Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts

December 2, 2011

Adding Link Tree / Breadcrumb Navigation Above Blog Posts

Just to increase pageviews, a blog must be designed in such a way to keep visitors busy, letting them explore parts of your site that might remain undiscovered without a design based on easy navigation. Just like the related post widget and numbered page navigation, adding breadcrumb navigation ( also called link tree) is just another way to keep your visitors engaged and stay longer on your blog. In case you don't know what link tree means, it's those links that shows where you are in a site and in blogger, it trails from the homepage down to label page and lastly, the post page you're presently viewing. You can see it right at the top of this blog post and if you can't, below is the screenshot of just how it should look.


To add this to your blog, follow these simpple steps:

1. Log in to your blogger account and click on Design ( hey, I'm still using the old interface )

2. Click on Edit HTML and check Expand Widget Template box

3. Press CTRL and F on your keyboard and search for this code:

<b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>


4. Right below that, paste this:

<b:include data='posts' name='breadcrumb'/>


There may be two occurrences of <b:include data='top' name='status-message'> in your template, you should do the same thing if there's a second one.

5. Now search for this code:

<b:includable id='main' var='top'>


6. Just above it, paste this code:

<b:includable id='breadcrumb' var='posts'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.homepageUrl == data:blog.url'>
<!-- No breadcrumb on home page -->
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<!-- breadcrumb for the post page -->
<p class='breadcrumbs'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' rel='tag'>Home</a>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast == "true"'> »
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
</b:loop>
<b:else/>
»Unlabelled
</b:if>
» <span><data:post.title/></span>
</b:loop>
</span>
</p>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'>
<!-- breadcrumb for the label archive page and search pages.. -->
<p class='breadcrumbs'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Archives for <data:blog.pageName/>
</span>
</p>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<p class='breadcrumbs'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageName == ""'>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » All posts
<b:else/>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Posts filed under <data:blog.pageName/>
</b:if>
</span>
</p>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</b:includable>


7. Now here comes the last part where you have to apply some skinning to the link tree. You can use the default one below or change it if you know a bit of css.

Search for this code:

]]></b:skin>


In the line immediately above it, paste this:

.breadcrumbs {
padding:5px 5px 5px 0px;
margin: 0px 0px 15px 0px;
font-size:90%;
line-height: 1.4em;
border-bottom:3px double #e6e4e3;
font-weight:bold;
}


Now save your template, view a blog post and you should see the breadcrumb navigation links right above your blog posts.

Further Explanation

On step 6, you need to do some editing if you're using numbered page navigation. It's not important though but I guess you might not want to see that label page get rather too long with up to 20 posts showing up. I repeat, this is only useful if you've done the numbered page navigation tweak.

Simply change 'data:label.url' to 'data:label.url + "?&amp;max-results=5"'

You should change 5 to the number of posts you set to display on a page.

November 26, 2011

Using Google Plus Profile For Blogger

You've definitely run some google searches and seen some blog author's google plus profile picture right beside search results, right? In a bid to make this work for my blog, I tried lots of stuffs out of which none of them worked. Just today, I logged in to blogger in draft just to see the upcoming blogger features and saw this option at the top right of the screen asking me to switch my blogger profile to google plus. It sounded good and I continued, reading the benefits and everything about it.

One of the key benefit that made me proceed with the switch was the fact that my google plus profile will be associated with site on search result pages. Also, whenever I comment on my blog or any other blog supporting comments with google account, my google plus profile will be linked instead of that boring blogger profile. It's a good one coming from google though because I never like blogger profile layout, the color scheme and all.

How Do I Link My Blog To Google Plus

This feature isn't yet published officially because it's only still available in Blogger in draft where blogger's upcoming features are first tested out. To switch your blogger profile to google plus profile and associate it with your blog:

-  You need to log in to draft.blogger.com

- You should see a pop up at the top right corner asking you to make the switch.

- If you can't find this, then follow this link

- Just follow the next couple of steps and enter your google account password when prompted.

- Mark the check box at the last stage and complete the profile switch.


What Are The Benefits Of Linking Your Google Plus Profile To Blogger?

Switching your blogger profile to google plus has lots of benefits and one of the one I like most is that you have one less online profile to worry about.

-You get access to upcoming Google+ features on Blogger

-Your posts gets highlighted in Google search results for your social connections

-Maintaining one identity instead of duplicate ones

Information on your blogger profile won't automatically transferred to your google plus profile, you have to select those information you want to display on your new profile including your displayed blogs. Also, this switch will make the blogger widget on your profile display your google plus profile instead and all existing comments made with with blogger profile will automatically redirect to your google plus profile when clicked.

Though it is said that my posts gets highlighted in Google search results for social connections, I haven't been able to see this since I made google plus my default blogger profile. I made the change just a few hours ago, just hoping it's really gonna have any effect in search results.

