Your Blogger template creates a first impression that will determine whether a viewer wants to continue reading your blog. A template can paint a picture of the blog owner as, for example, fun loving, carefree, professional, young, or old. It tells the viewer right up front what the blog writer is about.

Using a custom template instead of one of the easily recognizable stock templates provided by Blogger says you really care about the image your blog presents. Free custom templates are available from several places online, and installation is simple and quick using the tools Blogger provides.

Blogger was started on August 23, 1993 by Pyra Labs, and is credited with popularizing the blog format. In February of 2003, Blogger was bought by Google, who made former "pay only" premium features on Blogger free. In 2004, Google integrated Picasa and Hello into Blogger, making photo sharing possible.

In 2006, Blogger launched its latest version, and all content was integrated onto the Google servers. From 2007 to 2009, Google has added many new features to Blogger, but its small basic templates selection remains the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogger Almost immediately, web designers cracked into the Google code and began designing custom blogger templates based on the basic templates already available. Now templates are made using sophisticated template designing software, although there are still a few hard core coders who love playing around with the basic templates to see what they can create. Entire Blogger tutorials websites have been created around teaching Blogger users to tweak the code of such basic templates as Minima and Rounder to create truly unique designs.http://bloggerbuster.com

The first change a blog owner usually makes to a blogger template is to use a custom header. Free website headers are available on many sites online, and if you have a talent for graphics, you can design your own very easily.

The large variety of free templates available online gives you the ability to make your Blogger blog look like a professional website. With a little knowledge of CSS and HTML, you can turn even a custom template into something unique.

Blog template creation is a large online cottage industry, with the best designers making six figure incomes designing for large company sites. Even the major corporations are adding blogs to their websites, because they recognize how important personal contact and perspective are to their customers.

You can use your Blogger blog to make money, or just to share your hobby or express your views. You can also use it to display the templates you have created using programs like Artisteer, and to sell custom template designs.

Some of the styles of free Blogger templates available are magazine, photo, travel, diary/journal, fan page, sports, music, computers, and professional. Blogger layouts can be magazine, two-column, three-column, four-column, or even simple one column.

Magazine Blogger templates can be used to create a newsletter, and photo templates are used to create photo blogs.

Adsense and affiliate ads can be added to your blog to make it profitable. Up to three instances of Adsense are allowed on each blog page.