google wave in blogger?Image based tutorial

I do not know if many people use it but we'll see how to insert a wave on a blog as a widget so that any visitor can use it. Tell them that this wave will only be visible and may be used by visitors using Firefox or Chrome.

How to embed  Google wave in blogger as widget?Image based tutorial

Step[1]Create a wave in your wave client by clicking on new wave button.

Click Image to enlarge

Step[2]You will be asked to add any email address to a wave

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Displaying total number of posts and comments to blogger

Many old bloggers display their total posts and comments just to show how popular their blog is. You can too add this widget to your blog. The widget looks like this:



To add this widget follow these simple steps:

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Add Flash Files to your blogger

Adding flash to blogger or adding .swf files to blogger.
Flash files having .swf extensions can be added to blog posts,if you have got the embed code for the same..The best example is the youtube embed code!!IF u want to add flash to the blogger tile.In that case you will have to edit your template and add the flash embed code there..

See a sample of what can be done below, doesn't this look cool!
Read on to see how it's all done.
Now see What i have doen Above.
In my one of the previous articles i showed you how to add music files to blogger.
Adding flash is somewhat similar to it.
The code i have used for above flash file is:

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Adding animated GIFs to blogger

One of the main annoying limitations of blogger is that it does not allow to post animated gifs to the post. The good news is that the Picasa Web Albums , Google service where you stored the images posted on Blogger supports animated images in GIF format.

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Change color and size of default tag cloud in blogger

It is known that we can use a gadget option "Labels" to Blogger, to show our tags in a cloud . It so happens that yesterday I received two emails on the same subject: how to change the design of the cloud once added to the blog, so we'll see in this post how.

Once you add a gadget in the sidebar, a tag cloud will have a default layout that fits, more or less to the rest of the sidebar.

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5 Best Blogspot Blogger Hacks

Well I started blogging around three years ago using blogger and it turned out to be quite interesting experience. In my view, the best way to improve your blog is to see what other are doing?

So I started observing some very nicely formatted blogs and noticed what kind of hacks and modification they use for successful blogging and tried to implement them in my own template. Voila! After hours of research and browsing, I have made a list of all hacks which are must have for a professional blog.

Back up first

It is important to backup your Blogger template (especially before attempting any template customizations). Download a copy of your template to your computer, which you can access in the future if you need to restore your theme (or your entire blog).

For Blogger XML based templates (Layouts):

Go to Layout > Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard, then click on the link near the top of the page which says “Download Full Template”. This will save a copy of your full template as an XML file to your computer.

Now lets go for some best Blogger hacks…

Expandable post hack…

This hacks gives your blog a professional look by shrinking your full post to few lines and displaying a read more or continue reading link. In many ways this hack is unique. It increases your page impressions and it also helps your blog to load quickly by just loading summaries instead of full posts. This hack has many variations. Many bloggers have modified it in their own way. Let’s see some good variations…

Variation 1

Ramani on hackosphere was one of first who promoted this hack. In this version of hack, it uses insertion of codes around various location of your template. This hack is good for people who use a simple template with many hacks.

One drawback is: your have to edit each of your earlier post and insert codes between them to apply this hack uniformly.

The problem with this is if you use other hacks it may get disturbed which may result in the read more link disappearing or sometimes appearing after post.Codes for this hack are linked below

Install this hack

Variation 2

I used Ramani’s hacks for quite a time which required editing around the <post:data.body/> section. It created some problems for me so I found this variation.

Amanda on bloggerbuster offers a better version of this hack. This is better in many ways. You can use (install) it easily and after installing you don’t have to add separate code between and at end of posts. This automatically shrinks your post and adds read more link. Have a look at codes you need to add…

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<div class='excerpt post-body entry-content'>
<data:post.body/>
<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
</div>
<b:else/>
<div class='post-body entry-content'>
<data:post.body/>
<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
</div>
</b:if>

This is the best hack for expandable post summaries and it is also hassle free.

Install this hack

Paged navigation hack

This is really a simple and useful widget. It adds a paged navigation at the end of your posts. Nice way to increase your page impression and it also give option to reader to visit more of your posts in random order.

Thanks to Rias he managed to make this hack as an widget so you can add it to your blog without any hassles. This is so perfect that no variation is needed for this one. Still if you want one, you can check this one posted on Devils Workshop by Arjun.