Even if it doesn't, I still feel convenient with that ugly looking blogger profile gone. :D

November 25, 2011

Adding A Chat Box / Shout Box To Blogger

Adding a chat box or shout box to your blog is just another way to make your blog more social. It makes you connect with your visitors even more and makes your blog engaging. A simple chatbox might make your blog visitor stay longer than normal. A chatbox / shoutbox can also serve as a guestbook where visitors can leave comments and suggestions easily without the need to create a separate page for that. If you have an entertainment blog, then you definitely must have this. Adding a chatbox to blogger is quite easy and you don't need to know much HTML, just a little copy and paste procedure and you're done with it.

There are lots of sites around where you can create a chatbox / shoutbox widget from your blog but I found three that are actually the best of all.

1. ShoutMix

This widget is quite one of the very best because it's got some features that's simply unique. You can log in to the chat system with facebook and twitter as long as you authenticate the ShoutMix app. You can also customize the look and feel of the shoutbox to match your blog's template. You need to first create an account and verify your email after which you're asked to create a shoutbox. Below is a preview of what the shoutbox looks like:




After creating the shoutbox and customizing it, click on the Embed link on the left to copy out the code which will be added to your blog. This will be explained later in the post.

2. Cbox

Cbox is one of the oldest chatbox around and I also recommend it because of its simplicity. It's easy to create and you can choose from any of the ready made themes and it's possible customize the chatbox to match your blog's template too. Cbox allows your visitors to comment using their name and website address or email as they do not offer facebook integration like ShoutMix. Below is a preview of the chatbox i created there:






After customizing the look and feel of your chat box, go to Publish to copy out the code which will be added to your blog.

3. FreeShoutBox

FreeShoutBox also gives you offers the service of giving your blog or website a chatbox / shoutbox all for free. You also need to create an acount in order to create a customized shoutbox and you can choose from any of the ready made themes or use your own custom CSS layout. Below is a preview of the shoutbox I created:




How To Add The ChatBox Code To Blogger

It's a matter of preference, you can use any of the sites listed above but I prefer the first one as it offers more features than the rest. You can use any of them though, it's a matter of choice. I believe you've copied out the code, right? Now let's add that chatbox to your blog!

1. Login to your blogger account and click on Design

2. Depending on where you want the shout ox or chatbox to appear, click on Add a Widget. ( The sidebar is the best position if you ask me :) )


3. Select HTML / JavaScript

4. Paste the shoutbox code and save.

Now, preview your template and watch the chatbox appear on your blog!

November 21, 2011

New Social Media Buttons For Blogger

Social networking is an important part of getting traffic that just can't be ignored and making it easier for your visitors to find you on their favorite social networks isn't such a bad idea. Apart from using nice share buttons, bookmarking your site on different social networks also serves as a way to alert your visitors each time you post an update. The icons here are of different sets and you can place them anywhere on your blog, linking them to your facebook, twitter and google plus profile or fan pages. The sets also contain RSS and email icons. You can link the email icon to your contact page or feedburner email subscription link. I only used the most popular social media icons which include facebook, twitter and google plus. I hope you like them, they are all ready to use and all you need to do is paste the code to your blog and watch the icons show up.



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How To Add These Social Media Icons To Blogger

1. Log in to your Blogger account and go to Design

2. Depending on where you want the icons to appear, click on Add a Gadget. I prefer the icons at the header or at the top of the right side bar.

3. Select HTML/JavaScript.

4. Paste the code and save.

Note that you must edit the links in red color or your blog would be linking to my own social network profiles. Share the post if you find it helpful.

November 16, 2011

Nofollow & Dofollow Backlinks: A Guide To Blog Commenting

Link building is an important part of search engine optimization and some bloggers do this at all costs, even to the point of spamming on other blogs. Having quality, one-way backlinks pointing to your site does a lot in increasing your google page rank, thereby increasing the chance of your blog appearing in google search results. What most people fail to know is that only the quality of the backlinks matter, not necessarily the quantity. It's quite possible to have just a hundred backlinks and rank higher than sites with thousands of backlinks.

Now, don't get it twisted, a high google pagerank doesn't always equal to your traffic but it's still good to have it anyway. It's one of the algorithms google checks when sorting out search results. It's always been said that original contents matters a great deal and you must take this even more serious than link building but that is not the main topic here. There's a more comprehensive post I recently wrote on how to increase your google page rank and alexa traffic rank, you should try reading through it.


There are several ways to get quality backlinks pointing to your blog and one of the most effective is commenting on blogs relating to your niche. I've seen quite a lot of bloggers commenting here even to the point of spamming but most do not realize that google will never index or follow those links because there are ways to make blog commenting work to your advantage.

DoFollow And NoFollow Backlinks

What are dofollow and nofollow links? Did you know you can comment on 100 blogs without google recognizing any of those precious backlinks you worked hard to get? In a bid to reduce spamming for the sake of SEO, google devised the nofolow and dofollow tags. A link with nofollow tag added has no SEO benefit for the destination site and a link with dofollow or none of the tags will be indexed and counted as a backlink for the destination site


By default, all comments posted on blogs hosted on blogspot are nofollow links. Google doesn't index links on most blogger blogs, you probably would have noticed that in google webmaster tools and wondered why.

