Vital Settings For Your Blogger Blog - The Newbie's Guide

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This tutorial is aimed at brand new bloggers using Blogger templates. This edition is exclusively about what to include in your Settings if you want your new blog to set its best foot forward. Some things are vital additions to your blog if you want it found by others and/or listed by search engines. Other blogger tutorials are here.

Go to your Blogger dashboard and choose Setting. We'll work from the left to the right of your screen. 

Please don't forget to click on the orange button at the end of each page you change in order to save your settings.

Basic

Very simply put, the basic screen asks you for the name of your blog. This is not the url, it's the name you want your blog to be known as. 

Spend time writing a description of your blog next. This helps visitors to find your page while surfing but most importantly, it helps search engines to trawl your blog and 'decide' what it's about. You have 500 characters so make the best possible use of them.

Choose yes when asked if you want your blog to be included in the listings. Anyone can turn up on your blog simply by clicking on the 'next' button from their very own navbar. Not opting to include your blog in the listing results in no one knowing it exists.

- Choose yes to let search engines find your blog.

Quick editing is ideal, but it doesn't work on all blogs. Choosing yes means that you can edit your blog simply by clicking on the pencil icon which appears at the bottom of your blog posts (if your particular template supports this feature). I've found it extremely useful.

I'm assuming your blog does not have adult content. If it does, you need to say yes to this question otherwise you run the risk of children (and people who've chosen not to see adult sites) stumbling across it.

Publishing

Blog spot address asks you for the url of your blog. You can choose anything you want, but ideally, you should go with something that pertains to the genre and description of your blog. This helps tremendously with search engine traffic and people looking for your particular product. Blogger will indicate whether or not your choice is available for use. If it's not, they will kindly suggest other pertinent options.

Formatting

The first one is up to you. The number you put in will determine how many posts appear on the front page before being classed as 'older posts.' My suggestion is, you should choose a higher number of blog posts (7-9) for your front page if you have lots of ads and gadgets in your side panels. 

This evens up posts and gadgets and does not present your first-time reader with unsightly empty space where posts should be. If you haven't got lots of gadgets in your side panels, then 5 may be a good number to use.

  

The other options are all personal preferences, just make sure you choose your correct time zone from the list.

The very last option, 'Post Template' can be very useful to a new blogger. This panel allows you to put a template or message that will appear at the bottom of all your subsequent posts. Many people use it for signatures or a simple 'share this' button. Incidentally, I use it for the latter, but I allow my button to float to the top of my posts instead. I'd rather use this panel than edit my entire blog's html code. Here's a definitive article to view if you wish to use the 'share this' button on your blog.

Comments

Click 'show.' Visitors will be more willing to invest time with you and your work if they know they can leave you comments and interact with you. People who visit your site generally want you to know they were there so that you can visit them too. Allowing them to leave comments is one of the best ways to do this.

Next, I use 'anyone can comment' on all of my blogs. This has worked for me over the years.

The following one is a matter of choice. However, I find that having a pop-up window for comments works better because it seems to make things flow smoother, and is more attractive.

Further down the comments page, there is a box called, 'comment form message.' Many people leave this blank, but it's nice for your readers to see that you've taken a minute to personalise your space. Leave a short comment expressing your thanks for their time, and please don't get bossy or rude. Your readers who've bothered to comment on your blog will see this note at the top of the comment box. Think of something nice to say.

Comment moderation is a really important issue. Most people I know moderate all their comments to avoid spam. When someone has moderated their comments, you're told that 'your comments will be visible after the blog owner's approval.' You can choose to always moderate your comments, never do so, or only do so on posts older than a set amount of days. I use the last one. I don't like moderating all my comments because it means more work for me and I quite like the idea of my readers being able to see their comments posted straight away. Having said that, I found I got more spam comments when I didn't moderate my comments at all. 

  

Nowadays I choose to moderate comments only on posts older than 5 days. You're allowed to choose your own number. This gives me a happy medium. My readers can see their comments straight away and I get to hold off most of the spam. Spammers tend to post their comments on older posts so I catch them before they go out in public. Of course I still get a few spam comments on newer articles, but on the whole it's manageable. 

  

Word verification I hate having to do it so I never enable this on my blog. My supporters can log in and easily leave me comments without having to type in captha phrases. Of course this is a personal choice. You don't have to do this.

Enable your commentators' profile pictures on your blog. It's one way of saying thanks to them.

