Blogger: Beyond the basics

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67147865082545142362024-08-31T07:34:30.253-04:00Blogger: Beyond the basicsGet better at Blogger with Blogger tips, Blogger news, and How-Tos.Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-10592772112675197152009-03-04T06:43:00.003-05:002009-03-04T06:49:37.514-05:00Packt Removes Password Protection on ebooks

Packt Publishing (www.packtpub.com), who publishes two of my books and many, many others for beginning and advanced tech readers, has removed password protection from the ebooks it sells.What does this mean for you the reader? You can now easily load Packt ebooks onto any reading device. If you already have purchased ebooks from Packt in the past, visit their website and login. You will be

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-75689103493842400312009-01-11T17:15:00.003-05:002009-01-11T17:31:48.755-05:00Listen to the Blogger Book Promo

I'm in the process of recording an audiobook version of Blogger: Beyond The Basics. You can listen to the free promo about the book now on this post. Once I've finished editing, you can listen to chapters for free at Podiobooks.com. There are a lot of great fiction and non-fiction books available there. My goal is to have a new episode up every week. As always, you can purchase an e-book or

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-29655358653369567302009-01-06T09:14:00.003-05:002009-01-06T09:28:10.184-05:00Top 5 Tools for Bloggers

Writer and podcaster Mur Lafferty recently posted a vidcast about essential tools for writers. Bloggers write but are their needs the same? Below are my top 5 pics for tools bloggers need to get the job done. Let me know if you agree or have a different set of tools that top your list.Computer or mobile phone with internet access - bloggers need access to a computer or smartphone to use for

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-59587703549649175352008-10-05T19:15:00.003-04:002008-10-05T19:29:12.111-04:00Marketing your podcast episodes

Blogger is a great tool for posting podcast transcripts along with old fashioned text posts. Podcasts can be hosted many places, but a greater concern is building an audience. How can you distribute your podcast episodes so people can find them in the first place?There are many places besides iTunes available to podcasters. First, look for a niche distribution site. The web is a big place and

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-54020166121776321172008-08-10T12:22:00.003-04:002008-08-10T12:29:56.411-04:00Setting up a Blogger Custom Domain

Setting up a custom domain for Blogger blogs is a frequent source of questions on Blogger Help. Chapter 10 of Blogger: Beyond the Basics from Packt Publishing covers the pros, cons, and tips on custom domains.If you are looking for a step by step video on how to set up a custom domain for your Blogger blog, check out Purchasing and setting up a custom domain with Blogger on YouTube. The most

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-79203582164460255102008-08-08T06:44:00.002-04:002008-08-08T06:53:10.213-04:00Blog it or Knol it?

Google recently announced the public launch of Knol, a single topic web site publishing and hosting tool. If you're familiar with Squidoo, then you instantly grasp knol. Be an authority on a specific topic and go in detail in a way it can be hard to do on a blog. You can also use it as a way to increase potential hits to your blog by linking your knols back to your blog.So are there times you

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-26578868775760752582008-06-20T17:02:00.003-04:002008-06-20T17:13:54.911-04:00Cash from email trash

Fred Black over at Problogger.com had a great post today about the troubles bloggers who use advertising face when trying to balance product reviews, having a life, and bringing in more advertising revenue for their blogs. This got me thinking about ways that any blogger on any platform can build relationships with potential advertisers and still get away from their email once in a while.I can

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-57129532264689911192008-06-13T20:22:00.002-04:002008-06-13T20:28:18.975-04:00Blinged out Blogger blogrolls

We've all been waiting and hoping for a while now and finally we have a real blogroll widget for Blogger. The actual uses of the blogroll tool go way beyond basic text links. Anything that can be a feed can be added to the blogroll, along with a nice little icon that helps identify whether it is a typepad blog, a Blogger blog, an rss feed ... you get the picture.Want to link to your twitter feed

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-43757237800364351062008-05-24T12:02:00.003-04:002008-05-24T12:23:00.044-04:00Podcasting with Blogger Part One