How To Differentiate Between Nofollow And Dofollow Links

Before you go about commenting on just any blog, you should know whether the blog you're commenting on has any SEO value for you. There's a firefox extension that highlight links in a page according to nofollow / dofollow status.

There's an easier way to do this though, just highlight an existing comment using firefox, right click and select view selection source. Below is an example of a nofollow link as shown in page source:

<a class="comments-autor-name" href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/05279327145715289304" rel="nofollow">Don Caprio</a>
<a class="says">says:</a>

I'm not saying you should only comment on blogs with dofollow links, commenting on a few blogs with nofollow tag creates what looks like a natural profile in google's view.

November 10, 2011

How To Attach Files For Downloads On Blogspot

It's not possible to attach files with your blog posts on blogger except you're only dealing with images and videos. Unlike wordpress where you can freely attach files of all formats with your blog posts, you have to find an external file host to do this on blogspot. Maybe you have some games, softwares, zip files or some files in an uncommon format you intend to share with your blog readers, there are still alternative sites to use that provide free space to host these files.
There are so many file sharing/hosting sites you can use and these include hotfile, mediafire, rapidshare, megaupload and so on. I do use hotfile because they allow remote uploading. This means uploading files through file URL. With hotfile, I only need to have the download link of the file i intend to upload and the file gets copied to my hotfile file manager. Below is a complete list of file sharing sites I found you can use on your blog:

-Hotfile
-4shared
-Mediafire
-DropBox
-Box
-BigUpload
-Sendspace
-Files2U
-WikiUpload
-Filehosting

Though the service provided by these sites are free, there are certain conditions you must adhere to and if you fail to do this, your files will be deleted without informing you.

Hosting Your Files On Google

Unknown to many, everyone with a google account is entitled to a free space to upload files which can be used on their blogs. Just like the picassa web album which is linked to your blogger account to upload pictures to be used on your blog, Google sites can also be used to host files on blogspot. The space you're allocated (100MB) is quite very small unlike the file sharing sites listed above but you still have control over your files and you can be rest assured no one is going to delete your files. It's quite useful if you're hosting some light weight files and javascripts to use on your blog.

Another added advantage is that your file can be hotlinked, this means you can link directly to the file on your blog without showing your visitor any download page.

How To Upload Files To Google Sites

I wasn't used to google sites at first and it took me some time to figure out how to upload files there and use it here on blogger. You need to create a Google Sites account account and create your first site.

-After this, go to the created site and click on the drop down menu at the top right of the page.


-Click on Manage Site

-Select Attachment from the links on the left side of the page

-Click on Upload, select the file and that's it.

- When you're done uploading, right click on the download link to copy it our. It might look like this:

https://sites.google.com/site/capriofiles/DonCaprioBloggerTemplate.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

Just delete the rest stuff after the file name to make it look like this.

https://sites.google.com/site/capriofiles/DonCaprioBloggerTemplate.zip

You can as well mask the link as shown below:

Download Here

You can now attach the direct link to the file with your blog posts. Like I said, Google Sites file hosting is only for small files. if you intend to host large files, try using the file sharing sites earlier mentioned.

November 9, 2011

Using Mobstac With Custom Domain For Blogger Mobile View

Blogger isn't that tight when it comes to mobile view, we all know that. I've been using blogger default mobile view for quite a couple of months now but I honestly don't like the look that much. I once used mobstac which I wrote about here but ditched it just because I was stuck with an address I didn't like, my blog looked like a mobstac sub-domain on mobile. Anyway, my blog is now mobilized with mobstac and I get to use a sub-domain of doncaprio.com. Cool, huh? Check out http://m.doncaprio.com and see just what I'm talking about.

Mobstac is a offers a great services that gives your blog's mobile view some life! Unlike blogger's default mobile template, you can actually edit your mobstacized site to your taste, customizing the look and feel, including the colors.


The good news about it is that you can also effectively monetize your mobile traffic by running google adsense for mobile which displays on all mobile phones. As a pro user, you can also run admob and inmobi mobile ads on your blog.

Another added advantage is that it makes it easier for your mobile users to navigate your blog a bit easier. With labels at the top of the page and some custom links added, there's a chance your mobile users will view even more pages.

How To Use Mobstac On Blogger

At first, I had some sort skepticism towards using this free service but changed my mind and saw it wasn't so bad after all. Mobstac is a site which offers a service that allows you to give your blog a nice looking mobile view and all you need to do is to register, verify your email, log in to your mobstac account and customize your blog's mobile view.

After you're done with the customization and settings, click on FAQ and view installation instructions on how to activate mobstac mobile view for your blog.

The given code should be place right under the <head> tag.

