Using Blogger Instead of Web Design from Scratch

Google's blogger is the herald of a coming “do it yourself” web design revolution. Although you still need someone who is a little tech savvy to get the most out of Blogger, it's the precursor to something much bigger. It's the first service where you can put together a reasonable website for your business, without the need of a professional web designer. My wife and I have done some experimenting with this idea and found that with a little tweaking, you can convert a Blogger blog, into a fully functioning website.

Here are a few simple ways to make the conversion:

1. Think about the typical pages you'll want for your website. Services, About Us, Contact Page, etc. Now write one post for each of those pages, inserting pictures, copy and links as needed. Label as you normally would.
2. Now the twist. Blogger assigns each one of your blog posts their own 'page'. If you go to your blogger blog and click on the title of any post, you'll be taken to a page that has just that post on it (all others disappear). You can then take the link for that post, out of your address bar (the thing at the top of your browser with the www) and save it as a link (copy it down somewhere for later, like a notepad file).
3. After you've saved each of your post's links, you want to go into your Blogger blog's Layout. Choose the Page Elements tab. What we're going to do is create a page element in your sidebar, the Links List element. Take each of the links to your posts, title them and add them to the Links List element. Don't forget to make a link for your Homepage, which you can either type up a static post for your homepage or just use the main link of your blogger account (insertname.blospot.com).

Now you've got a navi bar just like a regular website! It's a simple concept, but it's very handy since most people who use the internet are used to a certain format when they come to websites. Now that you've got a navi bar, people will start using your blog like a website. The best of both worlds, wrapped up in one.

Of course if you want your blog to have it's own unique look, instead of using the standard templates, you're going to have to get someone who's knowledgeable in CSS and Editing Images. This is where you can hire a web designer or web company to really make your new blog website shine.

Seigfried Designs provides web design services for blogger, wordpress and any other blogging format you care to use.

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Alex Seigfried, Owner; Philadelphia, PA