Archiving

Choose your frequency in the first question. As for enabling post pages, it's very important to do so. How else could you submit your individual pages to search engines and social networking sites. Each page has a unique heading and is separate from the rest of the blog. This simply means more exposure for all the posts you write.

Site Feed

We'll deal with this in a separate tutorial when we talk about feeds.

Email and Mobile

This feature enables you to post to your blog from your mobile phone. I haven't used this option.

Permissions

This lets you allow other people to post material on your blog. This is useful if your blog belongs not just to you, but to a group of people accessing it from other computers in different places. You're allowed to have up to 100 authors on your blog, so if this is your pleasure, you can 'add people' from this page. 

Stay tuned for more blogger tutorials and subscribe to this blog so you can be updated when new ones are posted.

Top Books on Amazon This Week

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I've been keeping an eye on the hot books on Amazon, just to see what the readers are buying at the moment. I noticed that the following four books are set aside as 'Best Selling Products' (books) of the week. Naturally, I wanted to find out why. 

(Each one is linked to their individual page on Amazon).













1.  A Passion Most Pure (Daughters of Boston, Book 1)   by Julie Lessman.

This is part of the product description on Amazon:

Refusing to settle for anything less than a romantic relationship that pleases God, Faith O'Connor steels her heart against her desire for the roguish Collin McGuire. But when Collin tries to win her sister Charity's hand, Faith isn't sure she can handle the jealousy she feels. To further complicate matters, Faith finds herself the object of Collin's affections, even as he is courting her sister. The Great War is raging overseas, and a smaller war is brewing in the O'Connor household.

• 70 percent of the reviewers have given this book a 5 star rating. 


• 93 customer reviews


• An average of 4.5 star rating


• Number 86 in Romance, Religious books

Romance is obviously not dead. The reader reviews make it absolutely clear that many people, including men, still tuck themselves up in the evenings with a great romance book. Even though historical books haven't been wildly waved about in the shelves of Waterstones, we see that the real customers are finding their niche on the Internet. 

2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage) by Stieg Larsson

This is part of Publisher's Weekly's review:

At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman.

• A staggering 904 customer reviews


• 442 readers gave it a 5 star rating


• 4 star overall average


• Number 3 best-seller in books (general)


• Number 3 in Mystery and Thrillers


• Number 6 in Literature and Fiction

Mystery and Thriller have always done well in the literary world. However, reading the description doesn't immediately call to mind a book that will favour well with picky agents and publishers. I think that the readers have demonstrated their literary preferences with the way they've trampled over each other to access this book. Not only have they read and digested this remarkable story, they've encouraged others to take a sip of what they deem a satisfying drink.

3. Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1) by Kim Harrison

Part of the product description:

The underground population of witches, vampires, werewolves—creatures of dreams and nightmares—have lived beside humans for centuries, hiding their powers. But after a genetically engineered virus wipes out a large part of humanity, many of the "Inderlanders" reveal themselves, changing everything.

• 301 customer reviews


• 143 gave it a 5 star rating


• An overall average of 4 stars


• Number 73 in Dark Fantasy, Horror

I think that fiction writers can take heart from the recent success of vampire movies and themes. In the 60s when Dracula was prancing around on the big screens, horror books sold in hefty numbers. We seem to have come full circle in the noughties, as vampire/horror merchandise in general are widely accepted by mainstream public. The success of this book is only one factor that proves this point. Vampire books are no longer just for niche audiences. Get writing your vampire tales!

4. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

Michiko Kakutani - The New York Times said: 

No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis....[he] does a nimble job of using his subjects’ stories to explicate the greed, idiocies and hypocrisies of a system notably lacking in grown-up supervision....Writing in faintly Tom Wolfe-ian prose, Mr. Lewis does a colorful job of introducing the lay reader to the Darwinian world of the bond market. 

• 122 customer reviews


• 42 readers gave it a 5 star rating


• 3 star average


• Number 1 in non-fiction.


• number 1 in Business and Investing

As a writer of mainly non-fiction books, (not business) this gives me hope in the future for my own work. The business theme is not one that is thought to be widely embraced where the public taste in literature is concerned. This just goes to show how much we really know when we blabber about what will or will not sell. The readers' remarkable reviews of this wonderful book is generally favourable and filled with praise. 

Hope you can check out some of these books. If you're a reader or writer, there's something in each one for all of us. 