You can do this by logging in to your blog and going to Design > Edit HTML

Press CTRL + F and search for <head> and paste the your mobstac code right under it.

Save your template and try viewing your blog on a mobile browser or Opera Mini.


How To Add Google Adsense To Your Mobile Blog

You need to get your google adsense publisher ID by logging in to your google adsnes account and checking the top right corner. You should see something like pub-1234567890. Just copy the numbers out then go to the Advertising tab in your mobstac account and paste your adsense publisher ID in the appropriate box.

Using Your Custom Domain With Mobstac

Most of the tutorials online fail to cover this aspect and this is what made me lose interest in mobstac in the first place. It took me quite some time to figure out but finally, my blog automatically redirects to http://m.doncaprio.com for mobile users. Great, huh? You can have your blog's mobile version on m.your-domain.com or wap.your-domain.com, the choice is actually yours and the step is dead easy.

I assume you have a custom domain already and you definitely know what DNS records are all about, right? Your blog is already running on a custom domain with the A records and CNAME record working and you're used to making DNS entries (my assumption ;)).

You're only going to make one DNS entry to point your mobstac mobile blog to your sub-domain and then tweak your mobstac code. Interesting?

- Create a CNAME record with alias m or wap pointing to your mobstac site. If your mobstac site is http://xoxo.mobstac.com, create a CNAME with m or wap as the alias pointing to xoxo.mobstac.com, got it?

-Now go to your blog's template and locate the mobstac code you pasted earlier under the <head> tag. Found it? Good!

-Check the code carefully, you should see your mobstac site somewhere iin the middle of that code (hey, come on! open your eyes!), something like yourname.mobstac.com

-Change this to m.your-domain.com or wap.your-domain.com depending on the CNAME alias you created earlier.
-Bingo! It's done. If you did the DNS settings correctly, your mobstac site should be up and running in less than 24 hours.

Mine works quite perfectly so don't tell me it ain't working but if you've got a question or comment, don't hesitate to holler at me. Good luck!

November 3, 2011

Highlighting Blog Author's Comment In A Diferent Color (For Blogspot)

You've probably been to some blogs with blog author's comments highlighted in a color different from other comments. This hack comes with some custom templates but most templates do not have it. Whether you're using one of those blogger classic templates or a custom one, you can have your comment highlighted in a different color as the blog author. You can check my reply on this blog post to see the demo. The steps below outlines exactly how I did it.


How To Highlight Author's Comment In A different Color For Blogspot

1. Log in to blogger and go to Design > Edit HTML

2. Click the box labelled Expand Widget Template

3. Press CTRL + F on your keyboard to search for this code:

]]></b:skin>


4. In the line just before this, paste this code:

.comment-body-author {
background: #D9E4EF;
color: #000000;
border: none;
padding: 5px;
}


You can style it better by changing the color codes in red to your own desired color. The color you define here determines the color in which the blog author's comment will be highlighted.

Here comes the last and tricky part of this. Most of the tutorials on the internet do not cover this well but I took the time to finally work it out for custom templates

5.a. Search for this this code:

<dd class='comment-body'>


Right above that, paste this:

<b:if cond='data:comment.author == data:post.author'>
<div class='comment-body-author'>
<br clear='left'/>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</div>
<b:else/>


Now scroll a bit further down till you see this:

</dd>


Just below it, paste this:

</b:if>


The codes now should appear as shown below:

<dl id='comments-block'>
<b:loop values='data:post.comments' var='comment'>
<dt class='comment-author' expr:id='"comment-" + data:comment.id'>
<a expr:name='"comment-" + data:comment.id'/>
<b:if cond='data:comment.authorUrl'>
<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl' rel='nofollow'><data:comment.author/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:comment.author/>
</b:if>
<data:commentPostedByMsg/>
</dt>


<b:if cond='data:comment.author == data:post.author'>
<dd class='comment-body-author'>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</dd>
<b:else/>


<dd class='comment-body'>
<b:if cond='data:comment.isDeleted'>
<span class='deleted-comment'><data:comment.body/></span>
<b:else/>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</b:if>
</dd>


</b:if>


<dd class='comment-footer'>
<span class='comment-timestamp'>
<a expr:href='"#comment-" + data:
comment.id' title='comment permalink'>
<data:comment.timestamp/>
</a>
<b:include data='comment' name='commentDeleteIcon'/>
</span>
</dd>
</b:loop>
</dl>


If you got that right, save your template and see your comments highlighted from other comments in a diferent color.

