Blogger Templates

[DuncanM]

I just started a brand-new Blog on Blogger and am using one of the default templates available from within Blogger. There doesn't seem to be many choices--and all the templates are two-column. And a couple include Spanish words.

Any idea why they do that? Eventually (perhaps in six months or so), I would like to add AdSense to the right column of the blog. For that, ideally, I would like a three-column template (two columns plus the AdSense column). Or do the Blogger coders assume people will put AdSense ads to the right of the two columns anyhow? Why no three-column templates?

And why the Spanish? I assume the coder is Spanish, but wouldn't the staff at Blogger have double-checked to make sure everything is in English before offering the template to the world off the Blogger site?

[QuirkyJessi]

All you need to do is Google for Blogger templates. Blogger only offers a select amount themselves, but there are *thousands* of options out there that you can install yourself without much hassle at all.

[DavidB]

I agree with "QuirkyJessi" in that there are, indeed, template sites on the web that offer thousands of templates for Blogger. However, be prepared to take them with a grain of salt. Not all of them work as they appear to on their demo sites. I have recently been playing with a few and have gone through about five that didn't work as expected.

As you've noticed, many are written in Spanish.
Some don't scroll as you'd expect (for example, the sidebars don't scroll up with the main content, which may be an affect you do not want).
Some have small little windows for links that don't leave enough room for your links.
Some link to images all over the web (for example, instead of including their graphics in a zipped archive for hosting on your blog site, they include various links to images hosted on photobucket or some other image hosting site).

Even after narrowing your search down to several who fit into the theme of your blog, expect to try four or five templates before settling on one you think will work for you long-term.

[QuirkyJessi]

Originally Posted by DavidB

Some link to images all over the web (for example, instead of including their graphics in a zipped archive for hosting on your blog site, they include various links to images hosted on photobucket or some other image hosting site).

In reference to this, if you choose a template that includes links to pictures inside, please please please heed the warning. Upload them to your own site first (or host them on photobucket even, but within your own account). That way, if the original host ever decides to delete/move a picture that's linked within your site, you don't end up with a huge hole in your theme that messes everything up.