I never though this site would take so much work when I though I’d start it as a hobby last year!
This week I’ve managed to change this blog software from the automated Blogger service by Google, to the much more flexible Wordpress, but the layout is generated by php template files which are relatively small, but if not used to looking at php then it looks very daunting. Basically each blog page is generated from 3 sections; a header, body and footer php file. Everything above this blog section is the header, and the footer is a very small section at the bottom to close off the page. All that’s in between is either made from the index, 404, single, search php files etc. The most complicated part of modding Wordpress is adapting it’s CSS file which if patient isn’t too bad. But you will have to know how to look at your blog through the developer section of IE, Firefox, Chrome etc. These Developer sections outline the loaded CSS and from there you can see what sections need amending to fit your site.
Then a website also needs a sitemap for search engines and no matter how many free sitemap generators there are out there, nothing beats a paid-for solution like the xml-sitemaps one which at $20 is a bargain. Upload it to the root folder of your site then let it do its thing and generate a sitemap.xml file for you. Then Google et al will be happy…