5.b. If you're using a different kind of template and couldn't find the code specified in step 5.a., find this one instead:

<div id='comment-body'>


Just above it, insert this:

<b:if cond='data:comment.author == data:post.author'>
<div class='comment-body-author'>
<br clear='left'/>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</div>
<b:else/>


Scroll a bit further down till you see the closing div tag:

</div>


Just below it, paste this code:

</b:if>


When you're done, it should look as shown:


<b:else/>
<a class='comments-autor-name'> <data:comment.author/></a>
</b:if>
<a class='says'>says:</a>
</div>

<div id='comment-date'>
<span class='comment-timestamp'>
<a class='comment-permalink'><data:comment.timestamp/></a>
<b:include data='comment' name='commentDeleteIcon'/>
</span>
</div>

<b:if cond='data:comment.author == data:post.author'>
<div class='comment-body-author'>
<br clear='left'/>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</div>
<b:else/>

<div id='comment-body'>
<b:if cond='data:comment.isDeleted'>
<span class='deleted-comment'><data:comment.body/></span>
<b:else/>
<div style='clear:both;'/>
<p class='comment-body' style='padding-right:10px;'><data:comment.body/></p>
</b:if>
</div>

</b:if>

</div>
</div>

</b:loop>
</div>
<div style='clear:both;'/>

<b:if cond='data:post.commentPagingRequired'>
<span class='paging-control-container'>
<a expr:class='data:post.oldLinkClass' expr:href='data:post.oldestLinkUrl'>
<data:post.oldestLinkText/>



Save your template and view your blog, you should now see your comments shown in a different color. If you have any question, you're free to use the comment form below.

How To Number Comments On Blogspot

Replying to unnumbered blog comments can really be confusing especially when you can't refer to comment authors by name. More people choose to reply anonymously and but this gets easier when you can refer to them in your replies by their comment number. This blog hack works perfefectly for me as you can see the numbered comments on this blog, right? Apart from making it easier to reply, adding numbers to your blog comments gives your blog some sort of profesional look you're definitely going to like. It's quite neat, simple and easy to implement only if you follow these steps:

1. Log in to your blogger account and go to Design page and click Edit HTML. You should back up your template before you proceed

2. Mark the box named Expand Widget Template

3. Press CTRL + F on your browser to find this code:

<b:loop values='data:post.comments' var='comment'>


4. You found it? Good! Just above it, paste thispiece of code:

<script type='text/javascript'>var CommentsCounter=0;</script>


5. We're almost done now, search once again fro this code:

<b:if cond='data:comment.authorUrl'>


6. Immediately after it, paste this:

<script type='text/javascript'>
CommentsCounter=CommentsCounter+1;
document.write(CommentsCounter+".")
</script>


Now save your template and preview your blog to see the numbered comments on your blog. It's only a little piece of javascript that doesn't even affect your page load time.


This is the exact one I'm using right here and it looks cool, huh? I also suggest you read Numbered Page Navigation if you find this helpful.

October 31, 2011

Choosing The Better Platform Between Wordpress And Blogger

Blogger and Wordpress are the two most popular blogging platforms used today but we're sometimes faced with the question of which is better between the two. This question got me going from one blog to another way back in 2009 when I wanted to start blogging, desperately searching for an answer. I got lots of confusing answers but had to settle with blogger when I weighed out my options and considered what I actually needed. The first blog I started with was a wordpress.com sub domain which i abandoned just a week after my first post because I couldn't run my own ads.


Now, just for the purpose of clarification, I'll be referring to self-hosted wordpress blog (which you can get the script from wordpress.org) as opposed to the free wordpress hosting provided by wordpress.com that I earlier told you I abandoned. Yes, I abandoned the free wordpress blog I had because I was sort of handicapped. I couldn't run google adsense unless I upgraded and the given price wasn't so friendly back then. I also realized I would have to buy a premium theme and all that. As a newbie, I got scared and settled for blogger which I don't regret. Really, if all you're looking for is a simple blogging platform to just express your mind and do nothing else, wordpress free hosting is just what you need. There are certain things there you can spice up your blog with including social plugins and so on. Free wordpress hosting doesn't allow you to run your own ads though unless you upgrade whereas you can run google adsense with a blogspot sub domain. Also, you don't have much control over your blog's design as you can't edit your template HTML source like blogger.

A self-hosted wordpress blog has lots of advantages over blogger, that's a fact, but that doesn't imply that blogger is that bad either. With a self hosted worpress blog, you can do whatever you like with your blog because you have total freedom and not limited in anyway.

*You have to have some experience on webhosting, know what FTP (file transfer protocol) and cPanel are all about before thinking about owning a wordpress blog. This isn't the case with blogger, you can be a complete noob and still have a nice looking blog.

*A self hosted wordpress allows you to host files for download and attach it with your blog posts but you can never do this with blogspot. The only types of files allowed are pictures and videos except you host your files on some other server and hotlink it.

*Blogger is totally free unless you want to use a custom domain which costs around just $10 per year but you need to pay for hosting and a domain name for a wordpress blog.

*Blogger offers you unlimited bandwidth which you're not even paying for. This makes your site available all year round. If you're on a limited hosting plan, your wordpress blog might become unavailable when you have too much visitors and exceed your bandwidth.

*It's always been said that Wordpress is much more SEO friendly than blogger and this seems true.

