When you start to look at using free blog templates to change the appearance of your blog, there is the potential to get easily overwhelmed. That’s because there are so many blog templates available that it’s hard to select just one look for your site. By narrowing down your search, you can make the process go much more smoothly.

Here are some decisions to make before you start choosing your blog templates:

• Number of columns. Most blogs have two columns but some will have one, three or four. Look at some other blogs and see what number of columns you like in order to narrow down the search.
• Color. Choose one or two colors that you want to stick with and then only look at the blogs that use those colors as their primary color. This significantly reduces your decision-making.
• Plug-ins and widgets. Some people want to keep things simple and avoid using plug-ins and widgets. Others will want a widget-ready template that they can add stuff to. Make this decision ahead of time.
• Images. Some blog templates come with their own images. Do you want to keep things simple and use that or are you afraid of being saddled with stock images? Remember that you can use free photoshop tutorials to assist you in adding your own images later.

By making decisions about your design before you even start selecting templates, you can make the decision-making process go a whole lot more smoothly. If you get stuck on any one part, consider checking out a template forum to see how others have resolved the issue.

Technorati Tags: free blog templates, free photoshop tutorials, template forum