Dummies Guide to Google Blogger Beta

Increase Traffic with Web Slices for Blogger.

2008-05-06T16:16:00.008+05:30

Uptil now you could subscribe to blogs and read them in your Feed Reader. With Web Slices viewers can subscribe to parts of your blog page in Internet Explorer 8. They will then see updates directly on the Favorites bar of IE8. See picture below : Here is how to set it up in blogspot blogs......... Login at Blogger.com. Dashboard will open. Under Title of your blog click the Manage :

Change Post Formatting According to Author.

2008-04-30T15:54:00.003+05:30

If you have a Team Blog made up of two authors you can change the formatting of the posts written by one author to differentiate them from the other author's posts. In a Team Blog the About Me Profile widget is replaced by a Contributors List widget. This lists the name of the authors linked to their profiles. Note down the names since we will use one of them in implementing this hack.........

Three Column Sand Dollar Template for Bloggers.

2008-04-26T15:48:00.005+05:30

A reader wanted to modify the Sand Dollar Template to show three columns. This is a Fluid width template which resizes the blog according to the monitor resolution of the viewer's machine. It has two columns. The sidebar is at the left and occupies 31% of the screen width. The Main or Posts column is to the right and is sized at 66%. View After Modification. Click on Picture to enlarge it.

Equal Height Columns Template for Blogger.

2008-03-27T17:04:00.003+05:30

Blogger has many templates which you can pick by going to Pick New Template under the Layout tab. At present all templates are two column templates. These have a main posts column and a sidebar at the right or left for your Profile and Archives and other widgets you wish to add. They can be easily modified to add a third column in three steps. These column are however of unequal height. The

Add Background Picture to Header in CSS.

2008-03-23T16:44:00.003+05:30

In Blogger you can directly upload a picture to the Blog Header. A few bloggers have been reporting problems with this method. Hence here is the old method brushed up for use with Classic or Layouts Template........ REMOVE HEADER PICTURE The first step is to remove the old picture. Sometimes the picture refuses to get removed. Then the first remedy is to clear the cache. Always use Firefox

How to Classify Blogger Labels?

2008-03-18T16:48:00.005+05:30

Blogger introduced Labels to categorize posts with the introduction of the Layout Template. A Label is added in the bottom frame of the post editor when creating a post. All Labels are shown in a Label widget in the sidebar. When a Label is clicked all posts associated with it are displayed. If you want to show which Labels are associated with most posts in your blog yu can add a Label Cloud

Different backgrounds in each post!

2008-03-14T10:30:00.011+05:30

A background put in your blog serves as a sort of branding for your blog. For example if it is a travel blog a background picture of the Eiffel Tower can serve very well. You can also have transparent backgrounds in your blog over which the blog text scrolls. What if your blog posts are on different topics? Then you can put a different picture as the background for each post.......

Monitor Blog Health in One Glance.

2008-03-12T14:33:00.004+05:30

Google Webmasters is a very useful tool to see how your blog is doing in Google. To use this tool you have to add your blog to it by pasting a verification metatag in your template. After doing this you can login to Google Webmaster Tools and check out the various pages to see how many pages have been indexed and so on. For newbies this may be a bit confusing. Google Webmasters Tool has now

Anchor Link to Skip to Top of Page and to Updates.

2008-03-06T20:15:00.004+05:30

When your blog page is too long you have to provide navigation links to enable the viewer to quickly jump to the top of the page after scrolling down to the bottom. In Anchor Links and Mail To links I described how to make such links within your post. These are useful especially if you want to make a FAQ page. If you want a "Skip to Top" link at the bottom of your posts or in your blog footer

Free CSS Navigation Menus in Blogger.

2008-03-02T11:00:00.005+05:30

A reader wanted to know how he could add a navigation menu bar in the header. You can add your most frequently occuring labels as tabs in the header (See header of this page) but if you want to add only four or five links like in the picture below : here is an easy method to do so.............. CREATE POSTS The first step is to create posts which will be linked to the various links in the menu

Three Column Template in Three Steps.

2008-02-24T20:08:00.010+05:30

Three column templates are popular because they make more use of the screen real estate. Adding another column to your blog enables you to add more widgets or advertisements to your blog. In this post I will show you how to transform your blog into a three column blog in three simple steps. Have a look at the before and after screenshots below : ---> BEFOREAFTER To demonstrate this I have

Fix the Page Elements Layout Editor No Scrollbar Problem.

2008-02-24T17:18:00.005+05:30

The Page Elements subtab of Layout (previously - Template) tab is used to Add and Arrange Page Elements. Since 12 Feb 2008 there have been no scrollbars in it. This causes the Page Elements on wider templates to disappear below the right edge and bloggers cannot access the Edit button on them. See picture below : This can be fixed by modifying the CSS part of the template for the wireframe

Add Myspace Layouts to Blogger Blogs.

