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

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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!

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Google Adsense Approval Trick Through Third Party Sites?

Quite a lot of new bloggers still find it difficult getting their google adsense account approved due to one reason or the other. Lots of people get desperate typing search queries in google such as google adsense approval trick, 24hrs google adsense approval and so on. Lots of people even paid some individuals in a bid to buy an already approved google adsense account. It's undisputed that google adsense remains the easiest way to monetize a blog and for this reason, there's so much clamor just to get an approval from google. In recent times, google adsense team even tightens up the approval thingy by making it a two-stage process.


Just of recent, thousands of publishers were banned from the adsense program and lots of hopes were dashed. Some of my friends in bloggers lab on facebook were affected by the massive ban. Relating closely with some of them made me realize most of the banned accounts were approved through third party sites. You can apply through some third party sites and get your google adsense account approved but I never wrote about any of these sites once. I'm quite aware of them but i never considered them a good option because it all looks shady. Some of these sites include:

1. Fixya
2. Hubpages
3. Docstoc
4. Indyarocks

They are all independent publishing platforms where you can get your google adsense account approved in 24 hours, or even less, and I'm not implying that all accounts approved through third party sites always get banned eventually, I'm only saying it's not such a good idea getting your adsense approved via third party sites. The adsense team always review sites from time to time and any discrepancy might make your already approved account get suspended.

To get your blog approved by google directly, you can follow these guidelines:

1. Give your blog some time to grow, I suggest three months and be sure you have a decent traffic. A couple of hundred pageviews daily gives you a better chance

2. If you're on blogspot, you have a better chance of getting approved with a custom domain but that doesn't mean you won't get approved with a blogspot sub domain either.

3. You should have up to 20-30 original posts/pages. Copying contents from other blogs won't get you anywhere.

4. Your design also matters. Be sure your blog's is designed in a way to make it look attractive. A blog with poorly arranged widgets scattered everywhere doesn't stand much chance.

5. I suggest you shouldn't have ads from other advertising companies like bidvertiser or chikita running on your blog when google comes to certify your blog. It's only a suggested precaution though.

6. Be sure your blog complies with google's terms of service. Your blog posts must not be based on topics not allowed by google such as, hacking, pornography, drugs, ammunition, warez, cracks, keygens and so on.

With the tips above taken into practice, I'm sure your adsense account will be approved and in case they reject your application, you can always try again. I know those who applied up to five times before getting approved. Good luck!

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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.

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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.

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Quick Search Engine Optimization Results With Free Trial

There are so many factors affecting your search engine ranking and even if you try to get to google's first page all by yourself, there are still some opportunities you'll be missing without an expert analysis. Apart from using the right keywords and having as much backlinks as possible, there might still be some things or two you probably won't know about because the rules on which search engines operate keep changing and hence, the need to have professionals handle your search engine optimization worries.

QuickSEOResults is a reputed search engine optimization company that has a unique offer you can hardly find anywhere else, a free trial SEO you can enjoy for good thirty days without paying a dime. Yes, your site is optimized for thirty days all for free and you can decide to continue with their service after thirty days whether you're satisfied with the trial or not but I bet you will.

Maybe you own a new website in a very competitive niche or you already have an existing site that shows up on google once in a while when someone types a weird search query, you can still make it to the first page within a very reasonable time as the results is quite quick as the name suggests.

QuickSEOResults strictly uses white hat search engine optimization concepts which stands the test of time and approved by major search engines as opposed to most SEO companies using black hat methods which got slammed by google's last Panda update. All their link building services are built on PR 6-9 authority websites and pinged out to 30-40 services which enables quick indexation. In order to ensure effectiveness, your site is also submitted to about 50 social bookmarking sites and close to 100 RSS aggregators.

If you have an idea on what basic search engine optimization and link building is all about, you will understand the stategic method employed by QuickSEOResults and like I mentioned earlier, you don't need to pay a dime till you see what they can do within thirty days, so I suggest you go for the free trial SEO first.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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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Import An Old Blog To A New One (For Blogspot)

Sometimes it's necessary to export an old blog to a new one without the need to copy and paste the blog posts one after the other. You might want to move your blogger hosted blog to a new google account and you can't possibly start copying the posts one after the other especially if you've written lots of stuffs. You might even decide to back up our blog posts. Whatever the case may be, importing and exporting your blog posts on blogger is very easy.

