Add Twitter to Blog in 4 Clicks.

Now that we have started micro blogging with Twitter.com we would like to show off our Tweets on our blog. This helps in setting up a conduit between your blog and your Twitter. Visitors to your blog may get impressed enough with your tweets and start following you on Twitter also. See picture at left.


Here is how you can set up Twitter on your blog with four clicks only. No messy coding or copy and paste. Just four clicks to add Twitter to your sidebar ..............

4 Click Twitter Installer.

FIRST CLICK : Click the button below to start the installation process :

This is the popup window you will see :




SECOND CLICK : Fill in your Twitter Username instead of 'YourID' , customize title as you like instead of 'My Tweets' and type in the number of tweets you want shown instead of 'TweetNumber'. Then click Customize button.




THIRD CLICK : On clicking Customize button the 'Add Widget to My Blog' button will get activated. Click it. You will get the 'Add Page Element' window. See Picture below :





FOURTH CLICK : In the Add Page Element window select the blog you wish to add the gadget to (if you have multiple blogs in one account). Then type in a title "My Tweets" for the gadget. Lastly click 'Add Widget' button. The Page Elements subtab of Layout tab will open with the message that the widget has been added to the blog.




You can use this installer to add anyone else's tweets also. Just fill their Username instead of yours. The twitter gadget will adapt the styling of your blog. Enjoy!

Twitter and Increase Traffic to Blog.

The micro blogging site Twitter.com is in the news with rumors of Google trying to take it over flying fast and furious! Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres have started twittering. It is being used by everyone from revolutionaries storming the Moldovian parliament and Egyptian bloggers to protest an unlawful imprisonment.

Click above picture to follow me on Twitter. Here is how to get started on Twitter and increase traffic to your blog.....................

Get Started on Twitter.

The first step is to open an account on Twitter. Go to Twitter.com and click Join. Fill out the form. For Username enter a name related to your blog. Keep it short as everyone will know you by it.


In the next step you can check if any of your contacts are already on Twitter and follow them automatically. You can skip this step and land up on your Twitter home page. The status box is on top from where you type in your 'tweets' to tell the world what you are doing. Below that are the updates showing latest tweets from people you are following. If you had clicked the image at the top you will get my tweets showing up. Notice that they contain links to my blog posts.


In the sidebar is your profile at top followed by statistics (Number of followers, How many you are following and Updates) and icons of your followers. Now customize your twitter by clicking Settings link at the top of the page. Use the Picture tab to upload a picture. In the Account tab enter your real name and blog address in the fields provided and save settings.

Start Tweeting.

Click the Home link at the top of the page. Type what you are doing in the text field. Only 140 characters are allowed so Keep it Short. Click Update to see your own tweet at top. People who follow you will see this tweet on their page instantly.

Put Follow Me on Your Blog

Now you can use your blog to get followers. Put the Follow Me badge on your blog. Viewers clicking on it will become your Followers and have your tweets delivered to them in real time. To install this image on your blog click the button below :

Clicking the above button will result in this popup window :



Enter your Twitter Username instead of 'YourID' in the box and then click Customize button. This will activate the 'Add Widget to my Blog' button. Click it to get the 'Add Page Element' window as shown below :



Select your blog from the drop down list and click the 'Add Widget' button. This will add the Follow Me on Twitter badge at top of this post to your blog sidebar. No further coding is required. Any viewer clicking on the image will be added as Follower to your tweets.


In future posts I will discuss how to show your tweets on your blog, how to twitter blog posts automatically and tips on how to use Twitter more effectively without spamming.

Blogger Introduces New Features.

Ever since Beta Blogger debuted last year and then gradually shed off the beta tag, new features have quietly been intruding into the Blogger interface and making their presence felt.


After Google took over Feedburner it was only a matter of time before it connected to Blogger and now you can redirect your Blogger feeds there. Then there is the new Autosave feature below the post editor, the introduction of new widgets, the sitemap in a robots.txt file, a Twitter badge and now a Comment policy declaration at the top of your Comment Editor..........

TWITTER BADGE

Twitter is the new micro blogging tool by which you can keep all your friends anywhere abreast of exactly what you are doing at the moment.


Now you can add a Twitter badge to your blog sidebar. Get the code from http://twitter.com/badges/blogger. This will display your Twitter updates in the blog sidebar.

BLOGGER IN DRAFT

Blogger In Draft is not exactly an add-on to Blogger. Instead it is a place for Blogger aficionados to try out the new features in Blogger before they are released fully.



You can try out the video upload function which will soon be introduced as a button in the post editor. Also check out the Blogger In Draft blog.

REDIRECT FEED AND INCREASE SUBSCRIBERS OVERNIGHT

Here is an easy way to almost double your feed subscribers overnight. Hope you have already burned your feed at Feedburner and put a subscriber count chicklet in the sidebar.


Now go to Settings----->Site Feed in your blog and type in the Post Feed Redirect URL box your Feedburner feed address. For this blog it is :

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DummiesGuideToGoogleBloggerBeta

Now all my post feed traffic will be directed to the above address. Hence readers subscribing directly to :

http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

OR TO

http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

will also be counted. The change in your chicklet number will be evident after 24-48 hours so don't do an immediate check. Another advantage is for users migrating from another blogging platform like Wordpress can redirect their old subscribers to their new feed.

THE POLL WIDGET

New widgets have steadily been added by Blogger to the in-house stable. The latest to be added is the poll widget. Now you do not have to rely on third party sites to add a poll widget to your blog. Add one yourself and introduce interactivity with your readers.
Check out the poll widgets at the end of my posts column and right column.


Before this Blogger had introduced the Newsreel Widget to automatically add current headlines from Google News to your blog and the Video Bar widget to display clips from YouTube and Google Video for your readers to watch without leaving the page.

COMMENTS POLICY DECLARATION

Using this latest addition you can now declare your comments policy to anyone who wishes to comment on your blog. When a reader clicks on the 'Comments' link at the bottom of your posts he/she will see this declaration just above the comments editor : See picture below :


To write one for your blog go to Settings----->Comments------>Comment Form Message---->Type policy in the box and Save Settings. You can add hyperlinks in this box. . Click on 'Comments' link below this post to see my comment policy where I have added a link to my profile.

ROBOTS.TXT and SITEMAP LINK

Blogspot blogs do not have facility for you to upload a robots.txt file to the root directory. Hence we have to add a Robots Metatag so that the search spiders know which pages to index in your blog. Google Webmasters Sitemaps has added a robots.txt file in the root of each blog. To see it go to Google Webmasters Sitemaps. Before doing this add your site to Google and verify it with a metatag.



Then go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools------>Dashboard------>Diagnostic tab------->Sidebar------->Tools------->robots.txt analysis. You will see the text in the robots file :

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Sitemap: http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

At the moment you are not allowed to edit it but I expect this facility to be introduced soon. The Disallow: /search option is to reduce the amount of duplicate content in the blog by refusing the spiders to index the Labels pages. Now you can add as many labels below your posts as you want without worrying about duplicate content.


The sitemap option points the spiders to the feed of that blog which contains the latest posts and updates.

IMAGE IN HEADER

You can now upload an image in your header directly instead of adding an image element to the header or adding it in the CSS. To center this image make sure to upload an image with the same width as that of the header-wrapper in your template.

AUTOSAVE POSTS

Below the post editor (Login to Dashboard------>Click +New Post) there is a blue autosave button which saves as you type. After saving it turns grey and waits for you to type more or edit previous entries. If you are editing a previously published post then instead there is a Save as draft button in it's place. For more info. see Blogger Buzz: Auto-savory Blogger Posting