*In some sense, wordpress seems easier than blogger. For instance, you only need to add new features to a wordpress blog by installing a plugin but the case is different with blogspot, you have to edit your template every now and then.

*Failure to comply with google's terms of service might get your blogspot blog deleted, hence, you have no choice but to comply (and sometimes get limited) by google's TOS. Like I said earlier, hosting your own wordpress gives you total freedom unless you have problems with your web host.

*Using blogger saves you the trouble of worrying about malwares and viruses and you still have some security except your google accounts gets hacked which is unlikely if you can take basic security measures. You should know a bit of internet security to protect our wordpress blog as any loophole might make you lose your blog.


Now, if you're still wondering which one of the two blogging plaforms is better, you need to read all over again, take a critical look at your skills and what you actually need a blog for. This site is hosted with blogger but I might be moving over to wordpress someday (just a thought). Right now, I'm still loving it with blogger and you can start a free blospot blog now if you haven't.

October 28, 2011

Adding Feedjit Traffic Feed To Blogger & Hiding It From Blog Visitors

Feedjit Live Traffic Feed is one of the best ways to effectively monitor your blog traffic and it's very easy to use. It clearly shows your visitors' geographical location, incoming search queries, exit pages, time of visit and other things that can make you deduce a quick analysis on your web traffic. It gives you an insight on what content your visitors are interested in the most.

Though it's incomparable to google analytics in terms of sophistication, feedjit live traffic feed widget can still do a lot in helping you know your most valuable keywords, traffic source and so on.


That's what the free traffic widget looks like. You like it, huh? :) Now let's add it to your blogspot blog!

How To Add Feedjit Live Traffic Feed To Blogger

-You need to first visit feedjit to generate the code. Click here to see the sign up page.

-Fill the registration form and and proceed to the next page where you'll need to configure the look and feel of the free traffic widget to easily blend with your blog's template

-After choosing the colors, size and every other thing, you can select your blogging platform with the drop down menu at the bottom and add it directly to your blog from there.

-I prefer the alternative: Manually adding it to your blog. Select Other blog or website and copy out the generated code.

-Go to your blog's dashboard and click on Design.

-Depending on where you want the live traffic feed widget to appear on your blog, click on Add a Gadget, select HTML/Javascript and paste the code you copied earlier into the box.

-Save your template and preview your blog

How To Hide Feedjit Live Traffic Feed From Your Visitors

Though this widget looks cool, you may want to have a hidden tracker for reasons best known to you. When your visitors see that they're being tracked, they might feel a bit insecure and being tightly watched. Nobody likes this, not even me. You may also want to have this traffic feed widget invisible but still working in the background because you feel it's too bogus and gives your blog some sort of unprofessional look?

Whatever the reason may be, you can turn it to some sort of invisible tracker for your blog and here's a little trick to hide this feedjit widget.

<div style="height:0;width:0;overflow:hidden;">

YOUR FEEDJIT CODE HERE

</div>


Replace YOUR FEEDJIT CODE HERE with the code you generated earlier. Alternatively, simply paste the code below to your blog:

<div style="height:0;width:0;overflow:hidden;">
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://feedjit.com/serve/?bc=FFFFFF&amp;tc=494949&amp;brd1=336699&amp;lnk=494949&amp;hc=336699&amp;ww=160"></script><noscript>
</div>


That's it and the widget remains hidden in the background. Are you wondering how to view the traffic feed widget when it's already hidden?

http://live.feedjit.com/live/your-url-here/0/

Just replace your-url-here with your blog address. You can bookmark the link on your browser for quicker access. Wanna see who's been visiting us? Follow the link below.

http://live.feedjit.com/live/doncaprio.com/0/

October 26, 2011

Don Caprio Free Blogger Template

You can download a template and install it but adding certain customizations might be tedious especially if you're not quite used to HTML editing. I decided to do the little I can to solve this by creating a template with lots of widgets added to the html source. This template is actually a variation of Fortune blogger template by Lasantha of PremiumBloggerTemplates but this looks a lot different from that. I re-sized the sidebars to 200px each and added some color to the sidebars which was initially white.

Other features added include:

-Read more (automatic post summary)
-Related post
-Facebook like button
-Google plus button
-Numbered page navigation (improved)
-Large share buttons below posts


Note:

To edit the header links, go to Design > Edit HTML and search for the anchor text. For example, if you need the header link titled Blogging, search for Blogging in the template. You should see something like this:

<li><a href='http://www.doncaprio.com/search/label/Blogger?&amp;max-results=6'>Blogging</a>

You only need to change the letters in red to your own address and anchor text that will shown at the header.

Click here to view the demo


How to Install

Download Template

Wanna say thanks? Keeping the footer credit is just enough. Thanks!

