How to Add Your Own Template To Blogger/Blogspot

11:41:00 PM

How to Add Your Own Template To Blogger

The look of your blog is a deciding factor whether your reader will return to your blog or not. But if you have opted for blogspot/blogger to create a blog for free then you know that the templates available by blogspot/blogger are certainly not much and certainly not appealing to the eyes. So I thought why not add a third party template to my blog and also teach you how to do so too.

First you have to choose a theme for your blog or create one yourself. The latter is suitable only if you have a solid understanding of HTML and know how to create fast and efficient code to reduce site load time (Believe me creating good HTML design is hard so I suggest you stay out of that area). But if you plan to create a custom template yourself I will post an article in the future to tell you how to add your own custom HTML template.

But if you choose to find a third party template there are three ways to get one.

1) Find a free blogger/blogspot supported template

2) Find a paid blogger/blogspot supported template (Recommended since these templates are normally of higher quality than free ones)

3) Hire a designer to create you a custom design to your liking (I’m guessing this out of the question if you are using blogspot/blogger.

You can quickly find a free or paid template by searching on Bing or Google by using phrases like “Free blogger template” or “Free blogspot templates” or “Best blogspot template”. Once you find a template you like, many sites will have the chance to view a demo of the template on a blogspot hosted blog. After you have a tested the template and if you like it you can the download the template. Most of the downloads will contain a folder with a .xml file and a documentation file (Usually a file that opens in the browser and it contains how you can install the template and tweak the template further with widgets).

Before you upload the .xml file you should back up your existing template first. To do that click on the Backup/Restore button I have highlighted in the Template section (Look at the Image).

Once you click it you will be see an popup like in the image below and press the orange color “Download the full template” button then the template will be downloaded to wherever your downloads are downloaded (Usually to downloads folder in windows PC, but will depend on where your browser stores the downloads).

After you have done that press the Backup/Restore button again and once the pop up appears press the “choose file” button and once the window appears choose the .xml file of your template (The 3^rd party one not the one you just backed up) and select it.

After you have done that press “Upload” button of the popup to upload the new template.

Congratulations, you have changed the look of your blog, but before you celebrate you got to properly arrange your widgets in the layout panel to make sure your blog looks okay. Once you have done that save the arrangements and press “View Blog” to check out your blog and see if it is okay.

Navigation-Menus (Do Not Edit Here!)

Geek Bloggers of 21st Century

How to Add Your Own Template To Blogger/Blogspot