E-Books And Kindles: The Best Ones For Me

Most writers I know have got an e-Book or two out. Battles between supporters of e-Books and those of physical ones have been fought in the public arena of the Internet. Opponents have been dragged through the virtual mud. Web spit has been flicked back and forth. Yet, latest news would indicate that none of these wars have dampened the growing popularity of e-Books. 





While we dither, frothing in the 'against' or 'for' queue, kindle (electronic reading devices) are becoming more and more widespread. For one, you need no storage whatsoever to access a bookcase worth of books. They're thin and lighter than an average paperback. A small kindle holds about 1,500 books (depending on unit, but most hold thousands of books) and most importantly, they're wireless and read like the real thing. I was surprised that just a light touch of the screen 'turned' pages like a real book (complete with a page-turning sound). The lighting is perfect and very easy on the eyes.





Surprisingly, there is none of the glare you encounter reading your e-Book or PDF material off a computer/laptop. Because of this real 'book-like' look of the reading screen - using low battery life - most kindles allow up to a week's worth of reading with just one charge.

Most kindles come with hundreds of free (out of copyright) books already loaded. They also allow you to read the papers from wherever you are. 

Kindles are beginning to sound like the best (or only) gift to get for someone who loves reading and books. 





So, if you've already downloaded a set of e-Books (including mine) but are finding reading from your computer difficult, a kindle would certainly be a better experience for you. And I know just where to get some great ones. At the moment the best selling Kindles on Amazon are:

Kindle Wireless Reading device 6" display.

There is a fabulous demonstration of how this one works on the link above. 

The second best selling reading device is the Kindle DX

 

This one is super light and supports images and characters alike. It's as thin as a magazine and you can receive any book you download in less than 60 seconds. It holds more than 3,000 books, which I find simply amazing.

There are also kindles for PCs and blackberries so don't feel left out as you can get good deals with these options too. 

How To Add A 'Share This' Button To Your New Blog

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I have been running regular Blogger Tutorials for Newbie Bloggers. Click on 'Blogger Tutorials' link in my link bar above to see the other lessons. 





We cannot reach everyone on the Internet no matter how many hours we spend on social networking sites. This is why it's vital to provide an easy way for the people we can reach, to give us exposure by inviting their friends over for a look. Soon friends of their friends will start coming round to see what's on offer. The only way to structure this domino-visit blog traffic is by enabling the visitors to easily share our work/site. This is where a 'share this' button becomes essential.





Adding a 'share this' button is not only easy, it works to benefit you by encouraging those that quickly visit your site to share what they've read with the rest of the world. Keep in mind that most people who visit your blog do it on a 'fly-by' trip to other interesting places on the net. Give them a reason to come back, but most importantly, give them a reason to get their friends to come too. 





Here is how you add a 'share this' button to your new blog.

1. Log into your blogger dashboard. Work from the blog you want to add the 'share this' button to.


2. Choose 'settings.'


3. Choose 'formatting.' Leave this page open for now. 


4. Open a new browser window and go to the 'Add This Site'


5. The first section says, 'Select your service.' Select 'Blogger.'


6. The second section simply asks you to select your choice of button. Do this.


7. For simplicity sake, in the third section, choose, 'Just give me the button.' We will deal with analytics later on.


8. Click on 'get your button.'


9. Towards the end of the page you will see a command which says, 'copy code.'


10. This tells you to copy and paste the code into your Blogger template. This involves editing your blog's html. If you're not comfortable with doing this, (I was a blogger for nearly 2 years before I even attempted to touch my html page) there is a simpler, fool-proof way of getting your 'share this' button at the end of every post. I do not recommend messing with your blog template unless you're totally confident in doing so.


11. After you've copied the code, go back to the open, Blogger 'formatting' page you found earlier. 


12. Go to the bottom of the page where you will see an empty panel beside the words, 'post template.' Paste the code you copied into this panel.


13. Don't forget to click on 'save settings' which is the orange button at the very end of this page.


14. This 'add this' button will appear at the bottom of every post you make from now on. 

For a range of other  'share this' buttons, you can go to this page. You're required to sign up for an account, but it does give you more options. 

My Follow Friday - Year Zero Writers

I follow Year Zero Writers because there is simply no other site on the Internet where one could read such fascinating, rich, professional, free and well-written pieces. Year Zero showcases work from some of the most talented, contemporary writers around (and I'm not just saying this because I'm part of Year Zero). 





Year Zero is different from most writing blogs on the web because it collectively supports the writing voices and unique approaches of several different writers. This means that readers are enriched by having the privilege of reading diverse points of view, and sample divine work from a variety of artists, many of whom at at the top of their field. 





