FREE Blogger Resources for Authors - Site Design Tips

by JoAnne Kenrick

JoAnne Kenrick

Wow. What a week it's been. So busy. Deadlines on projects are approaching and having my selkie book acquired by www.DecadentPublishing.com . Yeah. I've been busy. And amid all that crazy, I decide to overhaul my online image; my site, blog, twitter, portfolio, facebook.. yeah, the whole lot got a re-design. I wanted a style that was more me. Something I could use to uniform all my online places so I had an identity, so to speak. And the most challenging part of that was making my blogger domain look more like a website and less like a blog.
Thank goodness for folks who offer FREE resources. That's all I'm saying. And to save you time, because I bet you're just as busy as I am, I thought it'd be darn handy if I threw all the ones I use in one post for you.

http://www.southernspeakers.net/

Firstly, and most importantly, all those little tricks and cheats to give your blogger a more website-type-feel, hit up Southern Speakers! There's nothing you can't do with their codes. Seriously. They've thought of everything and continue to add to their library of awesomeness. From disabling many 'blog' tell tale signs to setting yourself a new home page so visitors land on a welcome message instead of a listed pile of blog posts.  And the little things, too. Like centering your title banner. Yeah, isn't that annoying how blogger hard sets your banner to the left? Not with a simple little html code that's really easy to insert. Trust me. This site is invaluable to BLOGGER users.

My next big tip is how to create professional looking banners with a small or zero budget.
Yeah. FREE online photo editor is what you need. And you can find that here. http://pixlr.com
Get your background sorted then save it and open it up here: http://pixlr.com/o-matic/. Play around with all the easy to add effects. When you're happy with it, save that photo and open it up in http://pixlr.com to add your text.

Take a look and see what I did with those FREE resources at my newly made over website and blog.

www.joannekenrick.com

And if you visited my blog, you'll notice I have a neat little widget right at the top of my page that displays my last five tweets. You can find this FREE widget and other cool ones here: http://www.notifysnack.com/ & http://www.bannersnack.com/en/

Have you got any tips to share on how to create professional looking spaces with blogger?
Got something you want to do with your blogger but can't figure out how to do it? Ask away. You never know. I may have come across the code you need!

Happy coding...and of course, as always, happy reading!

JoAnne Kenrick is a multi-published author who writes both contemporaries and paranormals. Her Irish Kisses series earned her the title of an Amazon and Bookstrand bestselling author, and she regularly blogs with The Pop Culture Divas, Diamond Authors, and Paranormal Romantics. When JoAnne's not writing, she enjoys creating book adverts for youtube. www.joannekenrick.com www.tinyletter.com/joannekenrick