I really wanted to include a section on the Enclosure link feature of Blogger in the Blogger:Beyond the Basics book, but ran out of space. Now I can take the time to give you all some extra info on how to use Blogger to promote and share your podcasts.Setting Up Podcast HostingYou still need to have somewhere to host your podcast. There are a lot of places to do this, and with regular web hosting

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-76658621864493034522008-05-16T09:08:00.004-04:002008-05-16T09:22:36.975-04:00Using OpenID to promote your blog

Did you notice the OpenID menu option on the settings tab of Blogger's admin panel? OpenID isn't just a great way to make it easier for visitors to post comments to your blog, it is also a way to seamlessly promote your blog on sites like Technorati. You can see in the screenshot below where I'm using this blog as my OpenID URL. The box below the url lists all sites which can see my OpenID URL.

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-79422009800373125452008-05-09T06:59:00.003-04:002008-05-09T11:53:14.929-04:00Presenting: Multimedia presentations for Blogger

Recently the folks at Blogger announced the ability to put mini-presentations into your blog. Don't yawn! You can put up presentations that have multimedia elements embedded in them, such as YouTube videos or scary glittery animations. It's easy - you can do it in less than 5 steps.Let's give this a try. Now, if you've never gone to the trouble of Publishing a presentation with Google Docs before

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-75225737753438698582008-04-25T21:39:00.003-04:002008-04-25T21:53:05.986-04:00Find work as a Freelance Blogger for small businesses

Today our department at work got a call for one of our companies customers about blogging. They wanted to start a blog, but didn't understand what it really was, had no one set up in their company to actually do the blogging, and weren't sure what they were going to actually blog about. Seth Godin calls this situation a "meatball sundae" where businesses think just because they start using newer

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-28479573754754945822008-04-23T07:13:00.004-04:002008-04-23T13:34:40.296-04:00Blogger: Beyond the Basics at a discount

Want hundreds of pages of tips, tutorials, and worksheets about advanced Blogger techniques at a discount? Blogger: Beyond the Basics is now available for preorder from Packtpub.com in e-book (under $23) and paperback format (under $32) They are both discounted 20% for early birds.If you like to read books for free and then tell people what you think about them, you can also sign up to be a

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-34200016078239890952008-04-17T21:33:00.002-04:002008-04-17T21:46:21.402-04:00If you blog was a fruit, what would it be?

I was telling my personal trainer today all about Blogger and how a blog would be useful to a fitness professional like him. He could post articles about fitness and health, interact with potential clients, and build a reputation as an expert. This got me thinking of the different reasons people blog.What kind of blog do you have now? Do you have a vision for what you want it to be like, and how

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-76861115149722638562008-04-04T09:45:00.002-04:002008-04-04T09:51:06.821-04:00What's in a blog name?

While editing chapter 9 of the Blogger book, it struck me just how crucial good names are for a blog. Whenever I browse Blogger's blogs of note, it is the titles of the blogs that grab my attention first. What is the key to a successful blog title? The title of your blog should explain the purpose of your blog clearly, but be short enough to type manually into a browser window and catchy enough

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-64585654169135718592008-03-17T09:00:00.002-04:002008-03-17T09:11:47.395-04:00Changing the Background color of a widget

Do you have a widget on your blog you want people to notice? Want to add a little extra flair to your blog with different background colors? It is really easy to do. In this article I'll show you how to apply a background color to individual widgets using a little css.First, you need to find the unique id of your widget. Each page element in Blogger has a unique id, usually a combination of

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-7771159318602273682008-03-10T23:51:00.003-04:002008-03-11T00:04:37.726-04:00Adding a second sidebar to your Blogger template

Have you been struggling to change your default two column blog template to a more flexible three column one? You can do it in 15 minutes or less with a little math and some copy/paste skills.Before you begin making any changes, back up your current template. If you are already using Minima, you're in luck, it is the easiest Blogger template to customize. We're focusing on converting more recent

