Tips On Book Blogging | Design & Layout | FTM

Everyone has to start some where. We did. RQK and I started this blog on a whim, and it has been a little over a year since we have started writing on this blog. I am not trying to sound obnoxious or self-conceded but I truly think that we both have improved in our works on this blog, and our overall look on where we want this to go. 

When we first started this blog, it was very unorganised. There is a reason why our blog is called Bookish Randomz. Blogs have to have a main focus, our focus before was bookish updates and random book posts. Since we were this little tiny blog on the Internet, no person would come to our blog for book-movie adaptation news or any bookish news in general because there are plenty of people on the Internet who can provide the news before we can. Another problem was that I did not have any restraint on what I wrote and posted, I would post the most random things that did not make sense, everything in the post would be unorganised and I would post nine times a month at least. 

In this post, I am going to about our blog as a whole, my experiences and obviously some helpful (hopefully they are helpful) tips!

Design & Layout: 

1. Simple is better!

I know the pressure of having to want a very fancy, pretty layout for you blog. This can involve many colours, designs and complicated HTML codes. However, if you are just starting out and this is just going to be one of your hobbies, you should keep in mind that you don't need to have a fancy template. You can make the best out of any template that is available on Blogger. What's important is how you customise it for you. Don't model your layout and design after someone else's, customise it to be as you as possible.

     2.  Widgets 

Widgets are a very important factor to your blog. Blogger has a wide variety of widgets that can allow your readers to follow you, see how many page views you have and there is so much more. However, there are some restrictions to the widgets that available. For example, there is no Instagram widget that allows your readers to follow you, there is no twitter feed widget, there is not a slide show that showcases your Instagram photos and there is no Goodreads widgets. When I first started designing this blog, I was very confused on why these weren't available on Blogger.  These widgets can be a little tricky to find, however they can either be accessed through the settings of the social media website you are thinking of, there will usually be a HTML code that you can copy and paste into the HTML/Java Script widget. Or you can google different tutorials to find ones to your liking.

     3. Organisation 

Now that you have your template and your widgets, here comes the annoying, time consuming organisation part of designing your blog. Organisation is another HUGE factor in designing and your layout of your blog! There is such a thing as too much on blogs. It is very unappealing to the eye if you have too many widgets on your sidebars. Make sure to ask yourself if this widget is really beneficial to your blog, and will it help people gain interest in your blog. Too much widgets can be very overwhelming for readers! If every single widget on your blog is very important, make sure you space them out where ever you can!

   

    4. COLOURS, AND COLOURS AND COLOURS OH MY!

Black text on a white background is better. It sounds boring but it is the most appealing to the eye and it's the easiest to read. It can look nice but it's very hard to read sometimes. For example, if you had a book, and the pages were neon green and the text was neon yellow, would you be able to read it without being distracted? Also, if you have a very detailed and fancy background GET RID OF IT! It distracts your readers from reading what is supposed to be the main focus of your blog which is the content. Moral of this story is... Less is more. Don't worry, we've all been down the busy colourful path.

Originally I planned on having this post discussing two different topics, design & layout but also, writing and posting! However while I was writing that part it didn't save and I knew I had to schedule something for this day because I knew I wouldn't have time to write anything else. More blogging tips will probably come out if not next month in a few months!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! Feel free to ask any questions! Also, if this helped you in any way, please comment below and tell me so I know to write the next one!

Please feel free to follow our blog!

Check out our social media!