When I began dabbling with my very first website, a simple Flavors.me design that was basically a glorified business card, I felt baffled by slick, pretty fashion and lifestyle blogs. Where did bloggers find such clean, elegant and chic themes? How were their images so crisp, vivid and consistent?
I have a lot to learn on all these fronts, but I’m happy with how this blog has evolved over the last year. Here is exactly what I did, complete with missteps. Feel free to follow the steps exactly if you want a blog identical to this one (I recommend skipping steps 1 and 3).
1. Bought hosting and registered a domain on WordPress.com.
2. Bought the Adeline theme from 17th Avenue Designs.
3. Realized WordPress.com didn’t support custom themes, and that I needed to transfer my hosting and switch to WordPress.org.
4. Hired Ahmed Rameez from Elance.com to transfer my hosting to Godaddy.com and work out a few bugs.
5. Installed Adeline theme.
6. Bought an About Me graphic from 17th Avenue and installed it in my sidebar.
7. Found Gala Darling’s killer list of blog resources, free Blogging Basics video and began following her tips to make the whole place feel more streamlined. I also bought the Blogcademy’s About Me video guide, because I really struggled with writing about myself.
8. Installed Google Analytics Dashboard for WP, SEO by Yoast, Tumblr crosspostr and drop cap plugins.
9. Sourced stock photos from Death To The Stock Photo and Unsplash, and cropped them to a uniform width of 700 pixels for visual consistency. Customized my banner using PicMonkey.
10. Applied to Southern Blog Society, BlogHer and Clever Girls Collective for brand partnership opportunities and a sense of community.
That’s the big stuff so far. If you blog, what would you advise?
Hi Missy! I’m a obsessive one for simplicity and interoperability (looks the same on any web browser).. Happy New year to you.
Hi Missy. 🙂 Looks pretty good to me. I like the layout but the fonts could be darker (for readability). I’m an obsessive one for simplicity and interoperability (looks the same on any web browser). http://rbigelo.sdf.org/ Happy New Year! \o/
Happy new year to you, too. Thanks for the link to your blog. Very simple and classy, like you. I do want to tweak the font at some point. It can be a little too light of a gray. Thank you for the suggestions!
Hi. 🙂 I’m the developer of Tumblr Crosspostr. I just wanted to stop by to say thanks a bunch for mentioning my plugin on your site. It’s very rewarding knowing how many folks are making use of a tool I originally just wrote for myself for themselves, too. Congrats on the success of getting your site up and again, thanks for the shout out about Tumblr Crosspostr!
Wow, thank you for paying my site a visit. AND for developing a really useful plugin. I doubted I would have dipped my toe into the Tumblr waters without it. Have a good one!