Can I be cheeky and ask for layout advice?

[ConfusedPixie]

I don't like my blog's layout. Something about it winds me up, colouring, layout, something. I honestly know my content is undirected and boring and I am not bothered about that as that reflects me at the moment! I just want some tips on the layout. Is the colouring okay? Is it basic enough or should I change it? How should the sidebars look and what order should it be in? Should I scrap the lot and restart the layout?

It's on blogger:
unrealisedpotential.blogspot.co.uk/

TIA

It's very...green....

As for layout, I'd move your sidebars to the other side so your posts are first as you read left to right.

I don't know much about Blogger, but what I do know, I don't like. Have you considered moving over to Wordpress?

It is! I have changed around the colours in the past but it's the only combo I like for the polka dots and I'm too lazy to sift through the other background/layout options

I have considered wordpress but I haven't had the chance to really look into it tbh, and I like linking my blogs to each other and it's really easy to do that on blogger. I wouldn't know where to start with wordpress

That you for your time though! :)

Don't mind the colour scheme - it's fresh and cheerful. However, I totally agree that your sidebar should be on the right. It feels odd to have to shift my eyes to the right to read your posts. You need to bump your nav up higher too and make it more obvious. I don't really care who wrote it or how many shiny badges you have. I want to know what's available and how to access it! (I = your readers.) The blog archive or the tag cloud or a new nav menu - whatever tickles your fancy, so long as it makes it easy to sift through your posts.

Wordpress is super easy. Either hosted (dotcom) or self-hosted (dotorg). You could export your blog posts and upload them to your new/next blog. Depends on how much customisation you really want to do. Blogger has a much smaller learning curve but WP allows you to control a lot more things.

Larger text would help. It might be my age, but I hate peering at a screen. I also find it more difficult to read dark text on coloured background - it is one of the things that makes me click the browser window closed.

Use a white background with dark text, and it will all look less green.

Agree that the boxes need to go to the other side, and move the important stuff up so that people can browse your earlier posts.

Definitely move the sidebars and if you can, use the jump break to shorten the articles on the main page ( gives skimming a better chance)

If there is something you want people to do use a bold button telling them what to do in an upper right position.

Otherwise loads of great content

Thank you for the tips :)

Fallen: I haven't been able to work out the jump break. I used to use it on livejournal and was really annoyed by not being able to work it out on blogger when I first switched over!

I may leave it for now so that I can play with wordpress a bit and move it all over.

Is wordpress relatively easy to customise? Could I do a similar background (with plain white background for the posts) without too much trouble? & can you do jump breaks in wordpress? I do prefer blogs with them!

And the about me blurb, should that be at the top of the sidebar or on a separate page? And the past posts and tags/labels/whatever they call them these days should be up higher too for navigation purposes.

Oh, and one of my posts is particularly popular the only thing people come onto my blog for and is a knitting pattern, apart from updating the link on Ravelry, what do I do with it otherwise? People will still have the old link on their blogs and I don't want my only traffic to stop!

Ditch blogger and go to WP.

You can do all you want and much much more on WP

Moved it all over for ease of customisation. Now I just need to find a simple, free layout to use that I like.

Don't delete your old Blogger account. Change the old blog post to a simple "this is where you can find the pattern now" type linky. Leave the photo up, if there is one (because you can get a lot of traffic via Google image searches). Update the Rav link. And ping the new blog post. (Although if you are using a hosted WP blog instead of self-hosting, then it should automatically ping for you.)

Hopefully, all of the above will help keep your traffic routed to your new blog post. :)

Brilliant :) I didn't plan on deleting it as I am still very impressed with my 5000 page views, which is nothing compared to some I know, but it's a lot for me! Who knew that there were so many kinky bastards out there after a pattern for knitted handcuffs ey?

By ping do you mean linking in or redirecting somehow? I've never understood 'ping'

Pinging is... telling SE bots that you've got a new/updated URL to crawl.

This is a good service: pingomatic.com/
But there are lots of them out there.

The hosted WP blogs (on Wordpress.com) usually are set up to ping automatically. My WP blogs are self-hosted though (Wordpress.org), so I can choose to have an automatic ping set-up or do it manually myself.

I'm into webdev, btw, so feel free to call me on it if I use techy terms without realising! lol

Thanks fcknits :) I know bits and pieces wrt techy terms but not much

Here is the new one on wordpress:
unrealisedpotential.wordpress.com/

I like the format of that one but haven't got the option to move the sidebar, so I'm going to retrawl the layouts this weekend to try and find one similar that is free.

Anyone know an email I can use to tell MNHQ for the blogging network?

Thanks for the help :)

Try [email protected] to inform them of the new blog address.

If you really like your current theme, you could always create a child theme and set the sidebar to the right - if you have some PHP knowledge.

Otherwise, there are tons of free WP themes out there. I'm sure you'll find one that suits. :)

Jump break is on the editor menu between add video and justify text.