TechBolt - blog tips tricks and tweaks

3 best ways to display most recent blog posts

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Displaying recent posts prominently in your blog is one of the best ways to make your blog visitors to stay in your blog for a longer time. This will help your visitors to select interesting posts easily.Many people suggests that through recent posts widget you can rectify some of the indexing and crawling problems of search engines. We can display the recent posts in different ways.

Method 1
Go to the layout menu and click 'Add a Gadget' tab. Click add Feed ie Add content from an RSS or Atom feed to your blog. Add your rss or atom feed url in the feed box.

Your feed will be like this

http://Yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Replace 'Yourblog' with your blog name. Click Continue.The head lines will be retrieved. Customize the heading to most recent post and click save. You will be able to display upto 5 most recent posts through this method. You can display the 5 recent comments also through this method buy giving the comment feed instead of site feed in the feed box.

http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?

Method 2
You can configure a java script from blog buster which will allow you to display more than 5 recent posts from your blog. Configuration process is simple but it has to run a JavaScript from blogbuster and hence is not a very efficient method.

Method 3
This method uses Feedburner and is the one which I generally use in my blogs. It is possible to display first 20 words from the blog post along with the blog title using this method. Go to FeedBurner www.feedburner.com and if you have already burned your feed for the blog, go to the feed and click the publicize tab.

Click the BuzzBoost-Republish your feed as html- tab.

Customize the widget to suit your requirements and click 'activate'. You will get the code which you can add to your blog. The advantage of this method is that it is highly customizable to suit your requirements.

Splitting a blog side column into two or more columns

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:53:00 +0000

There may be times when you like to split any of the side columns of your blog to accommodate more widgets into it. Splitting columns are really useful to increase the aesthetic effect of your blog template or when you want to place widgets or advertisements side by side in a single column. Initially I searched the net to find a solution but I could not find a good one. So I decided to create my own way and it worked very nicely. Follow these simple steps and post your comments and suggestions.
Step 1: Back up your template to a text pad

Step 2: Go to the section
'body' portion of the code
Find the code given below

of the sidebar which you would like to split. Move down and add the code given below just before 'div' code section.

Code to be added.

Make sure that the name of the 'div id' in the

portion and the two 'section class' portions of the code are same. If it is not same, copy the code to a text pad and then edit it to make the 'section class' name same.
Step3: Save the template and go to the lay out view to see the new page elements added.

Best way to add a menu bar to your blog

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:18:00 +0000

Best way to make your blog more popular and visitor friendly is by providing the information required by the visitor in the least possible time. Adding a menu bar to the top of the page is the easiest way to do that. You will be able to provide links to the important posts or sections in your blog through a Menu bar.There are different ways to create a menu bar but the best and the neat way is to do it through CSS. Follow this simple tutorial and if you find any difficulty contact me.

Step1:Do the back up of your code in the edit html section

Step2: Adding a page element in the header section.
Find the html section shown below

Make following change
maxwidgets='3'showaddelement='Yes'

Step3:Find the code below

Add the code given below after the code

Step4: Adding CSS
Find the /* Header label
and go to the bottom and add the code given below just before
/* Outer-Wrapper

#menubar h2 {display:none;}

#menubar ul {
list-style: none;
}
#menubar li {
float: left;
}

#menubar a:link, #menubar a:visited, #menubar a:hover {
padding: 5px;
display: block;
color: $titlecolor;
border:1px solid $titlecolor;
}

#menubar a:hover {
background-color: $sidebarcolor;
}

Step:5 Save the template.

If you get an error saying variable used but not defined then your template is using a different name for title color or side bar color. You can either replace the string name finding the exact string name from the top portion of your code or directly give the name of the color instead of the string.If you do not want a box around the tabs you can remove the line
border:1px solid $titlecolor;

Step:6 Go to the layout menu and click the edit button in the menu bar tab and add the links you want.

