Calling all Newbie Bloggers!

Welcome to 2009 and your spanking new blog you created at Blogger.com. 

Photo by Ben30

What are the next steps you should follow to make blogging an instantaneous and painless experience? How to be a successful blogger using only point and click and some fast keyboarding? Here are some fast tips for the ultra n00b................

 

The first thing when creating a blog is to select a short and sweet URL or blog address. You can change this afterwards also by login at Blogger.com and then go to Settings>>Publishing>>Blog Address. If the address is not available you can get a Custom Domain Dot Com address for only 10$ US and also get rid of the 'blogspot' in the address.

Do not change the blog address if more than two months have elapsed because you will have to start all over again from scratch with respect to the search engines. You will also lose the traffic going to the old address!

 

After creating a blog speed up getting it on the search engines by submitting blog to them and verify ownership using Google Webmaster Tools.

 

Creating posts and inserting pictures in your blog is made easy thanks to Windows Live Writer.

 

For optimum blogging experience download Firefox browser on a PC with a broadband connection. For checking your emails use Thunderbird. To follow and subscribe to latest blog updates use Google Reader. All are free!

 

Never delete the account used to create your blog. DELETING ACCOUNT DOES NOT DELETE YOUR BLOG. 

 

After creating a post open the post page in browser by clicking on the post title. Then from browser menu click File>>Save Page As and save it to a backup folder on your hard drive.  You should also backup your entire blog periodically. Backup your blog template (Login>>Layouts>>Edit Html>>Download Full Template)and widgets in same folder. Periodically record the folder to CD or DVD-ROM to insure against hard disk failure. Invest in a USB drive and synchronize backup folders to it. This will prevent piling up of backup CD/DVD-ROMs.

 

Keep passwords secure with Keep Pass - a free password encryptor and manager.  In your Google or Gmail account settings enter a secondary email account.

 

Open a Paypal account and put in some donation links in your blog.

On the Main Page of the blog show only an expandable summary of the posts followed by a Read More link. This makes the main page load faster.

 

Burn your blog feed at Feedburner.com and copy the new feed url and paste it in Settings>>Site Feed>>Post Feed Redirect box and save. Now you will be able to know your full subscriber count. Put in a prominent Feed Icon at the top of your blog sidebar so viewers can subscribe to blog updates.

 

Lastly add content regularly at least thrice weekly.  Do not make very long posts and add pictures and videos inbetween to break the monotony. Add Labels and social bookmarks to all posts.

 

Enjoy!

Add Post Title to Read More Expandable Post Summaries.

A reader has asked "Instead of using READ MORE! after the summary, how to change it to Read More On "Post Title"? ".


He wants to incorporate the Post Title in the Expandable Post Summaries Blogger Hack..............


The expandable post summaries hack is one of the most popular Blogger hacks as it reduces the length of the Main Page. It also provides a 'teaser' summary of your posts which the viewer can quickly scan many posts before deciding which post to read in it's entireity.



The implementation of the expandable post summaries hack which I have detailed in an earlier post consists of three steps :


1. Adding conditional CSS to your template. This ensures that the Main Page of your blog displays only summaries of posts.

2. Adding the 'Read More' link in the expanded widgets template.

3. Changing the Post Template so that every new post created can be divided into a Summary part on the Main Page and the full post on the Post Pages.

MODIFYING THE READ MORE LINK

To modify the 'Read More' link at the bottom of your post so that the Post Title becomes appended to it you have to change the code in the second part above.


To do this login to Blogger.com and click on Layout link on the Dashboard. Then click on Edit Html subtab of Template tab. Put a check in the Expand Widgets Template box and scroll down to this code which should be present if you have added the Expanded Post Summaries hack :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<span style='font-weight:bold;'><span style='font-size:120%;'><a expr:href='data:post.url' target='_blank'>Read more!</a></span></span>
</b:if>

Change this code to :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<span style='font-weight:bold;'><span style='font-size:120%;'><a expr:href='data:post.url' target='_blank'>Read more On "<data:post.title/>"!</a></span></span>
</b:if>

The code in RED has been added. Click Preview to approve change. Save Template. Clear Cache and View Blog.


Enjoy!

Expandable Post Summaries

Expandable Post Summaries is the method by which each blog post consists of a short paragraph of introduction followed by a 'Read More' link. This enables the reader to get a small introduction to each post on the main page. He can then click the Read More link if he gets sufficiently interested........

