Build a blog with a free template

I stumbled across a blog template, on the week-end, and that was all it needed to start my first blog. 

So, I signed up for a blog with blogger, in the process I found out that they have just become part of google, and start fiddling with the settings, profile and gadgets. That was easy,  and in the end, after an hour or so,  I had a blog with a few images and no posting as I didn't know what to  write ... Coming from a web background, I looked at the blog for a while and it seemed so plain with its blueish background and most of all so narrow...
Then, I looked again to the site with the free blogger templates  and picked one that I liked (probably because was very much like one of my websites  - colour-wise at least).

From the template implementation help it seemed a few minutes job...but here is my experience;

1. Go to http://btemplates.com/
2. Preview the template of your choice
3. Click on the template icon to see the download and How to use this template instructions
4. Follow the 5 steps, finishing with step 6. Enjoy!

...and you should because all works fine.

But then, I looked to my blog  and start thinking how can I update all those links and menus and gadgets ..effortless. I searched through the admin tabs (Posting, Comments, Settings, Design, Monetize, Stats) and decided that Design tab must be the one. And indeed it is as it gives you access to editing Page Elements, Edit HTML and Template Designer. After going through the

• Page Elements: you can edit various parts of the blog and 
• Template Designer : change some template elements (color, width, gadgets, etc)

I realised that the only way to change those menus and add new pages was by EDITING the HTML.

For that you must really know a bit of HTML and especially you need a Text editor (www.textpad.com is my preferred).

To edit the source of the template you'll need to do the following:

1. Download the template on your PC (there is a download link)or cut/paste the whole window
2. Search for the menu links and update them 
3. Update the links to the social media networks like facebook, twitter, and any other you have...
4. Make sure you keep a copy of the original source as downloaded at 1. - if something goes wrong you can start over afresh.
5. Upload the edited template and then PREVIEW it - to make sure you have a working blog
6. Only then save the template.
7. You will do that quite a few times ...like me...as new links need to be added. 

Bottom line if you're not confident working with HTML code you'd better stick with the default blogger templates. 

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