Install this hack

Related post hack

This is very useful and productive hack. It adds a list of related posts after your post content. This is the best way to make your visitor spend more time on your blog without annoying them at all. It also increases impressions and earnings. Also as a visitor spend more time on your blog, he is more likely to subscribe to your RSS feed.

Variation 1

Rias again offers a way to do this but his method is quite complex but offers flexibility. You can try it but it involves lot of editing. Good for bloggers who are comfortable with codes!

Install this hack

Variation 2

This is more comfortable way to install this hack on your blogger template. In this version, you need to put a section of code around <post.data:body/> section and its done!

Its a very easy to use and credit goes to Jackbook for this version of hack.

Install this hack

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking services are a great way to drive more visitor to your blog and find many potential readers. Services like Digg, Stumble upon, Technorati has helped many bloggers succeed. There are methods which allows you put a set of icons that link to popular social bookmarking services.

Variation 1

Well this hack is designed by Annesh and Beautiful beta. This hack is simple to use.

Just a two step process and you can add a set of booking icons that will appears at the end of your each post. You can add/remove social bookmarking icons that as per your choice.

Install this hack

Variation 2 (Added by Editor)

Rahul created this hack when he was on Blogger. This supports around 30 top social boomarking services and also provide option to add all of them once or one-by-one.

Install this hack

AdSense after each post

Using AdSense after each post is best way to increase your AdSense revenue. It helps in getting more clicks on ads. I used Rahul’s method to do it.

This is good for people who do not use expandable post hack. The problem is, ad appears on home page as well the post pages. Look at screen shot below…

If you are using expandable post hack then it doesn’t look good to show ads on homepage. You can avoid this by adding two lines of code around codes provided in Rahul’s post…

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
"Modified Google AdSense Ad Code"
</b:if>

The above lines add a condition which prevent this hack frrom working on homepage, label(category) or archive pages. Look at following screenshot for some help…

That’s All! If you have any really good hack, please share via comments!

Thanks for reading…

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Replace Home and Posts Links by images

Navigation Links in Blogger are visible as text links usually at the bottom of each page. It is always good to have images as links for navigation, simple text links usually do not attract attention but image links accentuate the navigation links.
This hack will show that just by uploading the images and replacing some code in your template, your image navigation links will be up and running.

The new navigation links will look like this:

 

 

 

You can have images other than these for home and post links(newer and older).

Here is a simple hack to replace text in navigation links to images:

1. Go to Layout->Edit Html
2. Download Full Template (This is to backup your template)
3. Check the Expand Widget Templates

Older Posts

Search for this code

<data:olderPageTitle/> (For Older Posts)

it will look something like this

<a class=’blog-pager-older-link’ expr:href=’data:olderPageUrl’ expr:id=’data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_blog-pager-older-link&quot;’ expr:title=’data:olderPageTitle’><data:olderPageTitle/></a>

Now replace this code with the code below

<img src=’http://bloggertipspro.googlepages.com/older-posts.png’ style=’border:none; background:#FFFFFF;’/>

Newer Posts

search for this code

<data:newerPageTitle/> (For Newer Posts)

Replace it by the code below

<img src=’http://bloggertipspro.googlepages.com/newer-posts.png’ style=’border:none; background:#FFFFFF;’/>

Home Page

For home page you have to replace the codes twice.

Search for this code

<data:homeMsg/> (For Home Page)

Replace it by the code below

<img src=’http://bloggertipspro.googlepages.com/home.png’ style=’border:none; background:#FFFFFF;’/>

You can replace the images by just replacing the http://bloggertipspro.googlepages.com/home.png with your own image link location

4. Save the Template

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25 Ways to Use the Web to Find Content

This post originally appeared over at blog resource centre, For Bloggers By Bloggers. I wanted to share it here as I thought you might find it useful, as well as share some of the free resources we offer over at FBBB. Feel free to pop on over and check the rest of For Bloggers By Bloggers out, and subscribe if you like what you find.

As a blogger, you know that sometimes the hardest thing to do is come up with content for your blog. Finding ideas for your blog (especially if you want to post regularly) can often lead to you not blogging at all, because you start hitting the wall when it comes to what to blog about. So I thought it might be useful to offer up 25 ways to use the web to find content for your blog. Here they are.

Blog Comments

1. Using a plug-in like CommentLuv allows your commenter to share their most recent post. I’ve seen blog titles that have intrigued me and clicked through to read, and given me an idea for a post of my own. We use CommentLuv on For Bloggers By Bloggers.