2008-02-17T16:22:00.007+05:30

If you have a Myspace site and want your Blogger blog to be customized with the same look you can easily put your Myspace Layout on top of your Blog Layout. See picture of Blogger blog with a Myspace Layout on it below : This is for Blogger blogs with Layout Templates. Those blogs with Classic Template should first Upgrade to Layouts Template............... LOAD THE MINIMA LAYOUT The first

Blog in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu!

2008-02-13T19:06:00.005+05:30

Blogger had made available the ability to blog in Hindi in April 2007. Now Blogger has enabled blogging in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu........... Transliteration for Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu Blogs To enable transliteration in your blog login at www.blogger.com and click 'Settings' link under your blog title on the Dashboard. The Basic tab will open. Scroll down to '

Make Three Column Classic Template.

2008-02-07T11:57:00.000+05:30

Bloggers who are on ftp are forced to use the Classic Template as Blogger does not provide Layout Templates to blogs outside Google servers. A reader wanted to add a third column to his blog hosted on ftp and hence this post. Readers with Layout Templates can refer to How to Add Third Column To Blog. In this example I was able to transform the two column Minima Classic Template into a Three

Frame the Blog Header Image.

2008-01-22T06:35:00.000+05:30

The Image you load in the Blog Header serves as a branding image for your blog. It is hence important that it should be loaded correctly and positioned properly at the top of your blog. Viewers will recall your blog better if you have a striking blog header image at the top. Recently many bloggers had complained about their header images shrinking. Blogger has introduced a fix which resizes

Blog in Arabic, Hebrew and Persian!

2008-01-18T12:22:00.000+05:30

Blogger has now introduced facility to blog in Arabic Hebrew and Persian! These languages are written from right to left and those who have been using hacks to write in this manner need no longer do so............. Templates also have added code for right to left direction change. When creating a post in the Post Editor a new bidirectional toolbar is now available. To change your language

Best of 2007- A Blog Snapshot!

2008-01-12T15:04:00.000+05:30

I know what you did last summer! How did we do in 2007? What were the best posts and the best moments of 2007? We present to you a Blog Review of 2007........... When 2007 started this blog was only two months old. There was already a good amount of content in the blog. These were the most popular posts published in 2006 : How to Add Picture to a Beta Blog Header? How to Change Width of

Show Top Labels Only In Labels Widget.

2008-01-03T16:50:00.000+05:30

As you write more and more posts you will keep adding labels to them to categorize your posts. You can add more than one label to any single post. Labels are useful as they serve as keywords channelling traffic to your posts through search engines like Technorati. However the list of labels in your blog can get to be very long stretching your sidebar until your blog post looks like a flag on

Buy Me A Beer code for Blogger.

2008-01-01T15:54:00.000+05:30

Wishing all our esteemed readers a Very Happy New Year! As a New Year Gift ( of sorts! ) we will show you how to install the "Buy Me A Beer/Coffee/Cup of Tea" code below your posts. You can also install this code in a Html Page Element in your sidebar......... Here are the steps to follow : 1. Login at Blogger.com. 2. If login is successful you will open the Blogger Dashboard page. 3.

New Widgets from Blogger in Draft.

2007-12-19T08:46:00.001+05:30

Blogger in Draft has some new widgets which you may like to try out in your blog. Blogger In Draft (http://draft.blogger.com/) is a special version of Blogger where new features are tried out before releasing them to evryone. You can add the widgets to your blog - they are fully functional - and experiment with them and give your feedback on them......... LOGIN TO BLOGGER IN DRAFT To add the

Honey, Blogger Shrunk my Header!

2007-12-19T08:46:00.000+05:30

Recently many bloggers have found their Blogger Header image shrunk down or in some cases disappeared altogether. While the Blogger Team is on the case and working out a fix here is a working solution. Previously the methods used to put images in the header varied from putting a picture page element in the header to adding a picture URL in the CSS code for the header. Since Blogger introduced

Keep Widgets AND Change Layout Template.

2007-12-16T15:03:00.000+05:30

How can I change the Layout template of my blog and keep my widgets? This is one question which occurs frequently to any blogger. As Blogger does not offer any three column templates at present or a template with large amount of customization, many are forced to load layouts from third parties. Layout templates are different from Classic Templates which can be easily loaded without losing your

Setup OpenID Comments To Follow In Blogger.

2007-12-15T10:58:00.000+05:30

Ever since Blogger changed it's comments system to prevent other bloggers from leaving their URL, discouraging the DOFOLLOW brigade, it was found impossible to share or pass on the Google Juice to encourage your commentators. Now that Blogger has rolled out the OpenID system it has become possible once more......... Here are the steps to follow : 1. Register at https://www.myopenid.com/signup

Put a Widget on a Specific Page or URL.

2007-12-07T19:49:00.000+05:30

Widgets in the new Blogger are the code behind the new Page Elements. You can add Page Elements to your blog from the Page Elements subtab of the Template tab. To add widget or page elements to your blog login at Blogger.com and click on Layout link on Dashboard. Then click the Add Page Element link in the sidebar. After adding a Page Element to your blog it can be seen on all your blog pages