Hacks n Tips for Bloggers

Where to upload pics to post in blog

Written by Basis-Consultant on 11:51 PM

Google provides options to upload your images. They are stored in picasa web albums http://picasaweb.google.com/. Unfortunately they don't give you direct link to the image. The space provided by google is limited to 1GB. There are other websites that provide space for hosting pictures for free and give you limited bandwidth. There are some services i suggest like Photobucket and Imageshack. They give you direct link to you pictures which you can share on you blog. By the way how to post a pic
here is the code

<img src="http://url-to-the-picture" />

I suggest using pictures in format of JPG or JPEG. Because most of them are small size. PNG files are of high quality but are of very large size.

Rss -the web feed

Written by Basis-Consultant on 10:05 PM

Rss is one of the most used webfeed format. I have been using them. It helps in bloggers notifying their reader about updates.Many visitors donot like email subscription because it fills their mail box with lot of mails ( i don't like mails). Rss is a convenient way of being in touch with a blog or website. Here is a good video explaining what is rss. The publisher is common craft.


The explanation in the video is simple and effective with diagram.
The software i usually use is google reader (though firefox is convinient)
You may find other options like blog line, my yahoo (depends on your taste).

The span tag

Written by Basis-Consultant on 8:07 PM

Span tag in html is very userful. You can make text colured or you can highlight text or you can add image to particular portion of text etc...

This text is colored

<span style="color: red;">This text is colored</span>

This text has yellow background

<span style="background-color: yellow;">This text has yellow background</span>

This is a text with background image

<span style="background-image: url(http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/2830/background2ru0.gif);"gt;This is a text with background image</span>

This is What You Get

 <SPAN TITLE="This is the tool tip box">This is What You Get</SPAN<

 To know more on span tag visit a tutorial on span

How to disable right click in blogger

Written by Basis-Consultant on 11:11 AM

Are you frustrated of some one stealing your content? Disable right click on your blog. There are many javascripts that help you to prevent right click on your blog. Here are some of the right click disabling scripts . Search google with no right click and you will find many useful javascripts to do the job. Some of them pops a message that javascript is disabled etc...

                 Above javascripts cannot prevent your visitor from copying the content from source code. If you want your content to be secure don't keep it online :)

                 I don't recommend disabling rightclick. I find it annoying. You shouldnot disable right click for  a large portion of visitors who have no intention to steal content. It is unprofessional to do so. Even then if you insist there are other ways to protect your content like keeping your image in the background and adding a transparent pic on the foreground.

Social Bookmarking

Written by Basis-Consultant on 9:05 PM

Is it important to have a social bookmarking button on your blog. I use social bookmarking tools often. I have plugins installed on Firefox. I don't think these buttons are necessary on a blog. Anyway these buttons are convenient if you are at the end of the page and you can bookmark them instead of hovering mouse to the top. But many bloggers have signs instead of name of bookmarking sites on them. Most of friend don't know what these signs are for(even i don't know some of them). Here is an interesting video that explains social bookmarking





I think sharethis button would do a good job but, uncluttered addthis button is more appealing to me. Because the javscript button dropdown menu loads faster and it has symbols along with name of the social bookmarking website. However people who already know social bookmarking have tools to bookmark your site even if you don't provide one on your blog. The button acts as polite reminder for them to bookmark your site/page

Join the Ucomment IFollow movement

Written by Basis-Consultant on 6:50 PM

When i comment on a blog i want it to be useful to time and worth of my time so that i can bring extra traffic to my site. Many of the blogger templates have this "NOFOLLOW" inserted in code for "comments" to prevent spam (which no longer works). This discourages comments. Many beginners get frustrated due to lack of comments (which is one of their main source of motivation, but writing passionately will make your blog popular anyway). You should join U comment I Follow movement. Go to your HTML source code in the blog (goto layout ----> edit html & check Expand Widget templates button).

Now search for NOFOLLOW word in your source code and remove rel='nofollow' where ever it appear. Now the visitors who comment on your blog get a back link to their blog by which the google & other search engine bots can crawl to their blog. Also display a badge (get one form here UComment IFollow Badges) on your blog which tells your visitors that commenting on your blog is beneficial .

But there are other views. Most of the big blogs keep this nofollow attribute to prevent spam by humans... Read my post about Ifollow bandwagoon for beginners?

Activate the Pigshot Service in Feedburner

Written by Basis-Consultant on 10:00 PM

Feedburner provides you a very good service that  updates major listing services like technorati,bloglists,pingomatic etc that your blog's content is updated. This is very useful. There is no need for you to go and ping those services manually, feedburner pings them automatically for you. Of all it also includes other pinging service pingomatic which ping a large no of services (12 or more i guess). I recommend all blogger who are using feedburner to activate this service. To activate this service goto publicize in your feed's control panel then goto pingshot and click on activate button.By default it ping 6 services. But you can add 5 additional services which includes alexa also.

