Advanced Star Rating For Blogger

In this post I will show you a more advanced star rating that I'm using on this blog. Unlike the previous post where you use blogger's star rating, this is a little harder to implement. You may not need to worry about it if all you want is something a user can rate a post by and that's it. But, this 3rd party star rating system by outbrain not only looks better in my opinion than blogger's own, but it allows you to choose options such as showing your top popular posts by rating, and seeing where people are coming from that are voting on your page. I think it's worth the small amount of extra effort.

To get started look at below my posts and you will see:

Click on the question mark as shown in the picture and this will pop up:

Click the outbrain link and it will take you to it's main page:

From Here's it's pretty easy. But, just a quick rundown-- on the left hand side click on the blogger icon box as shown in the picture which will take you to the signup page:

I'd recommend registering for an account.

Click the box as shown in the picture and fill out common account information and click register. Before you go onto step 2 in the picture go to your e-mail you provided and find the email they sent you from outbrain and click the confirmation link. Click Get Widet Now in Step 2. This screen will show,




and another screen will show where you accept outbrain to install their widget on your blog. Make sure the right blog is selected and allow. Click Manage Blogs as it shows in the picture.

Click Check now to claim the blog.

Everything should go smoothe since you already agreen yes on outbrain to install the widget on your blog.

Next, click settings.

This will take you to this screen:

I'd recommend choosing "Limited Recommendations" since it will just show recommended posts on your blog as opposed to anywhere on the web- But if you like that idea leave their option on "Best Recommendations".

I'd choose no on the 2nd option, because you may want to provide your own ads in the future and this charity setting will only distract. Leave the option set to bottom of the post. I think that's the best place for the rating since the visitor just finished reading your post. The final option I would definitely set to "Enabled". This is a cool feature that will show the most popular(3 I believe) posts based on top star rating. Here's an example currently on this blog:


Click submit and that's it. You can add more blogs to outbrain if you want, but were done for 1.

Technorati Tags: Blogger Intermediate, fun extras, my blogger experience

Add Star Rating The Blogger Way

In this post I will show you how to create a star rating for visitors to rate your blog post's. This is not the way I have currently on my blog, but this is the easiest way and might be good enough for you needs. With this method you use blogger's own star rating. To get to it, you need to get to blogger in draft-- draft.blogger.com -- or simply replace the "www" portion of the URL, if your currently logged into blogger, and replace it with "draft".




Click Enter or whatever you do to go from site to site after your type the URL ordinarily.

While in draft go to layout and click to edit the post section:



This will pull up this screen:

Click where I clicked in the picture to choose "Show Star Ratings".

Believe it or not, that's it. You now have your own star ratings that will show below posts. Next time I show you star ratings, I will show you a more advanced 3rd part method that in my opinion looks nicer and gives you stats on where someone is clicking from, and other cool extras. But, if you're not worried about the extras, this will be good enough.

Technorati Tags: Blogger Basics, fun extras, My blogger experience

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!

Tags: Fun Extras, Blogger Intermediate