Saturday, February 28, 2009

Add Traffic Feed & Map To Your Blog

This is just a fun extra. This will put a traffic feed and map on your blog. It will show live stats on who's visiting from where at what time and showcase it on a world map.

1st go here for traffic feed and map. There's other stuff you can get but I recommend the 1st 2- the feed and map. All you have to do is put your cursor in tone of the boxes and it will automatically highlight.



Just right click your mouse and copy, pull up the HTML&Javascript widget in your blogger layout and copy the 1st code into that box. Go back copy the other code and past it in the same HTML&Javascript widget.

Click Save. Arrange the new gadget where you want it on your blog layout-- most likely near the bottom or at least the middle. And click Save up near the top of the layout. That's it. Go check you new blog for new visitors-- Guess who the 1st one is that it shows? YOU!




Add Newsreel To Blogger

Adding a newsreel to your blog is something simple and easy you can do to make your blog stand out and look a little more lively even if you don't post something all the time. Plus it can give you ideas into whatever subject your blog is about.

All you have to do is go to Layout. I recommend adding the gadget on the bottom of the blog so underneath the posts. Click add gadget like in this picture:

gadget at bottom of blogger layout

Once you click that widget choice screen will pop up. Scroll down until you see the following:

choose newsreel and click the blue square like in the picture. This will bring up this screen:

blogger newsreel configure
Change the title to something that has to do with your blog and name a keyword or more than one separated by commas that you want the newsreel to refresh news about. Click the box if you want news when clicked to open in a new window. This is what mine looked like when I was done:

change blogger newsreeland finally click save and on your blogger layout it should now look like this towards the bottom:

added gadget newsreel bottom of blogger layout

That's it open your blog and you will see the new scrolling information the newsreel provides near the bottom. Here's what mine looks like:

newsreel on blog itself






Technorati Tags In Post

O.k. If you are wondering about those Technorati tags in my posts, and you've already the post about how to sign up for Technorati, then this is the post to read. The tags in your post allow those keywords to be linked to search within Techorati relative to the post you've made once you have already claimed your blog through Technorati. So by adding them you are going to get more traffic and there potentially could be some SEO effects with the links carrying weight back to your blog through better indexing on Technorati.

I am not typing these by hand. I'm doing it the easy way. 1st of all if you don't already have it, you need to download the Firefox browser. Once that's installed you need to get GreeseMonkey which is 1 of many addons you can get for the firefox browser that make life a lot easier. The GreeseMonkey addon itself tons of scripts itself that makes doing things easier such as placing Technorati tags on your blog.

Greesmonkey Firefox addon Main Page


Once that's installed it and restarted your browser you need to get this plugin for Greesemonkey. It will take you to a page that looks like this:

Greesemonkey Technorati Multiple Word Tags For Blogger User Script LinkUp near the top click the black rectangular box with white lettering that say "Install". This will bring up a screen that looks like this:

Install Technorati Multiple word tags for blogger greesemonkey addonClick Install and that's it. On the Bottom right portion of your browser you should see something that looks like this:

If you right click it it will show this: greesmonkey menu

Now choose "Manage User Scripts" and this screen should come up:

manage greesemonkey userscripts If the Techonrati Multiple Word Tags for Blogger isn't selected select it and your screen should look like this. Click Close.

Now when you get back to blogger and post. You should now see this below the Labels for post:

technorati addon from greesemonkey below blogger post Now all you have to do is whenever you have selected your labels for your post you just have to copy them over and past them in the box. Select a place on your post you want the Tags-- I always choose the very bottom and I would recommend that -- Click the Green Append Tags button. That's it! Now you will have the same stuff as what's showing on my blog thus far.





Signing Up For Technorati

1 of the best things you can do to get your word out about your blog and for Seo purposes is to sign up for a Technorati account.

1st you need to sign-up for a account here. You should see a screen like the following:

sign up for a technorati accountStarting from the top and heading down for what you need to fill out:

1st and last name-- you don't necessarily have to use your real name--- then you choose a member name-- this is something like a nickname might use the same 1 you used for blogger. Then then next 2 fields you enter a valid email address-- twice to make sure there were no errors--- and you might want to use the same email as you used for your blogger account. Then enter a password twice and insert the word verification below. Make sure you have to 2 check boxes below word verification checked because we want to submit you blog as shown in the picture below:

2 checkboxes for signup for technorati

Below the 2 check boxes click the join button. After you click join you will be taken to the following screen which shows:

You need to enter the confirmation code, which was sent to the email address you provided. Go get it you can copy and paste(right click copy highlighted text or CTRL + C and then Paste it --Right Click and paste or CTRL + V) into the text box before the Verify button. Click Verify. Or even easier just don't worry about copying and pasting and just click the link they provide which contains the confirmation code in the e-mail you got from technorati.