Below are the default options

• * Technorati — Technorati is the authority on what is going on in the world of weblogs
• * My Yahoo — a customizable web page with news stock quotes weather and many other features
• * Bloglines — helps you subscribe to and manage lots of web information
• * Newsgator — tracks it all and brings the web pages to you
• * Google Blog Search Pinging Service — A way to inform Google Blog Search of weblog updates.
• * Ping-o-matic — Pinging lets dozens of services know you have updated your site and increases traffic to your blog

You can add alexa ( i recommend you to add alexa) and many others (limited to 5).

How to display your feed count?

Written by Basis-Consultant on 8:43 PM

If you are using the default blogger feeds you will not be able to track how many people are accessing your website through feed. If you use third party feed manager like feedburner you can display the no of readers subscribed.
To get the code for diplaying the feed count goto your feed control panel n click on publicize button.

Then go to feed count.
you have options for choosing static or dynamic feed chicklet.

Choose your colors and click on activate button. and you will get the code to the feed count chicklet

<p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/HacksNTipsForBloggers"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/HacksNTipsForBloggers?bg=99CCFF&fg=444444&anim=1" height="26" width="88" style="border:0" alt="" /></a></p>

Just put it in any of the widget on the top portion of your site to show of your feed count. Since you are showing off your feed count here, dont display you feed chicklet until you reach a good  number like 100 or more.

Burn your feeds with FEEDBURNER

Written by Basis-Consultant on 8:09 PM

Feedburner is one of the best feed burning services out there. The default feed options in blogger are limited. There are many uses if you use feedburner. Here are some of them

• High customization
• Display feed count
• Attractive chicklet
• Pinging various internet services automatically
• Detailed statistics
• hit count of each item and many more

Go to feed burner and burn you feeds now.

Don't post your email address on blog

Written by Basis-Consultant on 10:20 PM

Don't post your email address on blog. if you do, you will attract lot of spam. Ok now there is some good article here on how to put up email address ob blog without being spammed. But i don't suggest this even. The modern spam bots may search for entire code for mailto: code. So its better that you register yourself at kontactr and get one contact me form for your blog. Here is my blog post explaining how to setup contact me form in a blog.
 

How to embed videos from Youtube or Megavideo into your blog

Written by Basis-Consultant on 9:34 PM

If you find any video on youtube or megavideo worth adding to your site just search for button or field called embed. Usually in all video sharing sites the embed button is present. I am showing the popular sites like

youtube
it will be present in the right side of the video where the description is present.

megavideo
it is present on right side of video like this


in veoh
The embed option will be below the video.

If you see that embed is disabled, the author or uplander of video doesnot want other to embed his content sot you will not be able to publish it in your blog.

Copy all the code in the embed field and go to your post
click on Edit html button and paste it.
----this is picture---------------------------------------------------------

------- x-----------------
You will see the video in compose mode.

Here is video tutorial

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Get a Contact Form for your blog

Written by Basis-Consultant on 9:10 PM

Normally one of the most commonly used way of contact in blogger is comments. Just make a post named Contact me & tell the users to post a comment in that post & enable sending comments to you email. But this irritates many users since blogger contact form is in another page. But if you like to setup a contact form that doesn't require your visitor to visit another page use KontactR

They have a large no of options like html code or ajax code. They have now launched a new type of comment forms. Popup form!!. I think the popup form is the best. You can embed the contact me button at the end of each post like addthis or sharethis button. When the visitor clicks on it a small contact form opens up without opening a new window like below shading the rest of the page. After sending the message you can close the window and return to your page without going clicking any buttons. Also there is the CAPTCHA feature which stops spam.



Related Posts:
How to embed javascript in blog post 

To add this go to layout ---> edit html then check Expand widget templates button and search for post.body
now add this javascript after parsing it below         <p><data:post.body/></p> line
Click below contact me button to see the example

How to add signature to your post

Written by Basis-Consultant on 8:15 PM

Signature is repeated information which appears at the end of every post or letter or email you write. In Blogger you can add it. Suppose you are maintaining a site which has a large no of download links then you can make two posts named contact me & report broken links. As you need to add this to every post so that you visitor can send you the list of broken links. There are other uses, like you like to add a image singature like at the end of every post. You need to type < img src="http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/2034/signatureaugustelantzqb5.png" > every time. To automate this routine task you can code you signature in blogger.

To do it go to settings ---> formatting . After loading scroll down and you will see a section post template. Now paste html code of your signature here as shown in figure.

and click on save setting button. Now every time you create a new post the signature automatically appears.

How to add sharethis or addthis button to blog or blog post.

Written by Basis-Consultant on 2:52 PM

First register an account at addthis or sharethis site
then get your button code like this. This is drop down menu button.

