How to: get that ~*~aesthetic~*~

Happy Saturday, everyone! Today on my how to series, I’m talking about how to make your blog look nice!

Quick disclaimer: I’m not trying to say that I’m an expert or the best at this, by any means. These are honestly just things I’ve found work for me, and that I wanted to know when I started my blog. I’m definitely not an expert at graphic design, either, so if you want tips on that, this is not the post for you, unfortunately.

I know some people who have such lovely themes and graphics, but alas, I am not one of them. However, there are super easy ways to make your blog and blog posts still look nice. Your aesthetic doesn’t need to be super complicated or fancy. I just use free florals and straight pink lines. But, it makes your blog look more cohesive (imo).

General tip: you can copy posts! I find this super helpful for posts I do frequently with links (like T5W or T5T) because the links are already there, as well as the categories and tags you put. It’s also useful for keeping the format of your posts consistent.

To do this, you click on the three dots next to a published or unpublished post of yours and select “copy”.

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Have a featured image

A featured image is the image you see on the WordPress reader or on your blog. If you don’t have a feature image, WordPress randomly chooses one from the post (usually the first one). Personally, when I’m blog hopping, I’m more likely to read someone’s post if they have some sort of featured image.

Make sure you check your featured images and headers to make sure they’re not blurry! Generally, the dimensions WordPress gives are vvv small. They give the dimensions in pixels, which doesn’t work when blown up. Often, the headers look fine on a mobile device, but on a laptop or computer, they look super blurry. For my blog header, I think I did 4x what WordPress said, and it was still blurry. So just play around with the dimensions until it’s not blurry.

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Put the book covers in your post

Doing this breaks up big blocks of text and makes posts easier to read. It’s also useful for people skimming your post: if they see a cover they know or like, they’re more likely to read what you have to say about it.

• Time management tip: putting the covers individually takes time, though. So instead, at the very least, bold the title and author of the book.

That being said, if someone has bad wifi or connection, or their phone doesn’t automatically download pictures, they won’t see what book you’re talking about. So make sure you also put the name of the book below the cover. There are so many times I’m reading posts on my phone, and I don’t know what book people are talking about because they only put the cover and don’t mention the book below.

These two bloggers have the titles in the blog post, so it’s easy to know what books they’re talking about even when the pictures don’t load.

This blogger doesn’t put the title, so I have no idea what book they’re talking about when the picture doesn’t load.

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Use the vertical line feature!!

It’s honestly so useful!! Use it to break up sections of your posts, like the intro, or different points! Again, this makes it easier to read and breaks up massive chunks of text.

New editor

Old editor (what I still use)

At the very least, use multiple, shorter paragraphs. This makes the post easier for the reader to read. Also bold the parts you want people to read!

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Canva is your new best friend

You can use Canva to make graphics, headers, icons, collages. Whatever you need, really. And it’s free!! There are some graphics you have to pay for, but either (a) they’re very cheap or (b) you don’t have to use them and can normally find a good dupe. Canva is what I use to make all my featured images, headers, and the pink lines in the posts. For most of the free graphics, you can edit the colours to fit your ~*~aesthetic~*~

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Speaking of which: have a colour scheme!!

Tbh, the hardest thing for me was choosing a colour scheme and sticking to it. I switched my colour scheme every couple of months for a while, and have been settled on pink for a while (but I also want to change it to make it purple or blue so that might happen at some point). Your colour scheme can be whatever you want, but try to make it consistent throughout your blog.

At the end of the day, it’s your blog. Do you what you want and what you think looks good. I know some people who put minimal effort into the appearance of their blog, and they’re still some of my favourites because they have great content and are great to talk to. Appearances definitely aren’t everything.

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Here are some other bloggers’ posts on blog design, if you want to read more!

• May has a great post with lots of good beginner tips and links to websites to get pictures!
• Vicky has a post on how to make book covers into horizontal headers, which is so useful and makes your headers look so professional.

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But those are some of my tips for how to make your blog look nice! What are yours? Do you have any I should try? Let me know!

If there’s anything you want me to cover, let me know and I can do my best!

Thanks for reading! xx