Where to place advertisements in a blog

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:19:00 +0000

You can place advertisements anywhere in your blog but the effectiveness significantly varies depending on where you decide to place it. Generally the best places are the places where your visitors are more active on your site. This is the general rule and you will have to do tweaking on it based on the content and layout of your blog.
This picture will give you an idea of the best places to place your ads and their comparative effectiveness. You can see the deep red portion just above the post which is the best area for your ads. One thing you should keep in mind is that neither too much advertisement nor too less advertisement is pleasing for a visitor. The key of success is blending your ads and your posts in such a way that the entire site offers a pleasing experience to the visitor.
An ad after each post can serve as a "commercial break" from reading or as an "action step" to take after reading. This is a suggestion given by Adsense blog. Place your ads after each post or if the posts are lengthy enough consider ads within the posts.

Google Adsense and best Adsense alternatives for beginners.

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Creating a good site or a blog is a tough job demanding lot of time and hard work. Naturally all bloggers and publishers will think about monetizing their blog at some point of time. Using your blog or site as a platform to launch advertisements is one of the best option to make money from it.
Google Adsense is the first choice of many publishers who had run their blogs for years and are fortunate enough to claim large number of page views per day. But beginners find it difficult to get approved by Adsense due to strict review norms. You will have to run your blog for at least six months to get reviewed by Adsense. There are many publishers who are banned from Adsense for wrong reasons. Minimum amount required for a pay out is Rs $100 which is also not pleasing for new bloggers.
General advertising options available are Banners, Text ads, Inline ads, Full page ads and Referral links.CPM (Cost per 1000), CPC (Cost per Click) and CPA (Cost per Action) are methods of calculating your income from advertisements.CPM charges purely on the number of times the advertisement is served.CPC is a cost associated with each click on the advertisement to the target page and CPA is a cost associated with each lead created from a click on the advertisement. I have tried many advertising options and following are the best options for a beginner.

Adbrite is my first choice for beginners as you are paid simultaneously based on CPC and CPM. Adbrite provides almost all types of ads including inline ads and full page ads. Configuration of ads are easy and you can configure the color of text and background of your ads to suit your blog. You can also generate extra revenue for your site by participating in their referral program. One of the drawbacks is that your cheque should mature for 60 days before being eligible to be paid out.

If your majority of visitors are from US and Canada, Chitika is the best option for you. Chitika advertisements are optimized for US and Canadian searches.Ads are really versatile with a new design which never look like a text link. Chitika will integrate well with Google Adsense as you can show Chitika for visitors from US and Canada and Google Adsense for other visitors. It also provides the option to collapse into nothing or display filler ads for visitors outside US and Canada. Minimum amount of payout is just $10.Chitika is the top revenue source for ProBlogger and many others, where Adsense takes only second place.

Bidvertiser is another good option with high CPC rates. Another advantage of Bidvertiser is that you can place Bidvertiser ads in your RSS and atom feeds. To know more about placing Bidvertiser ads on feeds click here. Bidvertiser has a custom size ad option which will help many bloggers to fit them into their themes very nicely.

If you have good number of visitors, say more than 10000 page views per month then ValidClick is the best option for you. The CPC rates are the highest among the Adsense alternatives. Registration process is also simple.ValidClick pays publishers thirty five days after the end of each revenue generating month. You can either opt for a check payment or an paypall payment.

Yahoo Publisher Network is another free to join advertising program that help publishers make money. To be considered for the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, participants must have a valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID number, and web site content that is predominantly in English and targeted at a U.S. user base. If you satisfy above condition you can consider Yahoo publisher network. Another advantage is the ability to use advertisements in RSS feeds.

Kontera is best known for the inline ads and is the best option for it and bears the name Content link. Kontera’s advanced In-Text Pay Per Click Advertising solutions guarantee the highest degree of relevancy between content, keywords and ads. Some key words in your blog will be double underlined and on rolling mouse over it a small window popes up. Some publishers may dislike inline ads but it is has got a higher conversion rate.

Pogads is a good advertising network which can be considered by beginners as no restrictions on number of page views are implemented here. You have an option to change advertisements displayed on your site very frequently, as low as every one minute, which will help in showing more ads and inturn increases the chance of click. Choose from layer ads, video ads, text ads, link ads or image ads and start making money instantly.

Claxon Media offers multiple ad formats, accurate stats, timely payments, high fill rates, and the ability to preview ads, opt out of ads, and set up defaults. Affiliate payments are sent on the 15th and 30th of each month once minimum earnings of $50 is reached.Claxon ads are known as more tempting to click and hence likely to earn more clicks and money.The entire registration process is simple.

