Showing posts with label Blogspot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogspot. 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.

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