I cringe at what my blog looked like when I started it nearly 2 years ago, I paid no attention to the appearance of my blog - I was 100% about the content ( looking back ,that wasn't good either) . When you've found your feet, maybe after 6 months it's time to start thinking about a redesign. From my point of view, both as a blog owner and a blog reader, when deciding weather I want to follow a blog and read it long term, I look for 2 things. First I look for great and engaging content and a nice writing style. The second thing I look at is its appearance. I cannot stress enough how important blog design is and it doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg.
1. There are loads of amazing free blog templates out there. When I first started looking into a redesign I took to google and I used a few from makeitcg.com and then tweaked the HTML to make it personal to me. Now I use Pipdig where templates are £29 a piece, not bad at all. I only recently decided to spend money on a template. You do not have to buy a template to have an amazing looking blog though.