<script type="text/javascript">
addthis_url='<data:post.url/>'; addthis_title='<data:post.title/>'; addthis_pub='tailender1';
</script><script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/addthis_widget.php?v=12" type="text/javascript">
</script>

Parse the javascript as shown in the post How to parse javscript for Blogger

Then go to layout in your control panel
Layout---> Edit Html -> check the Expand Widget Templates option and search for post-footer word and insert this code just before
<div class="post-footer">
. You will see the add this button appearing on every post near the comments section like below

Tools that are useful in Choosing a niche or topics.

Written by Basis-Consultant on 10:01 PM

There are some tools which are useful in determining a niche.

Google Keywords tool
Use this tools to write on which material or topic. Write on topic where there are more searches and less information available. By this your page will be at the top of the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages)

Google Traffic Estimator
Use this tools for choosing a niche. Just type keyword of your niche and know how many clicks are being made per day.

By the way how to use them? Get the keywords related to your niche or topic on google keyword tool and paste them in google traffic estimator. Now see which of the word are being paid highly and write on them.

Parsing Google Adsense Code or Adbrite's code or any Javascript for Blogger

Written by tailender on 2:38 PM

You need to parse google adsense code or adbrite's code if you need to add this code in the post's main body or between the title of post and post body or between the post body or post's footer.First you have to convert you adsense code or adbrite code or any other javascript before putting it into the template.

To parse the code you have to replace

< with &lt;
> with &gt;
& with &amp;
" with &quot;

For changing adbrite code I suggest you first replace & then start replacing ",< and >

Now goto layout button and check edit html button and place this code between those post-body and post header sections or post-footer sections.

What is the stats service to use in Blog

Written by Basis-Consultant on 4:28 PM

As you blog is growing you need to get an sitemeter to calculate the no of visits to your blog. Do it need a sitemeter or stats service? Yes. The more people visit your blog the more you will be motivated to write. What is the service to use for blog statistics?
I like statcounter but it is limited to lest 500 visit only. My site gets large no of visits and i need more detailed statistics. Blogpatrol does give you a good service in which it tracks all the vistor stats of last 7 days.

 click on this button .Here are the list of stats you will see in statistics pages.

Summary:- 
   Summary Just gives you the no of visits, page loads and returning visitors to your site.

• Visits:- No of people visited your site
• Page loads:- No of pages has been loaded in your site. When a visitor visits your website he/she views many pages. Suppose i have viewed 3 pages of your site then no of visits is 1 & page loads is 3.
• Returning Visitors:- People who are returning to your site
  

Popular Pages:-
        Here are the most popular pages of your blog. You can use this information to see which pages are popular and which are not so that you can increase the quality of content on those less popular pages or link to them from most popular pages

Entry Pages:-
       This shows the pages through which the visitor enters your blog.


Exit Pages:-
        These are the pages through which the visitors leaves your blog 


Came From (or Referrers):-
                  This is one of the most important statistics. You can measure the referrers or which site is redirecting traffic to your site. Suppose if you find that visits came from a forum then you just goto that forum, search for relevant posts or section and post some answers or posts there. You will get free traffic from them. Remember to link to your blog in your signature.

Keyword Analysis:-
                   Again this is one of the most important statistics. If you run out of ideas what to write on, analyze these keywords. These are the keywords with which the visitors get your site through Search Engine. Search for keywords for which your visitors donot find any information on the blog and write on it. It will be of very good use.


Recent Keyword Activity:-
            This just gives you the summary of keywords for last few hours or the last day.


Recent Came From:-
            This just gives you the recent referrals to your blog.

Search Engine Wars:-
            This gives you which search engine gives or bringing more traffic to your site. Most of the time it will be Google.Getting indexed in Google is in one task and getting indexed in others is another separate task


Visitor Paths
             This gives you how the visitor behaves on your site. Which other pages he/she has visiting after the entry page.

Visit Length
             This is also one of most important info. This gives you how interesting your blog is or how much time a visitors spends on your blog. The more time he spends on your blog the more targeted traffic you are bringing.

Returning Visits:-
               This gives you the no of visitor returning to your site after their first visit. This is a also a good measure of how interesting your site is.

        
Recent Pageload Activity:-
               This gives you the pages visited by your recent visitors.


Recent Visitor Activity:-
               This gives full details of your recent visitor page loads. referrers etc..

Recent Visitor Map:-
               This gives you the location of your recent visitors. This is also one of important resource. If you have large no of visitors from USA or Europe you will have high earning for your CPM ads.

Country/State/City/ISP:-
               Same as above but gives summarized report of all visitors.
Browser:-
               This stats is very important. This comes in handy for you when designing your blog or introducing new functionality. From the browser stats you will know the types of browsers your visitors are using and have to test your blog on all of these browser for universal compatibility


System Stats or Resolution:-
             This is also an important factor which you have to keep in mind when designing your blog. It must me compatiable with all resolutions which are shown in this statistics. You should not loose your visitors just for incompatibility of resolution or browser

Why three column blog templates over two columned ones?