Convert your blog tempelate to three or four column

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:58:00 +0000

After setting up a blog and running it for some time you may want to change the layout of the blog to add more functionality to it. Generally the blog templates are having two column design and offers very low flexibility. If you want to place advertisements in your blog it is always better to keep it above the fold and naturally you will have to move your important widgets down to accommodate them. Any surfer will dislike to stay in your site if he finds only advertisements in important areas in his first look .The best way out is to design or download a free three column or four column template. You can modify blog template and css to add more columns to your blog and it does not require rocket science to do that.This blog template design tutorial will help you. Follow these steps carefully.

Step 1 -Creating backup of template.
It is always a good idea to backup your template before you start any tweaking in the code as saved changes are irreversible. Go to the 'lay out' tab and click the 'edit html'. Use ctrl+A to select the entire code, copy and past it to a note pad and save it.

Step 2 -Adjusting the width of column.
Find the code section 'Outer-Wrapper' in the html code.

Inorder to accommodate more columns you will have to increase the total width of your blog.You can choose any value for width below 990px for best results.
Now you should decide upon the width of the different columns.You can adjust the width of main wrapper and side bar wrapper in the code area given below.

Keep the width of respective columns lower enough to accommodate one more column.

Step 3 -Adding one more column
Immediately after the above code add the following code by copy and paste.

Find the following code

If you want to keep the new column in the left side add the code given below Immediately after the above code.

If you want the column in the right side add the above code after.

Step 4 Preview and saving.
Click the preview button to see the preview and if you are satisfied click the save button to save the template. If you are unable to view the above code sections you are probably using a template with a different structure. In that case go to the 'layout' menu and change your template to 'Minima' then start tweaking.

If you do not want to play with html and css, you can download a three column free blog template by clicking here. Upload the template in the 'edit html' menu and start blogging.

Top 25 blog directories to submit your blog

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:33:00 +0000

The best blogs in the blogosphere are never the most popular ones. If you want your blog to be successful, naturally more people should read it. There are many ways to bring in traffic to your blog and submitting blogs to good blog directories is one method which will give assured result.Blog directories are generally well categorized and will help the surfers to find the best in that category easier and faster. The crux of the problem is that you can find so many blog directories in the net and very few of them will really help you in bringing traffic. I have done an extensive study to identify the best directories available and it is comprehended here. You can use this article as a reference while submitting your blogs. Clicking on the icons will take you to respective sites. Click on submit your blog link to submit directly.

This is a blog directory where blogs are sorted by the score each blog has received during the week. The tracking button tracks the blog visitors and give the blog score without requiring the visitor to interfere. You can list your blog for free here.Submit your blog.

Blogexplotion can be a great help in bringing traffic to your blog as it is different in many aspects. You can ask others to review your blog or get traffic on your blog by referring others to the site. After logging in you will get a member page fully loaded with features worth trying.A great pinging service is also included in blogexplotion.Submit your blog.

'Directory best' is a top blog directory where blogs are listed in 14 main categories, which are divided into subcategories within themselves. Three categories of liking are available.1. Free 2.Exchange 3.Featured. For featured linking you will have to shell out $5. I would recommend you to go for exchange linking.Submit your blo g.

Blog collector is a quality blog directory where blogs are listed based on Google page ranks. Go to the relevant category and then click the submit blog button at the top of the page. Submi t your blog.

ReadBurner is a free online service that aggregates items that are shared on Google Reader. It is a revolutionary new concept and is worth trying. Adding a link does not require any registration. Only thing is that you should be a registered Google reader user and you will have to copy and paste into a box, your public RSS feed of your Google Reader shared items.Submit your blog.

Bloghub.com is a popular online directory and community where you can find some useful resource for blogging as well. You can add your site to the blog directory for free.Submit your blog.

Bloggernitty is a good directory for beginners to list their blog as there is a separate section for newly added blogs where your blog will be prominently displayed for some time. Bloggernity is well categorized and has got an easy to navigate interface which will help you to find the stuff you needed quickly. Listing is provided free of cost at Bloggernity.Submit your blog.

Blogarama is a no frills listing directory and has got an impressive listing of over 100,000 blogs. The site provides an easy to navigate interface too. linking to blogarama allows your blog to get a better position in listing.
Submit your blog.