Many bloggers have reported confusion when they tried to follow the instructions on the official blogger help page for this hence I have tried to put the help in more easy to follow terms here. There are basically three steps to follow if you want to implement expandable post summaries in the new layouts template.

CONDITIONAL CSS

The first step is to put the code for the conditional css. This changes how posts display on different pages. To do this login to Dashboard and click on Layout for your blog. Then click on Edit Html and first backup your template by using the Download Full Template link. Then scroll down till you come to </head> tag and add the following code immediately above it :

<style>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
span.fullpost {display:inline;}
<b:else/>
span.fullpost {display:none;}
</b:if>
</style>

Save Template. IMPORTANT NOTE in the layouts template there is a ]]></b:skin> tag just above the </head> tag. Add the above code so that it lies between these two tags. What we did here was to define a class called "fullpost" that will appear only on post pages (permalinks).

"READ MORE" LINKS

The second step is to add the Read More links which will appear after the paragraph summaries. To do this put a check in the Expand Widgets Template checkbox at the top of the Edit Template text box.

NOTE : If you do not put a check in Expand widgets template checkbox at the top of the TEMPLATE CODE BOX you will not see this code.

This is in the Edit Html subtab of Template tab. Then scroll down in the code till you come to the Blog Posts Widget code where locate this line of code :

<data:post.body/>

Add the code below immediately after the above code :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url' target='_blank'>Read more!</a>
</b:if>


Save Template. This link will only appear on the main page and archive pages, and it will redirect your reader to the post page containing the full text of your post.
IMPORTANT NOTE : Do not use any other code or it will give error.

You can also add your Post Title at the end of the Read More link so that it will read "Read More on "My Best Post"!"

UPDATE

A Reader wanted to increase the font size of the Read More! link. To do this add this code instead of the one above :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<span ><a expr:href='data:post.url' target='_blank'><font size="120" color="red">Read more!</font></a></span>
</b:if>

Increase or decrease the figure 120 as you want it and then save the template. To make the font bold use this code instead :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<span style="font-weight:bold;"><a expr:href='data:post.url' target='_blank'>Read more!</a></span>
</b:if>

Save Template. To do both use this code :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<span style="font-weight:bold;"><span ><a expr:href='data:post.url' target='_blank'>Read more!</a></span></span>
</b:if>

Save Template.

POST MODIFICATIONS

The last step is to modify the post template so that each post when created will show you where to place your summary paragraph and where to place the rest of the post. To do this go to Settings------>Formatting and scroll down to the end of the page to the box for the Post Template. Copy and Paste the following lines there :

Here is the beginning of my post. <span class="fullpost">And here is the rest of it.</span>

Save Settings. When you click on Create Post and then Edit Html tab of Post Editor you will see the following (Click Image for larger view) :


Replace the line "Here is the beginning of my post." (Type your summary here) with your summary paragraph. Then replace the line "And here is the rest of it." (Type rest of the post here.) with the rest of your post. Do not delete the other lines <span class="fullpost"> and </span>. Also add your summary paragraph above both the lines and your rest of the post between the lines. Then click Publish to publish post.

CREATING YOUR POSTS

Login to Blogger.com and click on +New Post link on Dashboard. The Post Editor will come up. Click on Edit Html tab in top right frame of Post Editor. This is what you should see (The colors are mine) :

Type your summary here
<span class="fullpost">
Type rest of the post here
</span>

If you want to show a photo or any text on the summary post on the Main Page put it instead of the red text line.

If you want photo to show in the full post on the Post Page put it instead of the GREEN text.

Before publishing make sure that the two span (code) lines are present and the </span> line is at the bottom and the span=readmore line in between your summary post and the second half of the post.

Then only click on Publish button.

PLEASE NOTE

1. The hack will not apply retrospectively. That is to say after you add the code you will have to edit your past posts so that they display in summary fashion on the Main Page of the blog.


2. The hack applies only to posts on the Main Page. Once a post having the hack moves off the Main Page it does not display in this fashion. This is a Main Page Hack.

ADVANTAGES OF THIS METHOD

The advantages of this method is you get a link to your posts below your summary paragraph which gets an additional link in the search engines indexing. Also you do not have to rely on any external Javascript. The third advantage is that the Read More link opens into a new page leaving your main page still open in viewer's browser.

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