Which template is best for a blog?

Created a new blog or want to change your current blog's template. If you are thinking that which template should be installed on your blog, then this post is definitely going to help you. Never install a template on your blog without reading this post.

Metro Classic Template for Blogger

Name of Blogger Template: Metro Classic Template

For: Gadgets, Technology, Geeks, Girls, Personal Blog, Product blog or website.

By: Templateism
Published: May, 2013

            

Description: The template has good and different colors. Colors are suitable for eyes and produces freshness. The publisher got the great idea of page menu and links at left side. Your sidebar will be on left side. At the top you will have announcement line announce what you want to announce from your blog or website. A great effect is seen when you hover over the page menu at left. The page menu has metro theme picture with the caption of pages. The template is compatible with all updated browsers We tested the template on Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Apple's Safari. Below announcement there is 'featured posts area' which can be customized by editing HTML of your template. The template is responsive that is when your browser's size is re-sized or on the smaller or bigger screens, the template adjusts the content of your blog to make it look perfect and the viewer don't have to scroll horizontally. However there are some cons of this template, which are, featured posts widget does not add the post automatically and you should have time and knowledge to edit the template's HTML. 

Points to remember: In this template you can post image with any size but the width of images should be more than 700 pixels for no pixels blurring.

How to setup: There are no special widgets that you will have to setup and you can enjoy the template by just installing on blogger

Cricket Mag Template for Blogger

Name of Blogger Template: Cricket Mag

For: All blogs or websites which post news or articles about any sport specially cricket.

By: Templateism

Published: August, 2013

             Description: The template is designed for the blogs which are about cricket. But the template can be customized for any sport. For example Soccer, Tennis, Basket Ball or any other sport in this world. The template can also be used for news blogs and websites. The template has green and black theme with a background picture in which there are bats, balls, and the wills. You can customize the background image by going to Template > Edit HTML. The template has a great looking social pages menu buttons that are very light gray colored and become colored and more stylish when mouse is hovered over the buttons. The template also serves featured posts, and most recent posts. Footer is designed perfectly like any professional template. The template also has 'Related Articles' widget below posts and 'Share it please' above posts by default. The template has great advertising spots where you can place your adsense widget/codes. Templateism claim that the template is not just 'SEO friendly' it is 'Highly SEO friendly' and will bring traffic quickly after you start posting. The pages menu at the top of template is the most interesting part of template because it is multi-level. For example you can place your pages like: Teams > South Asia > India. Things to remember: You can post images of any size but we recommend you to post images with ratio 59:44 (e.g. 590 X 440 or 1180 X 880). Don't try to extend the title of your posts more than 50 characters or less than 30 characters. How to setup: There are no instructions for 'How to setup' for this template.

Retina: A template for technology websites/blogs

Name of Blogger Template: Retina
For: Websites or Blogs about technology, tutorials, geeks, tutorials, gadgets, apps et cetera.
By: Templateism
Published: June, 2013

            

Description: Retina template suits every blog. If it is personal, about geeks, technology, games, softwares, information, SEO, illustration or anything. Retina template is perfect with its blue colored superb fonts. Retina template is premium and is free for download by Templateism. The template has many categories to show posts on the homepage of your blog and your blog's home page look fantastic and static page. Your blog or website becomes professional. The most of the leading tech websites uses the similar templates. The template has great footer. The template shows the team members of the blog/website. The widgets above footer are really good. Everything is perfect.

Things to remember: You should fix the number of characters of the post titles in your brain because if you post the posts with different length of titles then at the homepage of your blogger home, the posts in two columns will not look great.

How to setup:

Posts: you should upload images with ratio of Width:Height 14:9 (e.g. 280X180 or 1400X900) for best results on homepage.

Featured posts (Technology, Sports, etc.): To feature posts in technology or sports on home page just label the posts with respective label. E.g. if you want to feature a post under technology label that 'Technology'. If you want to edit the featured categories you can do that by going to your blogger account > your blog > Template > Edit HTML. Then find by pressing Ctrl+F and typing the name/label of categories there and replacing with your own category.

How to install a template on Blogger?

Are you bored with Blogger's own default template or theme and want to install an awesome template for your Blogger's blog. Actually Blogger support third-party templates to be installed on your Blogger's blog beside the Blogger's own default templates.  For example, TechiMen is also powered by Blogger but we don't use Blogger's Template. So you can also use any template you want to install on your blog.

There was a time when people said that there are not good templates for Blogger's blog like Wordpress have. But now these are only excuses. Actually these people are lazy because they are not updating their Blogger Template with an awesome looking template from free template providing websites like bTemplates, Templateism, etc. (see the full list of such websites -under updation)

So follow the following steps, and you will be able to install the template you want to.

Steps:

1. Download a Blogger template from a template providing website like bTemplates, Templateism, etc.

2. Now find the .xml file you downloaded. If you you have downloaded a zip file then extract that and find the .xml file.

3. Go to Blogger, login and go to your blog

4. Now click on 'Template' from dashboard.

5. Then click on 'Backup/Restore'

6. Now click on 'Choose File'

7. Now select the .xml file from your computer.

8. Click on 'Upload'

9. Done. Now you can customize your template by clicking on 'Edit HTML'

Videoism: A template for video blogs

Name of the Blogger Template: Videoism

For: Video Blogs or Video Hosting Websites

By: Templateism

Published: July, 2013

            

Description: The template is for video portals or blogs. We tested the template on Google Chrome and the template worked well after setting it up. The template is SEO friendly and has many features that a video portal should have like video counter, featured videos etc. Basically the template's theme is sky blue font on white background (However you can customize the font colors by going to 'Edit HTML' in Template section on your blog's dashboard).

How to setup: Before you setup the template you have to install the template (click here to check how?) to your Blogger's blog.

1. Posts: To embed video use the following way, because if you try other way to embed the videos, then may be the video's thumbnails do not work on the home page of your video blog/portal.

<iframe width="662" height="320" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Bf38HiYPMiI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

2. Featured Videos Widget: To add this widget you have to go to Blogger > Your Blog > Layout> Add Widget > HTML/JavaScript. Now paste the following code there in the widget and click 'Save'
<script style='text/javascript'> var numposts = 6; var showpostthumbnails = true; var displaymore = false; var displayseparator = false; var showcommentnum = false; var showpostdate = true; var showpostsummary = true; var numchars = 75; </script> <script src='/feeds/posts/summary/-/Feature?orderby=published&alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentpostswiththumbs'></script>
Label 'Feature' those posts of videos you want to feature. You can also customize this to your choice.

We hope that you will enjoy the post. Comment if you are facing problems using this template.