Whatever method you took you will arrive at the following screen:

Enter the old password once and enter a new password twice. Your other information such as 1st and last name along with email should have auto populated. Click the Save Changes button towards the bottom. If all goes well it will say "Your Settings have been updated!" Now look to right part of the same screen. You should see something that looks like this:

Click like it shows in the picture where it says in green, "Claim your blog here!" It will take you to the next screen that looks like this:

Enter the URL or copy the URL of the blog you want to claim you own and then click on the button on the right hand side in the picture that says "Begin Claim".

A new screen will load and towards the bottom you will see this:

Click where it shows the cursor pointer in the picture on "Complete Claim with OpenID". It will take you to this screen assuming you are already logged into blogger:

You can click on Yes, Just Once or Yes, Always. I just choose always to make things potentially easier if you add another blog in the future, and once you have clicked either Yes, it will take you to a screen where you will add a blog description and some tags. You can use the same description as you used for blogger if you like since that would be easy. Tags are how your blog can be found by users if they type something like the tags into search. So choose appropriate tags. If your blog was about beer brewing for example the you might end up with a screen like the following:

Now if you scroll down a little further you will see code for a technorati button you can add to your blog via the same method we used to add a search box in a previous post. You don't have to be in blogger in draft though. Just select the HTML/Javascript Widget and copy and paste the code from 1 of the boxes. You can move the widget around and I would recommend having it under the search box. I personally like the middle or second button. Why have the button at all? It allows visitors to save your page on their Technorati account thus increasing the exposure.

Click the Save Blog Info Button as shown in the picture. That's it. Once you clicked save you should notice on the right hand side something that says 1 blog claimed and the name of your blog in green. If you click on this you will see that your blog name, URL, tags, and last few posts are now already uploaded onto your Technorati account. Pretty neat and easy! Next time I deal with Technorati I will show you how you can make those Technorati tags that are shown at the bottom of my posts on here.





Friday, February 27, 2009

Add A Blog Descrption

In this post I will show you how to add a blog description. Blog descriptions are important because they not only can tell a visitor quickly what your blog is about, but the description also helps search engines organize data about your site to show when it gets indexed.

There is more than 1 way to add a description but the easiest and most familiar, if you've been following the posts so far, would be to once again click the layout tab. You will see a header section with the name of your blog.

Click the blue Edit link on the right side like shown in the picture and the following screen will show:

Below the blog title, which is the name you gave your blog when you created it, you will see a section called blog description. This is where you will add a informative overview of what your blog is about. Keep it short and to the point and make sure you use relevant words to describe your blog and not just fluff like "The coolest site on Earth" unless of course your site truly is the coolest site on Earth, then more power to you. You just might not get a fair shake in Search Engine indexing if you don't have the right words to describe it, or an appropriate blog title for that matter.

Now there are other options on here, but for now we won't worry about them. After you have written your blog description click the orange Save button. Your description will show right after the blog title on your blog. This is what My Blogger Experience looks like now after adding the description:










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How To Add Labels

In this post I will discuss how to add labels to your blog and go over how to do basic rearranging of your Gadget buttons.

Earlier when we discussed posting I mentioned what labels are for and their importance. Now it's time to include them on the blog.

1st, go to Layout and click on "Add A Gadget".

A screen like this pops up:

Scroll down until you see one for Labels that looks like this:

Click on the blue box with white plus sign like shown in the pic and the following screen will show for configuration:


By default the title says Labels. You may choose to keep that or have nothing, but I prefer to use the term Categories.

I also prefer it to sort in alphabetical order, but if you want the most frequent categories to be shown on top you might choose to select that radio button instead.

Click the orange Save button and now on the layout screen you should see the new Gadget. Now I prefer to have the Search above my categories so to move it below the Search box put your mouse cursor over your new Gadget(Labels/Categories whatever you named it). It should look like this:

Now click your left mouse button and drag downward.


Now stop when it's right below the Search Gadget.

This is how you will move gadgets in the future. You can move them up and down wherever you want by dragging and dropping with your mouse.