Written by Basis-Consultant on 4:41 PM

I prefer three column tempaltes. Three column templates have more space to add widgets. Two column templates are kinda conjusted or restrictive. If you want to earn seriously from your blog i suggest you try out three column blogger template than two column ones. Two column blogs are good if you are writing a personal blog or blogging for fun. Here are some pages where you can find some good three column templates

Webtalks

Free Templates

Blog Styles

Blog Buster

Gecko and Fly

Anchoring in a blog or Naming you links properly

Written by Basis-Consultant on 4:40 PM

When you link to an external page on a website then use relevant words instead of using words like visit here. Suppose you are linking to a tutorial on gardening, link it is
Gardening Tutorial than writing visit here for a tutorial on gardening. This is one of the search engine optimization techniques which will improve your page rank.

Categories or Labels

Written by Basis-Consultant on 10:24 AM

Categorizing your post in relevant categories is very important for your visitor to find similar content he is looking for. Suppose you visitor gets to your site with a keyword related to medicine, he will try to find what other posts are there in the same category.
This will increase your page count by navigation on your blog easy and helps your visitor finding more information. A category organizes your blog and makes it accessible.

You can add the categories widget to your blog

Making a Sitemap or Blog Map for you Blog

Written by Basis-Consultant on 10:23 AM

This concept is derived from the sitemap of a website. Is it useful? There is one rule for website masters. All pages of a website must be within two clicks from the main page. This can be achieved by sitemap or Blogmap. In your blog map you can list all the posts in you blog category wise and it will be helpful for a visitor to see all the contents of your blog in one page. I personally visit sitemaps of blog map if available so that I can view the content I am interested in. This will also boost the internal page ranking and draws more visits to less frequently visited pages of your blog.

How to change your blog theme or template.

Written by Basis-Consultant on 6:45 PM

If it is a html template or classic template all you need to is goto layout button in your blog and click on edit html option. Now check the Expand Widget Templates and wait till the page reloads. Now delete all the existing code and paste the new html code copied from the template and save it. Or you can upload the template using the form on the top of the page.
If your template is of xml format just upload it and confirm for deletion of widgets.

How to add Recent posts & recent Comments widget.

Written by Basis-Consultant on 5:58 PM

Lets assume your blog name is

http://myblog.blogspot.com

Then all of you recent posts are published in feed http://myblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default 
and all of comments on the blog are publish in feed http://myblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default.

Just goto your page layout and add a feed widget

How to choose your Niche?

Written by Basis-Consultant on 5:01 PM

These are my thoughts about choosing a niche. Normally experts suggest that you choose a niche that interests you a lot or you know a lot about it or you are willing to learn a lot about it. I think their idea is if you know a lot about a niche or if you are interested in your niche then you can write good articles and make a great website which will get good targeted traffic. But is this approach profitable? I used to manga (Japanese comics). I haven’t earned much money from it. The CPC is usually less than five cents. Of course the traffic is targeted one and the advertisements are targeted. But they pay very low for each click. Even if the niche is of your interest is it worth to blog about or publish if the ads pay you low? I am trying a highly competitive niche now. I think where there is more competition there more money is. When a police asked a robber, why do you loot only banks? The answer is bcos it where the money is. Of course it is hard to get noticed in such a large crowd. I think one must choose a sub niche which is part of this popular niche and start writing about it. But one should analyze properly about the niche before jumping into it. Some clues would be like. Medicines are very costly in our daily life. So ads targeted in that niche would pay you more?

Some of Best Template Providers

Written by Basis-Consultant on 6:51 AM

Here are some of the best Blogger Templates providers.
Blog Buster
This site has very good templates. Just visit them You can find a lot of 3 column templates for blogger.

Eblog Templates
Very Very good templates. They are of good quality. My blog's template is from this site. I love it.

Blogger Templates
This is another cool website that has very good and beautiful templates. This blog also helps you how to edit your templates

Blog Crowds
This site does have some good blog templates. Most of them are classic templates.

BTemplates
This is templates only site. It doesnot have any help? But the templates are sorted by categories like fluid templates or classic templates or 3 column templates etc..

BloggerTemplatesWebsite
This site has an handful of templates (not more than 10 i guess)

Hoctro's Place
This is a geekish place ewhere you will find many blog widgets that enhaces your blog fucntionality.

Plaintext
If don't want any complicated just simple and plain blog templates, This is the best place to get them.

Jack Book
Has good templates & tips on money making.

BloggerTricks
This are gorgeous templates. You must visit them

Finalsense
This site has very very good templates for blogger. They are grouped in categories.I might have more than 100 templates?

Pocket Templates
Really Gorgeous Templates