When you want to blog as a business, you need to have a strong brand. Part of this means having a great looking website that is easy to navigate and pictures that are instantly recognisable as your brand. There is a lot that goes into building your brand, but for today we are going to think about your image – how your blog looks, the colours you use, your header and also your fonts. This is my favourite part of building any website!
Picking a theme
Picking a theme is so important to your blog. There are tons of free and premium themes around, and you do get what you pay for! I switched to the Genesis framework and a child theme from Studiopress a few years ago, and it has made a massive difference. Customising my blog is SO easy now, I never have to fiddle with coding. Although this is achieved with a paid theme, you can definitely choose a free theme!
Before you start looking for a theme, think about how you want your website to look. Visit a few of your favourite blogs and take away things you love about them. Then think about things like whether you want a sidebar and use those criteria to find a blog theme that you love.
Whether you are choosing a free theme (there are somehere) or a paid theme, make sure that it is mobile responsive. This means that it will automatically work magic to fit on mobile devices and it helps your search engine rankings.
Install themes is super easy – log in to your dashboard and click on Appearance>Themes>Add new. Make sure to activate it after you have installed it.
To customise your theme, go to Appearance>Customise and start making changes.
Choosing your colours
This is by far my favourite bit, and it is all thanks to a wonderful website called ColorLovers. I am so bad at choosing colours that go together, but on ColorLovers someone has already done the hard work for me.
Find a colour palette that you like – you might want to pop over to Canva to see how the colours work together, by placing text of one colour above a background of another.
Choosing your fonts
This isn't a requirement, I actually like to mix up my fonts on my images, but if you want to really bring your brand together then you might want to consider having the same set of fonts for your images. I would suggest trying them out on Canva.
Don't spend all your time creating your brand
Creating your brand and your ~corporate identity~ is great, but remember that you can change it later if something isn't working for you. I think I am on my 7th design by now. If you let it then this will bug you for ages – set a time limit and then MOVE ON!
