Your favorite MMO blog John Chow dot Com has gone thru a complete blog design makeover last week. Shoemoney already did that a couple of month back. Worth mentioning here kid Carl Ocab stated in his recent post that bloggers in their early stages worry about their design too much. They spend countless hours working around their theme,… they lose time or if not, lose energy to create a good post. Problogger Darren Rowse warns; blog design is important at creating a first impression but when you find yourself tweaking it, reworking it, planning your next one more than actually writing content for your blog you might be in trouble.
I agree with his statement, yes blogger do concern too much about their blog design rather then concentrating on writing good articles. Well I guess everyone has to go through this stage of blogging, I remember initial blogging days when I used to change my blog theme every month. 
It will be interesting to note what your take on the following:
I’m planning to re-design this blog in next one month or so, initially I consider buying a premium theme and going through a complete conversion but now I feel I will do the redesigning by myself and only will make few necessary changes in blog header design and placing some extra widgets. My blog friend Nadeesha promises me that he will help me out doing this.
Buddy Sayed Balkhis helping you pimp your blog design, provided if you sign up to his feeds and lucky enough to be chosen by him for blog re-design services.
Well if you think blog design or theme plays an important part then I would like you to analyze following
Popular Blogs with Premium Blog Designs
[2] Shoemoney
[3] Zac Johnson
[4] Yaro Starak
[5] Problogger
Popular Blogs with very simple blog Designs/Layouts
[1] TechCrunch
[2] Dosh Dosh
[3] Seth Godin
[4] Copy Blogger
[5] Chris Brogan
Stand out of the crowd
I do consider your Blog design means a lot, if your blog looks exactly like other hundreds and thousands blogs in the blogsphere then definitely it will be easy for you to create a distinguish identity. But if you wish to do so you can opt to buy and install a premium blog theme on your blog. Here is where you can find one:
You can grab a unique blog theme as low as US $ 79.
Here is the code – Go and grab it.
Comment below how much you are concerned about your blog design/Theme/Layout.
I am expecting some interesting answers.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I think every blog should have its own design. I see a lot of blogs that just use free themes or whatever and they look to generic.
You custom design grabs my attention and it keeps me there to read what the blogger has to say
Bruno Augers last blog post..Social Networking and Social Network Sites
Thanks for appreciating, Hope to see you around.
Perhaps you should say popular blogs with custom blgo themes … Because premium means they bought a team which everyone else can buy as well.. But no they ordered a custom design. Citrus is a premium theme because everyone can buy it.
I think it doesn’t matter to them because they are not tweaking it themselves. They have a company that works for them. If you find yourself tweaking it often then it is an issue…
Syed Balkhis last blog post..Mega Wednesday – Money Reign (Zac Johnson)
Thanks Balkhis for your note on Custom and Premium theme, these are some important little things which we need to learn from you experienced bloggers.
This is a very nice post. In this moment, I am designing my personalized template for my new graphic website.
Nilos last blog post..Obese Pusang Maganda
All the best for your new project.
I am crazy about my blog design. I am currently tweaking my template. I am never satisfied so I keep on re-designing it.
Amors last blog post..Fun Time with Sean
Hi Shanker!
Unique design is very important without a doubt, but for that, you need to either be an expert in designing or have lots of bucks to spend! I prefer to take a freely available but good SEO ready theme and modify it until I am exhausted !!
Co-incidentally, I too updated my blog design last week. Check it out!
Abhinav Sonkars last blog post..Guitar Chords: Aashayein, Iqbal
Tweaking themes really is tedious. Sometimes I need to skip blogging just to tweak themes, but I don’t want it to do anymore. I’ll wait when I have time to redesign my blog at the same time blogging. Those Citrus themes look professionally designed. I like the lemon lime color scheme, good color for photo blogs.
I am all for a unique customised design as it gives the blog an identity , its like a brand in the marketplace that will do well if it has its own identity. i am looking for a designer to customise my blog. If any of you know someone please let me know
It is like meeting a person first time
They say : first impression is the last impression
I must say John Chow has amazed me with his new design! I love it! I think the design is important especially for new visitors – as it keeps them looking til they find some decent content to make them stay!
Tom – StandOutBlogger.coms last blog post..Sunday Question: What Would You Be Doing If The Internet Did Not Exist?
Well, not that crazy. I know someone who paid a lot of money to get 3 full redesigns of his blog in less than a year!
Lucass last blog post..Contest Winners
I think a good theme is important for a professional look and how organised your blog is. I have seen blogs that are so messy and thus making it very difficult to navigate about in the blog. I certainly advise people to spend their time wisely on getting a theme and instead of switching from themes to themes.
Wei Liangs last blog post..Lesson 4: Blog Layout, Structure & Design
Hi Shankar,
I strongly believe that a unique & custom design is more important than content.
WHY??
Because when a visitor lands on your site for the first time he is more interested in the content. Analysis prove that a visitor coming along with Google juice or your comments on other blogs… scans first few lines in 5-10 seconds, which decides his stay before he hits the comments area or else he will just add up another bounce unit.
On the other hand a Unique Design will catch up his attention and the user will surely look at the sidebars and other elements. This will help a blogger to increase the readership and may be he likes other stuff on your blog!!
For example I created http://www.mohitaneja.com which is a unique WordPress blog layout and I got a lot of appreciation for the layout and my visitors motivated me to start my own freelance business (http://www.cssjockey.com).
I proudly accept that a single layout helped me to be a well established freelance web-developer!!
I checked John Chow dot Com’s layout too. It’s a simple and effective custom design which highlights each section very well!! I am sure he will notice upward trends on visit time lengths
Mohit Aneja
{CSS:Jockey;}
I love my own blog design, i always keep it a valid XHTML.
Hello Shanker,
I adore simple designs like TechCrunch’s and Chris Brogan’s. Chris Pearson’s works really fascinated me. Yea, I’m one of those people that are scrupulous about their blog’s theme.
Very nice information. Thanks for this. By the way, did you create this layout yourself?
Design is the ace if content is king. I actually researched CSS of which I know precious little and fixed up a design that suited my post. It is very important to stand out of the crowd; moreover design invites the readers of the first time not just the content.