Beautiful DIY Blog Design Tips

If you’re like me and love a well designed blog but simply don’t want to spend your hard earned cash paying someone to do it, this post is for you. 

The design for this blog was done 100% by me, and I know absolutely NOTHING about coding. With a little resourcefulness and utilizing information online, you can create the look you want to achieve for your blog for little to no money. 

Here are 5 tips I have for DIYing a beautiful blog:

1. Use Google and YouTube to your full advantage.

I don’t know what I would do if it weren’t for Google. You can type in anything and in one second have a dozen articles at your fingertips. Even if you know absolutely nothing about coding (like me!), you can almost always find an article or video that will walk you through the process. Make sure to Google very specific questions, like “how to hide ‘showing all posts with label’ from blogger” and other questions of the like.

Searching the web for coding questions isn’t for the faint of heart, and sometimes you’ll have to read and try out the advice of 5 or 6 different articles before you find one that works for you. That’s ok! It’s better than shelling out big bucks to have someone do it for you, in my opinion. Plus it’s rewarding to know that you designed this yourself! 

2. Get lots of freebies. 

This is something I can’t encourage you to do enough. There are so many great free resources online! One in particular I love is called Angie Makes (www.angiemakes.com). She has a “freebies” link (as many design sites do) where you can view and download all sorts of images and even free wordpress templates. To find even more great sites like hers, you can- you got it- Google it!

Another great way to get awesome freebies for your blog is by subscribing to newsletters. Online business and marketing is so hot right now, and everyone knows that the BEST way to get your content in front of your target market is to have a newsletter. And if you’re business savvy, you know that the best way to get people to subscribe to your newsletter is to give away free stuff! Beautiful stock photography, ebooks, informational guides, gorgeous graphics and many, many more great blog design goodies can be delivered straight to your inbox simply by signing up for newsletters. Take advantage!

3. Familiarize yourself with a design program, preferably Photoshop.

Okay, so I am bias toward Photoshop and will say if you already have it, use it! I absolutely love it and think you will take your design skills to a whole ‘notha level. But since this is advice on how to design without spending money, if you don’t already have Photoshop there are some great free resources available. 

PicMonkey is a great site for designing graphics and editing photos. They do give you the option to upgrade for a very small fee ($5-$10 per month) to have access to all of their features, but the free ones alone are more than enough to create beautiful visual content. 

Another great site to use is Canva. They are a great design website where you can make graphics for your blog, social media, or even postcards and invitations. They have a great stock photography collection, most of which are free and some that are $1. You can also upload your own photos into Canva which makes it even better to use! 

There are other free design programs out there, these are just a couple that I have found useful. If you want to find even more options, just ask Google! While I highly recommend Photoshop, I believe that you can achieve your design goals with these free programs and a little resourcefulness. 

4. Pay attention to fonts.

If I’m being completely honest, I’m a bit of a font junkie. I absolutely love how pairing just the right fonts can bring your blog to life! The first thing to do is decide what kind of fonts jump out at you and what look you’re trying to achieve. It is best to pair fonts together as opposed to using just one, but I wouldn’t use more than three as it can made your blog look cluttered. If you’re going for a busy-looking site then it might be ok, but the general rule is 2-3 fonts. Crisp, clean, and simple branding is the hot trend right now,  so keep that in mind as you venture on. 

Pinterest is a great resource for font pairings and helps you get a visual of the style you like. I have found that once I have a general idea, there are many different fonts that look similar to each other. This is great news because if you fall in love with one specific font but then realize it costs $50, there is a really good chance that there is a similar one that is free. DaFont is my favorite site for free fonts, but there are many others as well. Again, we’re talking free to cheap design, so while sometimes it might seem a sacrifice to get the free font over the $30 one that you are in love with, I urge you to get it up on your blog to test it out. You might just find that you love it just as much!

5. Stay inspired and check out trends. 

There are so many beautiful websites out there not to mention blog designers who love to showcase their portfolios. Those are some of the best places to get inspiration from. I also use Pinterest a lot for design inspiration, and have boards to save the pins I love so I can look them up easily when I’m designing. You can also Google “blog design” or  “blog design tips” and find some really good resources. When you come across a stunning blog or website, make sure to pay attention to the details of it. Are the fonts crisp and clean or more whimsy, or both? Is there a color scheme? How and where do they present their information? 

I never stop searching for inspiration and always try to pay attention to what other designers are doing. Even though I’m not a trained or paid designer, I have enough resourcefulness to figure out how to achieve the look I am going for- and so can you! 

I hope you found these tips useful! Enjoy!