Exporting, Downloading or Backing Up Your Blog Posts

1. Login to your blogger account

2. Click on Settings > Export Blog

3. Now click the Download Blog button and the download begins.


The time taken to export the blog depend on the number of posts you've written. You have to be patient till the XML file is completely downloaded.

Importing The old Blog Into A New One

1. Go to Settings > Import Blog

2. Click on browse and select the xml file you exported earlier.

3. Input the captcha and upload. You can also choose to automatically publish the imported posts immediately.

That's all you need to do and all your posts from your old blog will be moved into the new blog.

Note: If you won't be needing the old blog anymore, I think you should either delete that blog or put a meta tag that'll make google bot remove it from it's index. Having the same content on the two different sites is not a good practice. It might hurt your search engine ranking in a bad way.

To remove the old blog from google index

1. Login to your blogger account and click on Design > Edit HTML

2. Now Press CTRL + F and serch for </head>

3. Paste the following code just above this


<meta content='NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW' name='ROBOTS'/>


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Alternative Ways To Make Money With Your Blog Apart From Google Adsense

Lots of people got their google adsense account suspended in the last couple of weeks due to reasons best known to google and google alone. Most of these people claimed they did nothing wrong and stuck to the rules and just wondered why google went on a banning spree without taking anyone's feeling into consideration. Taking a closer look, I found out most of these suspended accounts were opened in the last two to three months and some through fixya. Most of these people got an email saying they their adsense account had to be disabled so as to protect advertisers and this type of email is often related to click fraud. Some of these people haven't even earned any reasonable amount yet and I know a couple of the victims who couldn't have done anything of such. That actually got me wondering what actually went wrong. It's not surprising though because I got my google admob suspended about two months ago despite sticking to the rules for two whole years. The main reason behind that was because Google Admob was moving over to Google Adsense for mobile and many publishers like me got their accounts suspended without a valid reason.

It's even more baffling that some of those who got their account suspended re-applied using the same email and same blog and got re-enrolled into the adsense program. This raises the question whether most of those suspended account happened by mistake or something.

Google adsense is one of the easiest way to monetize your blog but it's definitely not the only way. There are alternatives to google adsense to make money from your blog.

1. Using alternative advertisers:

There are many other advertising companies out there like google adsense. The simple truth is just that I don't think they pay as much as google adsense does. These other advertisers too also offer contexual ads like google adsense and you might want to try them out. Some of the top rated include:

i. Bidvertiser
ii. Chitika
iii. Adbrite
iv. Clicksor
v. Kontera
vi. Infolinks
vii. Pocket Cents
viii. Exit juction
ix. Dynamic oxygen
x. Adbull

Some of these are also as good as google adsense and you can get a even more detailed information about each of them here.

2. Selling Advertising Spaces On Your Blog:

You might not realize it but some of your visitors are actually in love with your site and wouldn't mind advertising their product with you. Selling advertising spaces on your blog is one of the easiest way to convert your traffic to dollars without doing much. All you need to do is to let your visitors know you sell advertising spaces and you will get good offers especially if you command a reasonable amount of traffic and you've already worked on your page rank. Create an advertising page and let create awareness by making advertising banners visible in good positions.

3. Affiliate Marketing Programs

With affiliate programs, you can make even more than you can ever make from google adsense but this depends largely on the category of vistors you get. An affiliate program such as the hostgator affilitate program can fetch you up to $2000 in a month. There are other affiliate programs you can use on your blog. If you're on blogger, click on the monetize tab and sign up for an amazon associate account. With this, you can receive a commision for every product sold on your site.

4. Selling E-books

I'm pretty sure you have a clear idea on what you blog about, right? Have you ever thought that gathering your ideas into a .pdf file can be a major source of income? Most of your blog visitors believe in you and that's the reason they comment on your posts, subscribe to your rss feed and share your articles. Offering them a comprehensive e-book for some amount can be just another way to make money from your blog.

5. Sponsored Posts

I was surprised the first day I got an email from someone asking me to write a blog post about their product and I would be compensated. I actually didn't know writing a sponsored post could be a way to monetize my blog until that day. I wrote the post since it fell into my blog's niche and had some dollars flowing into my paypal account. Writing sponsored post can be another major way to monetize your blog traffic and you should create awareness about this. Let your visitors know you can write for them but you have have developed your writing skills to a certain level before getting this kind of offer. Your traffic too must be reasonably too.