October 24, 2011

How To Open Links In New Tabs (Blogger/Blogspot)

I don't expect probloggers or anyone with basic HTML knowledge to find this post particularly exciting but if you happen to be a new blogger with absolutely no idea on HTML coding, then you definitely need it. When you insert external links into your blog post, it might be just a way to drive your own visitors away to other sites without knowing. In blogger, the easy Compose mode allows you to insert external links inside your blog post but this link will open on that same page. There are two ways to prevent this from happening: using a certain HTML code while writing your blog posts or inserting a single line of code into your blog's head section.

Using HTML While Composing Blog Post

After inserting the link in compose mode normally, switch to Edit HTML mode and find the link you added.

Assuming you added a hyperlink as http://www.doncaprio.com with the anchor text being The 9ja Geek's Journal, you should see this in Edit HTML mode:

<a href="http://www.doncaprio.com">The 9ja Geek' Journal</a>

To make this very link open in a new browser tab, edit it to look like this:

<a href="http://www.doncaprio.com" target="_blank">The 9ja Geek's Journal</a>

As you can see, you only need to add a space and the piece of code shown in red after the link in Edit HTML mode.



Inserting Code In Blog Head Section

I don't like this method that much because every link opens in a new tab including labels, header links and so on. It might be useful though if you have rather too much external links on your site.

-Go to Design > Edit HTML

-Find this code:

<head>


-Right below it, paste this code:

<base target='_blank'/>


Now save your template. All links on your blog now opens in a new window/tab but I personally don't like this method. I prefer the first one but the choice is actually yours.

October 23, 2011

How To Increase Your Blog's Google Page Rank And Alexa Global Rank

I was at home on Sunday, just relaxing and decided to check my inbox and saw this email from a fellow blogger:

"
Please can you tell me the secret of your Google page rank and natural traffic. Thanks"

I've been asked countless times how my blog attained a Google page rank of 5/10 in less than a year (My web forum that is less than four months old also has a pagerank of 6/10). My former blog (www.capriofiles.com) was started in 2009 and this very one you're reading is just a year old. I could attain a page rank of 5/10 and alexa global traffic rank of about 150,000 in less than a year because of the little experience I had with my first blog. I had to delete that blog and focus solely on this because I realized I could do much better with just a blog. Anyway, I replied the email as follows:

"
The major secret is original contents coupled with one way backlinks plus right use of keywords. When I started out, I registered in lots of forums (that allow URLs in profile) and commented on lots of blogs with higher page rank. That, combined with original and well researched contents improves page rank and search engine traffic and increases your alexa global traffic rank in the process. It might take months or even a year before you see a tangible effect, but just keep building your backlinks (one way backlinks) and be sure to emphasize on the keywords you think people would type in google search when writing your blog posts.

http://www.doncaprio.com/2011/03/link-building-traffic-and-seo.html

You can check out that post. Everything there practically works for me.

Assuming you're writing a post on "How to rob a bank," you must let that phrase or similar ones like "how to steal in a bank" appear in your article as many times as you can, perhaps five to ten times or so because that is just what anyone would type into google search box.

If only I had been writing my blog posts the way I do now right from the start, I would have had much more traffic and a higher alexa traffic rank. But remember, it's always original content, right choice of keywords and one-way backlinks that increases your google pagerank, search engine traffic and eventually, a better alexa trafic rank"

Yes, those are the three most important things to put in mind when thinking of increasing your blog's google page rank and alexa global traffic rank but for the purpose of clarification, I'll explain each of these one after the other.


1. Original, Quality and Well Researched Contents

I'm sure you might have heard this before but do you actually know what it means? I've seen a lot of new bloggers use articles on other blogs word for word, thinking its a cheap way to get traffic but hurting their very own pagerank in the process. Google has a way of differentiating between original content from copied one and you'll definitely sink lower in search engine result page if you're the type that relies on contents from other blogs. The last Google panda update 2.5 focused heavily on plagiarism, poor contents, black hat SEO and lots of big sites with high page rank sank.

A friend using autoblogging software disappeared from SERP and so many others got affected. There was some kind of general fluctuation in traffic but I've noticed an increase in traffic since. When google realizes your site content is copied from somewhere else, you lose relevance in search engine result page and start missing out on search engine traffic. So, the bottom line is writing original and well research content that gives you not only a higher page rank, but also gains you credibility with your readers.

I should also add this: you don't expect to come up in google search result with a blog post of just one hundred words. Your post must be long enough to be called a real article. Writing short contents won't increase your page rank or drive in any meaningful traffic form search engines.

2. Choice of Keywords and Moderate Use

Apart from writing original contents, it's also important to know the right keywords to use that's going to drive in traffic from search engines. Like I said earlier, if you're going to write a blog post on how to rob a bank, you must be sure to include that phrase in your article and similar ones such as 'how to steal in a bank' and so on. You should let this appear in your article as many times as possible but it seems google now has a way of punishing excessive use of keywords. You must be moderate about it but you also must be sure you pick the right keywords to use in each article.

