appearance adapts… If you see that a scroll bar has appeared at the bottom, it means that it is not responsive.
2. Make it readable and clear
There are many different templates. Unfortunately, there are also those which make websites look unclear. Too many distractions, no clear division, e.g. with side panel space. It’s also important to be able to choose font sizes and types. When all the letters blur one witch another and the page doesn’t have invisible “dividing lines”, as a result you get one big “mess”, that’s difficult to read even for the authors themselves.
3. Picture to distinguish an article
Consider whether you want to include Distinctive photos in the header of each single post. Many templates don’t have a header photo option, in others you can put them in the header only with a specific resolution or only vertically or horizontally.
However, if you don’t want to include photos in the header of the post then also make sure that in this template you can opt it out.
4. Don’t waste any space
There are templates in which the width of the article reaches only 1/4 of the screen. In that way there’s a wasted space on the sides, which could be perfectly adapted for other elements – useful on a blog – e.g. to build a mailing list. Therefore, check the whole page layout on a particular template. What’s under the post, how the sides are used, how headers and bullet points look, etc.
5. Template loading speed
Some templates are faster, others are slower. Obviously, it is better to choose those that work faster. You can check it with, for example, the PageSpeed Insight tool.
6. Personalization
Templates differ in how they are configured and personalized. In many templates, for example, you can set side-bars only on one side of the screen, in others you have the option to choose or even to use both sides. In some templates there is a slider, in others not, etc. Generally, the more options a template has, the more options you are able to maneuver to make your website stand out from the rest.
7. Sidebars
These sidebars are nothing else but side panels on the left or on the right (or both). If you want to earn on affiliate programs, then you should definitely opt for such a template with a sidebar. The same applies to building a list of contacts, which you can use to earn by selling e.g. your own product or even to send to listed people the information about upcoming articles. That’s how you direct attention to the website and get more views.