6. Donations

If you're having a site that dishes out free information that's extremely helpful, a couple of your visitors might be willing to donate some money to you through paypal. Although most people wouldn't do this, I still believe one or two people would deem it fit to reward your for your hard work.

7. Consultation And Other Related Services

Depending on your niche, you can offer consultation to your visitors. This can be personal but you have to make it clear that you can be consulted personally to solve their problems for a fee. I guess you can see a Hire Me link at the header of this blog.

8. Selling Your Blog

As a last option, you can sell your blog.

There are other ways to make money from your blog and each of the list there can be expanded. Google adsense is still the easiest and in case your account got suspended, there are ways to get back in the program. This will discussed in one of my future posts.

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Using Google Analytics On Your Blog

There are several free counters you can use to monitor traffic coming to your blog but only a few can equal google analytics in terms of detailed reporting. Google analytics is a free service provided by google to keep a track of your site or blog's visitors. Using google analytics is quite helpful as it gives you an idea of what your visitors find interesting on your blog and areas you should make improvements. With google Analytics, you get to see almost real-time data about your site's visitors. It's even possible to track how much you're earning from each of your blogs if you have more than one.

Google Analytics can provide you information about top search keywords relating to your site, referring websites and so on.

Installing google analytics on blogger is quite easy but you first have to sign up for the service with your google account.

1. Log in to google analytics and create a new account for your blog.



2. Hit the sign up button on the next page and proceed to the next stage where you're supposed to enter your website's URL and account name.



3. Enter your contact information and proceed



4. Copy out the code generated on the next page





5. Log in to your blogger account and click on Design > Edit HTML

6. By pressi9ng CTRL + F on your keyboard, search for </head>

7. Just above this, paste the code you copied earlier in step 4 and save your template.

You just successfully installed google analytics code on your site and should start seeing tracking reports in your google analytics dashboard in about 24 hours.

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How To Disable Right Click On Your Blog

Are you worried because you think your blog content is being copied without your permission? I wrote a post in the past on how to fight content thieves but I didn't mention disabling right click because I never saw it as a good idea. A visitor might want to copy your tutorial to a notepad for reference purpose but disabling right-click on your blog makes this impossible. This can actually make you lose visitors. The simple truth is that only a very few percentage of your visitors want to copy your content for the purpose of using it on their own blog.

Also, disabling right click on your blog just to protect your content looks rather unprofessional to me. I won't advice you to do this because I, personally can't do it. Well, that's just my own opinion though, you can follow the process if it's important you implement it on your blog but I still maintain it ain't cool. :)

To disable right click on your blog

1. Login to your blogger account

2. Click on Design > Edit HTML

3. Search for <head>

4. Paste this code just below it:


<script language='Javascript'>
function mycontextmenu() {
alert('Sorry, right-click has been disabled');
return false;
}
document.oncontextmenu = mycontextmenu;
</script>


It should look just like this:



5. Save your template and visit your blog. You'll only find out that right click is totally disable.

6. This is optional but you can change the characters in red to your personal text. This is the message that'll be displayed instead of context menu.

Like I said earlier, disabling right-click is a lame method to protect your content and I won't recommend it to anyone. Have you given it a thought that regular visitors won't even be able to right click on a link and open it in a new tab? It's one of the ways to frustrate your regular visitors and drive them off.

How To Bypass Disabled Right-Click

In case you visit a site with right-click disabled, there's a way to bypass it. Just copy the javascript below and paste it into the address bar, hit ENTER and it totally disables whatever right click script used:

javascript:void(document.onmousedown=null);void(document.onclick=null);void(document.oncontextmenu=null)

Please share the post if it helps!

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Using Unique Meta Tags For Different Blog Posts (For Blogger)

Using meta tags on your blog can increase your search engine ranking and and it gets even better by adding different meta tags for different blog posts. The last post I made on how to add meta tags to blogger explains the basics of meta tags and what they are all about. Simply put, meta tags are special html codes that gives search engines like google some needed information about your website such as description, relevant keywords, title, etc. You can however define different meta tags for different pages. This is very useful if you blog on a wide number of topics or you operate your blog on a very diverse niche. Adding different meta tags to individual blog posts makes it easier for bots to crawl and properly index your blog content and there's the chance of a better search engine ranking and an increase in traffic.