BlogSearchEngine.com has got a specialized categorization which will help you to bring in more traffic. The search engine powered by ice rocket provides decent performance.Submit your blog.

Blogflux is a large directory of more than one lakh blogs.Newly submitted blog section is useful for site promotion. The thump nails of all the sites are provided to makes selection of sites easy on the well categorized directory. Submission is free.Submit your blog.

One of the largest blog directories on the internet. Blog registration is simple and offers powerful search features.
Submit your blog.

Bigger blogger's well categorized and simple design helps easy navigation. You will have to register to submit your blog here. The latest link section will be a great help for beginners.Submit your b log.

Bloggapedia is a good directory for listing your blog. You will have to register to submit your blog. Regular links are free but featured links will require $49.
Submit your blog.

If you can shell out $1.99 for registering, you can think of submitting your blog here. Even though it is a small directory it is well organized and assures some traffic.Submit your blog.

Free submission is possible at blog listing. Two options are there free and free with reciprocal link. Better to go for free with reciprocal link.Submit your blog.

Free submission is possible by just going to the most relevant category and clicking suggest url button at the bottom.
Submit your blog.

Super blog directory has a clean and nice looking interface with a newly added blogs section. Three options available which includes free and free with reciprocal. Free with reciprocal is best as it gives an opportunity to add your last five posts through RSS.Submit your blog

FeedBees is an online RSS feed directory where you can lis t your blog within 15 categories. It does not require any registration process to submit your blog here. Another advantage is that for any submitted feed that comes with Google Adsense within, the service collects the original Google ad code, so that if someone clicks on that ad, all revenue goes to the feed owner.Submit your blog.

After a free and fast registration, which only asks for your name and email, you can add all of your feeds to the service just by going into the category that best describes your site, click add link, and it will be immediately added to the list. You should submit your RSS url only when asked to submit URL.Submit your blog.

Feed see is an RSS blog directory which has got a very simple design. Submitting feeds is simple and does not require any registration. It provides a huge list of sample searches to make your feed search easy.Submit your blog.

This is a place where you can find and promote good blogs. Blogs are reviewed, rated, and categorized by editors, but anyone with an account can review and rate a blog to help it rise in the rankings. Sign up. Blogged is a great directory to submit your site.Submit your bl og.

Blogotion is a site which lists only high quality blogs. A listing at blogotion will catapult your blog traffic. Blogotion also provides a short overview of blogs. Submit your blog.

A1 Web Links provides a great chance for new bloggers as new links are featured in the main page itself with prominence. Regular links with reciprocal is provided free of cost. Another advantage is that you can submit top level domains or individual pages here.Submit your blog.

If you own a blog, you can get your own page on rssHugger for 10 years for giving an honest review of the site on your blog. If you want to join rssHugger but do not want to review our site, you can pay a onetime review fee of $20.
Submit your blog.

Geeky speaky provides free linking with reciprocal links. Even though it is a small directory it is worth submitting here as the site looks promising.
Submit your blog.

Creating a favicon for your blog

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:51:00 +0000

Favicon or 'Favorite Icon' is the small picture automatically displayed in the address line of the browser while visiting a particular site. Adding a favicon to your blog site is an easy way to stand out from the crowd and if properly designed will give an idea about the site to visitors even before visiting the site.
To start with you will have to create an image which is around 16X16 pixel size.You can use free softwares like Gimp or Green fish Icon editor for that.Read more and download Gimp and Greenfish Icon editor. If you are using photoshop you will have to download icon plugin. It is always better to create a larger image pixel 128X128 and scale down to smaller size later. save the file as 'favicon.ico'.You can even download favicons from sites like Favicons R Us.
Next step is to upload the favicon to your website.If you are using blogger it will not allow you to upload any image in icon format.An easy way out is to register with google sites and attach the favicon to a page by uploading it.
Now you can login to your Blogger account, click on Edit Html in the Template tab and view the html code.It is recommended to backup your template code into a note pad in two modes with widgets expanded and unexpanded.Find the tag 'head' and look for the following code.

Add the following code just below the line.

Replace 'your site' with the URL of the site where favicon is updated.
Then save your template and view your blog. Usually it does not appear the very first time so just refresh it once or close the browser and reopen it and it should appear.