In addition to the short fiction available on this blog, many Year Zero writers offer their larger works for free. Readers are given the option of downloading several of the members' work (e-Books) for no charge. Year Zero Writers' blog does not have a 'follow' panel. However just adding the site to your blog list will enable you to see when new posts are made.

How To Customise Feedjit Widget On Your Blog

A feedjit wiget looks like this.

A feedjit widget is a simple addition on your blog that shows you, in real time, the visitors to your blog page. Among other things, it shows you how long your visitors stayed, where they went when they left, and where they came from. This is extremely useful in planning your posts, gauging your visitor's trends and showing you what sources work best for your blog. (This means that if you can tell where your blog traffic is coming from, you can direct your energies into promoting your blog in that arena).





First of all, for those who find it a bit difficult to insert a Feedjit widget into your blog, I will describe briefly what to do. The following link will take you to the Free Feedjit widget site. 

There are different ways of getting this widget on your blog but I found this one an easy option.

• Choose the one you like. I recommend 'Live Traffic Feed' which is the first one on the list. 


• Copy the code in the box. It begins something like this: script type="text/javascript"... 


• Go to your blog's dashboard.


• Click on 'Layout.'


• From your layout page, choose, 'Add a gadget.' The page that comes up looks like this:

• Choose the 4th one down (on Blogger). It says, 'HTML/JavaScript.' 


• Once this gadget is open, paste the code you copied from the Feedjit website into the space. In the heading you could write something like, 'Feedjit.' This is only to help you identify which widget is which, when you're tidying up your blog's layout.


• Hover your cursor over the HTML panel and drag and drop it where you want it to be positioned on your blog. 


• Save your work. 


• Give it some time to start recording your visitors. 

Of course you can implement Google Analytics on your blog as this measures much more data for you. However if you're a new blogger, Feedjit may be the best way to start finding your way around. After Feedjit starts recording your traffic, feel free to click on any of the sites to see where your visitors are coming from and why.

Now let's get back to customising Feedjit on your blog.We're using the same web page as above. 

• Under the heading, 'Live Traffic Feed' choose 'click here to customise it.'


• There are a range of colours, grouped under different themes. Click on the one you want.


• As long as you have the combination you want, you can change the intensity of any of your chosen colours. Do this by clicking on the corresponding square, then toggle the 'plus' sign that appears on each colour panel you click on. 


• Adjust the width of your widget.


• Now copy and paste the script into your blog (as described above) and you're done.

Update: To insert your image into Feedjit, go to the page linked above and create a Feedjit ID. It's easy, quick and totally free. Once you've done this, upload an image and choose to link it to your twitter or facebook profile page.  

If you want your image linked to your own website or blog, it costs about $5.00 per month. If this is useful for you, it's best to buy a year's subscription because this is by far the better deal. You will need to upgrade your ID to do this. This is done with the click of a button.

Read An E-Book Week

image source

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's shown an interest in my book, 'A Model's Guide to Losing Weight Without Dieting.' Thank you also for your support and feedback. Your input means a lot to me. 

As some of you may know, March 7-13 is Read an e-Book Week on Smashwords. To celebrate this, authors all around the world have been invited to sell their books at a discount or completely free! I'm participating in this event and have cut the price of this book by 25% (details below). 

To read more about 'Read an e-Book Week, take part in competitions, or snap up free e-Books and guides, go to their official site where there's a wealth of information, interviews and articles. 

To buy 'A Model's Guide to Losing Weight Without Dieting' for $3.99, please go to my Smashwords profile. Don't forget that this book is also now available in hard copy at lulu. Thanks again to all who've read and enjoyed this work.

My Follow Friday - Dragos Roua - Brilliantly Better

This is the first time I'm featuring a non-writing blog on my follow Friday. However, it has more than earned its place here because it showcases some seriously useful blogging tutorials even though the focus is on self-improvement and personal development. 





I've listed Dragos Roua - Brilliantly Better on my relationship blog list because the posts are similar to my particular niche there. 

Dragos Roua is not just for writers, even though we can benefit tremendously from his informative articles (have a look at his 'top posts' list, accessible from the header panel on the home page). This blog is also for serious bloggers needing inspiration to make a living online. It also caters for people of diverse walks of life who look to the Internet to find creativity for their own space in the world. 





I recommend Dragos Roua as a blog to follow if you need motivation for your online business, and to find joy in the life you live in the 'real world.'