Though major search engines like google and yahoo do not put meta keywords into consideration that much like before, including them might still be of help to other search engines that still use them. Meta description is still important as this is the snippet that will be shown in search engine result pages.

Adding different meta tags to blog posts is a white hat on-site search engine optimization technique which isn't hard to implement on blogspot sites though it still has to be done manually unlike wordpress with a ready made plug in for this same purpose.

Sample of a general meta tag and how to use it on blogger can be found on this blog post as the one shown below is for specifying unique meta tags for different posts.


<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "BLOG-POST-URL-HERE"'>
<meta content='DESCRIPTION' name='description'/>
<meta content='KEYWORDS' name='keywords'/>
</b:if>


For this particular blog post, my unique meta tags for it should look just as shown below:


<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://www.doncaprio.com/2011/09/meta-tags-different-unique-posts-blog.html"'>
<meta content='How to add different meta tags for different blog posts. This post explains how to use unique meta tags for blog post on blogger.' name='description'/>
<meta content='meta tag, blog, different, unique, search engine ranking, google' name='keywords'/>
</b:if>


Follow this steps to add the meta tags to the head section of your template:

- Login to your blog and click on design

- Click on Edit HTML

- Press CTRL + F and search for </head>

- Just below this, paste all the meta tags.

- Save your template.

Note that you can create different sets of meta tags for all your blog post but this almost impossible if you have a great deal of blog entries. Doing the trick for a couple of your most important blog post isn't a bad idea.

To know if your meta tags are working properly, you should check out this meta tag analyzer which is a free online tool.

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Adding Facebook Like Button To Blog Posts (For Blogspot)

Facebook like button is probably the most important facebook integration to socialize your blog. It allows your blog content to be shared with the click of a button without leaving the page. I recently wrote a post on creating a facebook fan page and adding a like box to your blog and I suggest you check it out if you haven't. Adding facebook like button involves just a couple of steps easy to implement. You can add a like button for your fan page or a like button for each and every blog post. There's an old post I made on adding facebook like button to blog posts but this one explains it even further.



ADDING LIKE BUTTON TO EACH BLOG POST

This makes it a lot easier for your readers to share your blog posts with just a click. To add facebook like button to every blog posts automatically, follow the steps below:

1. Login to your blogger account and select Design

2. Click on Edit HTML

3. Check the box labelled Expand Widget Template

4. Like I always emphasize, back up your template before making changes in case something goes wrong

5. Press CTRL + F and search for <data:post.body/>

If you're using a magazine style template or used the automatic read more hack I posted, you might find two or more <data:post.body/> in your template. You should try both to know which one works. The second works on my template though.

6. If you prefer to have the facebook like button to appear on top of your blog post right below the title, paste this code above <data:post.body/>

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'><div><iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:400px; height:27px;'/></div></b:if> <br/>


7. If you prefer to see the like button below your blog posts, paste this code below <data:post.body>

<br/>
<br/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<div><iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:400px; height:27px;'/></div>
</b:if>
<br/>


8. You might as well put it in both positions. Save your template and view the change on your blog.

Note:
You can change the layout written in red which is set to standard by default to button_count if you want the like button to show number of likes instead.

You can as well set show_faces which is false by default to true. This enables the like button to show photos underneath but it applies to the standard button only.

The code above too only shows the like button on post pages. It won't appear on static pages like label search results and home page. To make the like button appear on static pages involves removing two lines of codes: <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'> and </b:if>.
With those removed, the facebook like button appears on static pages and on blog post pages as well.


MAKING FACEBOOK LIKE BUTTON LINK TO YOUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE

In case you prefer a simple facebook like button that links to your facebook fan page instead of a bogus like box, there's a slight change than can be made to the code above. You only need to change the URL as shown below:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'><div><iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=FAN PAGE URL HERE&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:400px; height:27px;'/></div></b:if> <br/>


You should change FAN PAGE URL HERE to you own facebook fan page full address. Be sure the URL starts with http://. You can also place this code before or after <data:post.body> as explained above.