A few weeks back, I wrote a post that went viral and drove in lots of traffic, with almost 600 facebook likes in just a couple of weeks, and I took time to study how I wrote that blog post and realized what made it go viral was the proper use of keywords that drove in mad search engine traffic which will definitely have a huge impact on my alexa global ranking in about a month or so. The phrases used in that blog post was exactly what people were searching for on google.

Using Google analytics
will give you a better insight on keywords and I suggest you start using this if you haven't.

3. Building Quality Backlinks


I won't talk much about this because I have an article that already covers it. Building quality backlinks is an efficient search engine optimization method that's definitely fool proof. It's an important way to increase your page rank and one of the algorithms google considers in SERP. For more info on this, please read this post.

One important this you must know in order to increase your traffic, google page rank and alexa traffic rank is that although these things are different from one another, they are still interrelated one way or the other. Focus on improving your blog by writing quality and original content with good choice of keywords and you'll realize your google page rank drives more search engine traffic which in turn increases your alexa traffic rank. Happy blogging!

October 17, 2011

Display Blogger Widget/Adsense Unit At The Homepage Only

Every Widget/Gadget you add in blogger automatically shows on all pages but sometimes, you might wish to have a widget appear just on the homepage only and nowhere else. If you've noticed, there are some page elements on this site's homepage that won't appear on post pages and you can do this for ads, html/javascript or any other page element. Instead of just making the widget appear on the homepage only, you can as well make it appear on a particular post page only.

How To Make Widget/Adsense Unit Appear On The Homepage Only

To do this, you need to first know your widget ID by following the steps below:

1. Log in to blogger

2. Go to Design and locate the widget you wish to appear at the homepage only

3. Right-click on the 'Edit' below the widget and copy link location



4. Paste the link to a notepad and locate the widget ID.

For an adsense unit, it should look like this:

http://www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=7243280908926933904&widgetType=AdSense&widgetId=AdSense2&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebarleft

For a HTML/Javascript widget, it should look like:

http://www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=7243280908926933904&widgetType=HTML&widgetId=HTML7&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebarleft

5. Copy out the widget ID (written in the example above in red)

6. Now go to Edit HTML and check the box labelled Expand Widget Template (I suggest you always back up your template before editing your template)

7. Press CTRL + F and find the widget ID you copied earlier.

8. In the line directly below that widget ID, you should see this piece of code:



<b:includable id='main'>



9. Immediately below this, paste the code below:



<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>



10. Now scroll down a bit (maybe 5-10 lines) till you find this code:



</b:includable>



11. Just above this, paste this code:



</b:if>



The screenshot above shows what it should look like for an HTML widget.

That's it. Save your template and you'll now see the widget only appears on the homepage so far you got the steps right.

How To Make Widget/Adsense Unit Appear On Blog Post URL


The process is similar to the one above but there's a litle difference in Step 9. you only need to replace:



<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>



With this:



<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "Blog Post URL"'>



Be sure to replace Blog Post URL with the url you want the widget to appear. Save your changes and visit your blog.

How To Make Adsense Unit/Widget Display On List Pages (Homepage, Label Pages & Yearly Archive)

In step 9, use this code instead:



<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>



How To Make Widget Show On Post Pages Only

Use this code on step 9



<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>



Making Widget/ Display on Archive Pages Only




<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'>



Making Widget/Adsense Unit Display on Static Pages Only




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October 8, 2011

How To Add Google Plus Widget To Blogger

Just like the facebook likebox, google plus widget is now making waves and seems to be one of the latest blog widgets around. Adding a google plus widget to your blog or website makes it easier for your visitors connect with you and see updates you +1. Google has not officially launched any widget but we hope they'll do this soon however, there are third party google plus widgets you can use on your blog or website. This third party google plus widget can show the number of people in your circles and your updates right on your blog. You can also define just what you want it to look like. To create the google plus widget, you first need to get your google plus ID.

How To Know Your Google + ID

You can do this by going to plus.google.com and clicking on your profile. For a quicker access, visiting plus.google.com/me takes you to your profile. Check your browser's address bar, you should have something like http://plus.google.com/12345788909. The set of numbers is your google plus ID. Just copy the numbers to clipboard or save to a notepad.

Creating The Widget

Creating the widget is quite simple and self-explanatory.

1. Go to widgetplus

2. Scroll down and fill the basic settings. The most important is your google plus ID you copied earlier.

3. Paste your Google + ID in the provided space. Depending on where you want the widget to appear on your site, you can set the width to your desired size or try the default and include your updates.

4. You can set text colour and other things under the other tabs but this is optional.

5. Click on the button labelled "Get Code" ans copy out the given code.
How To Add Google Plus Widget To Blogger

- Log in to your blogger account

- Click on Design

- Depending on where you want the widget to appear (sidebar recommended), click on Add A Gadget

- Select HTML/Javascript

- Paste the code you copied earlier and save your changes.

Google plus Widget is now added blog. Another site you can create this widget is plus.scriptrr.com . You can create google + widget for your website there as well.

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