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Blogger Templates: 4.5 Million Blogspot Users are Lazy

Millions of Bloggers on Blogspot.com are either too lazy or don't understand the basic HTML tags.

When you create a new blog on Blogger.com, Google provides a default blogspot template that has three links in the side bar - one link points to Google News while the other two links (Edit-Me) are just placeholders for the blogger to insert his own hyperlinks (see screenshot)

But bloggers are too busy creating content and don't bother changing these "under construction" areas. There are 4.5 million pages hosted on blogspot.com that still have the Google News and Edit Me links [site:blogspot.com "Google News" "Edit-Me"]

<h2 class="sidebar-title">Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://news.google.com/">Google News</a></li>
<li><a href="http://EDITME">Edit-Me</a></li>
<li><a href="http://EDITME">Edit-Me</a></li>
</ul>

If your blog also falls in this category, my suggestion would be that you first read the W3 Schools tutorial on HTML and CSS. Once you have a certain comfort level with your blogger template code, throw the default blogspot template in the recycle bin and switch to a more professional design.

Fortunately, there are lot of good folks who have developed some beautiful blogger templates and they are providing them for free. Just download the blogspot template, paste it over your default blogger template and click the republish button. [more details]

Here are some links and resource for free Blogspot Template Designs:

» Free Blogspot Templates - Isnaini, an Indonesia based blogger template designer, has a good collection of 3 column template designs.

» Blogger Templates by Aman - A Singapore based student has some creative blogspot template designs based on popular themese like Desperate Housewives, Tour De France, Harry Potter and Yoga.

» Blogger Templates - Excellent collection of two column blogspot templates. Recommended.

» Blogspot Templates - Contains both text only and graphical version of Blog templates. There are also instructions on how to use Blogger templates.

» Blogger Templates @ Gecko & Fly This site has collected popular blogspot template designs from other designers and put them in one central location.

» Blog Skins - A huge repository of user contributed template designs and blog skins for blogger, Movable Type, Xanga and Wordpress Blogs. Users can rate and comment on template designs.

Want to design your own blogspot template ? Jennifer Apple has some tips on creating your own blog template from scratch using Photoshop.

Related: Guide to Remove the Blogger Navbar

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