Ok Click the orange Save button on top portion of the layout screen, and your done! This is what my blog looks like now with the new categories/labels gadget added:











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How To Add Search To Blogger

In this post I will show you how to easily to add search function to your blogger.com blog.

In the last post I showed you how to get to blogger in draft. Once again if you are already logged in just delete the "www" portion of the URL and replace it with "draft" and you will be in the right place. Or, just go to draft.blogger.com and login.

Ok 1st thing you want to do is click on the Layout tab on the top part of the blogger in draft.



This will take you to this screen:

Notice on the right side it has a blue like that says "Add a Gadget" and has immediately below it "Followers", "Blog Archive", and "About Me" which are default gadgets that are already on your blog when you signed up. Click on the "Add a Gadget" link.

This will pop up the following screen:


Scroll down until you see the Search box Gadget.


Click the blue box with a white plus sign like shown in the picture and the following screen will display:

By default it says "Search This Blog" as the title you might choose to just have nothing or change it to something like "Search [Insert Your Blog Name Here]" On this blog I chose the title to be "Search My Blogger Experience". I also felt that I only want people to search this blog not the whole web or pages I linked to. So I got rid of the bottom 2 check marks in their boxes and just kept the top one. So it ended up looking like this:

When your done click the orange Save button on the bottom right and now in the Layout my the new Gadget is inserted.



Since you most likely want the search to be shown near the top I would just leave it's positioning for now. This is how my blog now looks after inserting the new search box:








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How To Get To Blogger In Draft

This is something that isn't necessarily for beginners but is very easy to use and will make things easier if I just present it now.

Ok you're familiar with blogger.com. Well there is also something called blogger in draft --- draft.blogger.com . This is where a lot of new Gadgets and capabilities are introduced that are not functional yet on the standard blogger.com. When you change things here it will take effect on your blog like the standard blogger.com, but it just offers a lot more options.

So to use it you just go to draft.blogger.com and login like you usually would. The blogger in draft main page looks like this:



Or, if you are already logged into the standard blogger, just delete the "www" part of the address no matter whats after the ".com" -- could be /post-edit-g kljlksdj whatever just leave that part alone. Just delete the "www" part and insert "draft" and you will remain on your current screen that your logged into but you will now be in the draft version.




How To Start A Blogger.com Blog

Ok thought I would backtrack real quick just to make sure I didn't lost anyone. The last post was all about just how to make a post. Pretty beginner stuff. But, it would do you know good to know if you haven't opened an account on Blogger in the 1st place. So this is a real quick rundown of how to start a blogger.com blog.

Ok 1st of all you will need to type in the following address in to your address bar: www.blogger.com.

Or you can go there by clicking here.

You should see a screen like the following:

Click on the orange button that says "CREATE A BLOG". It will take you to this screen:

Starting at the top field and heading down, all you have to do is provide a valid email address and retype it again, enter a password and type it again, choose a name you want to appear on your blog (might not want your real name might want an alias or nickname or something random like Tarzan67), enter the correct letters in the word verification box, and finally click the box for I accept the Terms of Service. Click the orange arrow that says "CONTINUE".

If all goes well you will see the following page:

Ok here you enter a blog title. This is what your blog is going to be called. If it's going to be about dogs maybe "All About Dogs" or "Dog Mania" might be ideal for you. Whatever you want your blog to be named. Enter a name in the 1st box.

In the 2nd box you are choosing a website address. This is the address that will be typed into the browser or searched for in search engines if someone is looking for your blog or type of blog in the form of MYBLOGNAME.blogspot.com. Most likely you will want it to be as close as possible to the Title of your blog. So in the previous example if you chose "Dog Mania" as the Title then you might try entering DogMania in this box and click "Check Availability". If all goes well it will say, "This blog address is available. in green color. But if it says, "Sorry, this blog address is not available", then you can try their suggestions or you can try variations in your original choice such as "Dog-Mania", "DogMania2009", "DogManiac", etc and see if they work. Whatever works proceed to click on the orange "CONTINUE" arrow at the bottom. You will then see this screen:

By default the "Minima" template is selected. This is the template were using in this blog. So to learn the same things that the blog, just leave it selected and click on the orange "CONTINUE" arrow at the bottom. The next screen will look like this:

Click the orange "START BLOGGING" arrow. This will take you directly to your 1st post, which is where we were at on the previous post.







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