2. If you see a comment that really resonates and offers a great viewpoint, ask the poster if they’d like to guest for you and expand on the original comment.

3. Similar to above, if you see a comment you disagree with, expand your own view into a post and offer reasons why your viewpoint is different.

Other Blogs

4. As #1 points out, CommentLuv is great for sharing the most recent post of a blogger, but not every blog uses it. So click through the URL of someone’s comment and see what they’re writing about, to see if you can gather ideas from there.

5. Blogrolls. While some have called blogrolls out of date, many bloggers still use them to share what they’re reading. Visit the blogs of those your favourite blogger reads, and see what ideas you can get from them.

6. A lot of bloggers have category lists for Top 10 Tips and popular posts in their navigation menu. Have a look and see what’s there, and use them to build your own content from.

7. Speaking of popular posts, if a blogger has their most popular posts on display in their sidebar, click on a couple to read and see what made them popular. Then see how you can take inspiration from them.

Social Bookmarks

8. Delicious is a great resource for finding blog content. Just type your topic into the Delicious search bar and you’ll find a ton of results from people that have saved articles or blog posts about your chosen topic.

9. Stumbleupon is a cool browser add-on that lets you browse websites at random. You can land on some great content that will give you your own ideas for your blog.

10. While not as popular as it used to be, Digg still has some great shared posts and news on its site. Look at the most popular and see what take you can offer.

11. BizSugar is becoming more popular, as it concentrates on small business news. If your blog is in this niche, you can get some great ideas from here.

12. A mix of social bookmarking and community, Blog Engage is similar to Digg and BizSugar with its voting system, but it focuses a lot on just bloggers and is a great starting point for ideas.

Blog Resources

13. One of my favourite blog communities is Scribnia. You can find authors and bloggers based on niches, and this can really help you target content to get inspiration from.

14. Alltop offers a great collection of blogs in a veritable feast of topics – if you can’t find something to write about there, then I’m stuck!

15. Still viewed by many as the Blogger’s Bible, Technorati has more than 133 million blogs registered with them. Use the categories or top topics to find content you can get ideas from.

16. Google Blog Search offers up a huge resource of blogs on every topic under the sun. Much like Alltop and Technorati, use the topic search to find your interests.

17. Another resource from Google is their Trends platform. If you’re quick off the mark, you can write a blog post about a trending topic, optimize it for SEO, and (hopefully) be found by those looking at the trends for that moment.

18. Junta 42 offers some great tips on content marketing – check out their articles for ways to get ideas for your own blog.

Social Networks

19. If you’re on Twitter, one of the best ways to find content for your blog is to jump into the weekly #blogchat discussion. Great bloggers, great topics – what more do you need?

20. Sticking with Twitter, have a look at what’s trending at any time on that platform then see if you can get a post out about it (just don’t go all spammy with your hashtags when your post is ready). Trendsmap is a great resource for global trends.

21. And yet again with Twitter, Twitter Search is great for finding out what people are saying regarding the stuff you blog about – type in a keyword, and see if any conversations inspire you to expand on them in a blog post.

22. On Facebook there’s a great app called Networked Blogs, that shares content from Facebook users with blogs, and the Networked Blogs directory. You can get a widget with different blogs in it, and use this to build some ideas for your own content.

23. LinkedIn Groups are perfect for finding blog content. Look at the questions being asked on there and write a blog post as your answer.

24. Seen by many as a place for file and document sharing, Slideshare has great presentations that are just chock full of ideas for you to take away and build several blog posts from.

25. YouTube is more than just a video upload site – think about grabbing a tips video, for example, embedding it into a blog post and then riffing on what else could have been added to the video to make it a better resource.

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Best 15+ Blogger Hacks Of All Time

There are many people who consider that Blogger is a much stable platform than WordPress, that’s why many people are using Blogger as a blog solution. My opinion is that both are great platforms but I do prefer self hosted WordPress because is fully customizable and also you can do whatever you want.

This list will help you to transform your Blogger blog in that type of blog that you like.

1. Remove the Blogger Top Bar

This is probably one of the most annoying thing that Blogger has. This hack will help you to remove the Blogger bar forever.

2. Add a Tag Cloud (Label Cloud)

This is one important hack that will help you to create a label cloud. Is working like every wordpress tag cloud. This hack was created by phydeaux3.

3. How to Hide/Remove Label Count in Blogger Blogs
When you have a new blog is pretty embarrassing to let people know that you have just few posts. This hack will help you to hide this.