Alternatively, you can add this as a widget by going to you blog's layout and clicking on add widget on the exact position you want the like button to appear. Select HTML/Javascript and paste the code below:


<div align="center">
<div><iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=FAN PAGE URL HERE&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:400px; height:27px;'/>
</div></div>


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How To Create A Facebook Fan Page And Adding Like Box To Blogger

Facebook isn't just a social site that helps you connect and share with the people in your life, it can be a great way to connect with your business clients or blog readers. I have written some posts on facebook integration with blogger like adding facebook comment box, adding facebook like button and large social bookmarking button but having a facebook fan page can not be overlooked. Creating a facebook fan page is an effective way to ensure you keep in touch with your blog visitors on the world's favorite social network. Though there are millions of Facebook fan pages, there are still some people who find it hard to create a fan page because they're probably new to facebook. This blog post explains the basics on how to create a facebook fan page, a like box and how to integrate the widget to your blogger hosted blog.

To create a fan page with a like box, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your facebook account and click here to create a fan page

2. Select a page category depending on what you're creating a fan page for. You should select Brand or Product if it's a blog.

3. Select Website as sub-category

4. Enter Your site name in the next available space e.g Doncaprio.com or The 9ja Geek's Journal

5. Agree to the terms and continue.



6. The next page takes you to where you're asked to upload the page's profile picture. You can use your blog's logo

7. You can invite your facebook friends to like your fan page or import email contacts to notify about your new fan page

8. Enter the basic info about your blog or website on the next page.


Creating A Facebook Like Box

- Click here to get started.

- Enter your fan page URL and other parameters as shown below


- The sample shown above can be different from yours depending on your choice.

- Click on Get Code when done with the configuration


How To Add Facebook like Box To Blogger

- Clicking on Get Code presents two different sets of codes

- Copy the first one (ifame)

- Log in to your blogger account

- Click on Design

- Select Add Widget on the location you wish the facebook like box to appear

- Paste the code you copied earlier and save

- View your blog and the Widget should appear at the very spot.


How To Get Facebook Fan Page Custom Username

A default facebook fan page URL can be quite long and hard to remember. My facebook fan page looks like http://facebook.com/capriotips which is so short and simple. You must have at least 25 likes before getting a custom facebook username.

On your browser, launch http://facebook.com/username and select your desired username for your fan page.

Automatically Updating Your Facebook Fan Page

Instead of sharing every blog post all by yourself, you can synchronize your blog's RSS Feed with your facebook fan page and every blog post will be pushed to your fan page as well as your personal profile to see. I wrote a post earlier how you can automatically publish your blog's RSS feed to your facebook profile and fan page and you can as well check it out.

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Inserting Adsense Unit Inside Blogger Post Body

Your adsense earnings has a lot to do with placement of ads among other things. Placing ads in certain positions such as under post title gives you a better click through rate and increased adsense earnings. One of the most effective practices is placing your adsense unit inside blog post, wrapping your text around it, preferably a 300 X 250 medium rectangle ad unit or a 336 x 280 large rectangle ad unit. Your ads will appear in your blog post as the image appearing on the left side of this blog post. Unlike wordpress blogs with different plugins to make things like this easy, there are certain steps you have to take to make this work on your blogspot site. This post explains how to place adsense unit inside blog posts and the steps are quite simple.




1. Log in to your adsense account and create the adsense unit you intent to use. I would recommend 300 X 250 medium rectangle ad unit or a 336 x 280 large rectangle ad unit.

2. Copy the generated code and paste it in the box below to parse it.

3. Click on Convert and copy the parsed adsense code.

4. Login to your blogger account and go to Design > Edit HTML

5. Back up your template by clicking Download full template before proceeding. You can easily restore your original template in case something goes wrong.

6. Check Expand widget template

7. Press CTRL + F and search for this code:


<data:post.body/>


8. Right above that, paste this code:


<b:if cond="data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;">
<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; margin: 5px;">

PARSED ADSENSE CODE

</div>
</b:if>


9. Be sure to replace PARSED ADSENSE CODE with your adsense code you parsed earlier.



This makes the ad appear under post title with your blog post wrapped around it. You should however know that this adsense unit will not appear on static pages such as homepage, archive and label pages. If you intend to show the ads on the static pages, simply remove the first and last line of the code.

Also, I won't advice you to use this tweak if you have blog posts starting with images. This will place the images right beside your blog posts which is strictly against google adsense terms of service.

If you intend to place the ad unit under post title without wrapping you post body round it, click here

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