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-87252191841689746222008-02-29T14:15:00.003-05:002008-02-29T14:30:49.168-05:00Can't Scroll on Blogger Layouts page

Multiple reports of the Layouts page editor not allowing users to scroll have been posted to the Blogger Help Groups recently. Blogger has reported the issue resolved as of today. Clear your browser's cache (ctrl + f5 on a PC), close your browser, then re-open it and login to your blog. Please report any continuing issues to http://knownissues.blogspot.comThere does seem to be an unofficial limit

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-19342721359908758692008-02-21T10:24:00.003-05:002008-02-21T10:42:28.752-05:00Jazzing up a Twitter Badge with CSS

When using a plain HTML/JavaScript Twitter badge, you have to provide your own CSS styling. Your badge will look similar to the one below:#twitter_div{width:87%;margin:5px 5px 5px 10px;padding:0 3px 3px 3px;background:#ffffff url(http://www.leesjordan.net/fruitforall/images/ffa-mini-logo.gif)no-repeat;border: #008000 3px solid;text-align:left;}#twitter_update_list{font-weight:bold;display: inline

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-47051163440848957112008-02-18T20:07:00.002-05:002008-02-18T20:16:08.239-05:00Got a Blogger Issue? Known Issues can help

I see a lot of posts in the Blogger Help Group that could be easily fixed by visiting Blogger's Known Issues blog. There were a whole slew of updates posted last week, ranging from making the layouts screen work nice with the browser Safari 3.0, to changing the Template tab to the less confusing "Layout".Why visit the Known Issues blog? When an issue is still open, you can easily report it right

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-44243803549204388212008-02-08T21:28:00.000-05:002008-02-08T21:39:27.750-05:00Optimizing your blog for search engines

Bloggers have unique issues when it comes to search engines. We have a lot of content over time, which makes search engines happy. We also face more difficulties if we primarily post images, video, and other multimedia files. Search engines are scrambling to catch up and accommodate searches for rich media content.Why do the search engines care? Video, audio, and image content are extremely

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-83135836226883976292008-02-03T20:11:00.000-05:002008-02-03T20:24:36.664-05:00Playing with Google Analytics Report Charts

Google Analytics charts can be viewed in multiple formats. Clicking one of the tiny icons next to the view link under the chart of any report will change the visual format of the chart. You can also specify how much information to see on a chart. The default visual for most reports is a line graph displaying one item. Clicking on the date above the graph will display additional choices, including

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-70616183123245108782008-01-26T13:38:00.000-05:002008-01-26T14:33:06.035-05:00Improving your blog with Analytics Goals

People come to blogs to read actual content, watch videos, or check out images but that's not all they do. Blogs aren't structured the same way as other sites, especially blogs hosted on a system like Blogger. How do you measure user interactions on your site beyond basic Analytics reports? With Analytics goals of course.Setting up goals enable you to report on the actions users attempt to take

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-37951325673860814612008-01-18T22:09:00.000-05:002008-01-18T22:26:00.930-05:00Analytics and you

Google Analytics is a handy way to measure the success and effectiveness of your site. You can view many types of reports and track ad campaigns. AdWords customers have it easy. Google automatically sets up campaign goals for any bought AdWords in Analytics.Using Analytics is a lot like experiencing the ocean. You can drift on the surface and enjoy many benefits, or dive deep for adventure and

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714786508254514236.post-49026011946422628012008-01-16T16:07:00.000-05:002008-01-16T16:15:07.145-05:00Sidebar Trauma

I see a lot of posts in the Blogger Help Center about sidebar issues. Most of the templates have pretty narrow sidebars - about 240 pixels on average. If you know you want to host video unit ads or showcase large pictures without using default Blogger widgets, you will need to edit your template.It is important to increase the overall width of the template and the sidebar. Sketch a little diagram

Leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15143083989516067291noreply@blogger.com0