4. Random Header Background Image

Changes the background image of your blog header. It will automatically display a different background image for your header.

5. Image Caption

Add caption footer to images in posts.

6. Tabs

Add customized dynamic tabs with content. Add posts or comments or even tag cloud using this cool hack.

7. Recent Comments Widget

Blogger has not officially introduced the plugin for recent comments. This will help you to display latest comments on posts. Is actually exactly like the Recent Comment plugin for WordPress.

8. Emoticons

Converts the specific symbols for emoticons in graphic emoticons.

9. Social Bookmarking Links

Add special list in the footer or in the top of your posts. This will help you and your visitors to automatically submit articles to social websites and share them with friends.

10. Ajax Menu

Adds a cool AJAX menu for labels which has pretty cool effects.

11. Read More Option

Adds the read me text on the first page and posts only a preview of the actual post.

12. Random Posts Widget

A widget that helps you to display random articles.

13. Expandable post summaries for professional blog design

This is another version of read more hack.

14. Replace Date with a cool new calendar type layout in blogger

This hack will help you to replace the old fashion date with a new cool graphical one.

15. Drop Down Labels

Build a cool DHTML menu for your labels.

16. SexyShare Bookmarks

This is actually a hack created as a clone of the WordPress plugin SexyBookmarks. You can see how it works here at the end of the post.

17. Replace Home and Post Links with images

Use images instead of numerical and symbol system.

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Hover Effect Thumbnails Only Related Posts

Back in December i published a post showing you a great Related Posts with thumbnails gadget.That gadget displayed a selected number of related posts generated using labels, the posts are displayed using a thumbnail with the title of the post below.That post has been one of the most popular on Spice Up Your Blog over the last few months and today i have another Related Posts With Thumbnails Gadget but with a very cool feature.

I found this gadget in a template published on Templates Blog BestBloggerTemplates.Net and knew it would be popular.This Related Posts gadget does not display the title of the post below the Thumbnail but rather has a Hover Effect to display the post title.So below your posts will be just the thumbnails but when you hover your cursor over them the thumbnail is replaced by the title.

Hmmm not easy to explain in text so take a look at the screenshots and live demo below.


Screenshot - Normal :



Screenshot Hover - You can see the title displayed when the cursor is hovered :



Live Demo - I'm using this gadget on  Social Icon Site (Scroll To End Of Any Post)

Add Related Posts Gadget To Your Blog

Step 1. In your Blogger dashboard click Design > Edit Html > Tick the Expand Widget templates box.







Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code -)

]]></b:skin>

Step 3. Copy and paste the following code Directly Above / Before ]]></b:skin>

<!--start related posts css Info : http://www.99blogger.com-->

ul#related-posts{
font-family:"Droid Sans",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
font-size:10px;
list-style: none;
margin: 20px 0;
padding: 0;
text-transform: none;
}
ul#related-posts li{
float: left;
height: auto;
margin:0 5px;
padding: 2px 1px 2px;
list-style-type:none;
}
*html ul.rp#related-posts li{
margin:0 13px;
}
ul#related-posts li a {
-moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15);
border: 2px solid #FFFFFF;
display: block;
height: 72px;
position: relative;
width: 72px;
}
ul#related-posts li a {
color: #474C51;
text-decoration: none;
text-shadow: 0 1px 0 #FFFFFF;
}
ul#related-posts li .overlay {
height: 66px;
line-height: 16px;
padding:6px 0 0 6px;
position: absolute;
width: 66px;
z-index: 10;
}
ul#related-posts li .overlay {
}
ul#related-posts li a:hover .overlay {
background: #fff;
display: block !important;
opacity:0.9;
}
ul#related-posts li img {
bottom: 0;
padding:0px !important;
}
ul#related-posts li a:hover {
-moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25);
}

<!--end related posts css.Info : http://www.99blogger.com-->

Step 4. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code -)

<div class='post-footer'>

Step 5. Copy and paste the following code Directly Below / Under <div class='post-footer'>

<!--start related posts code Info : http://www.99blogger.com-->

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var defaultnoimage=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYH4VSSPiRfBD4HMJh_9Y9J1yQfhHJD1yX1bhqbMzW4L3HLRsFqbCFfwdwJe8W7M_v6vqp2ZtlnYB1rNQamIxVZ_E62aK6rH37nVDabb-RZFLdITLqnR0Q0R_gLywYzblOZEYeYn2lhk/s1600/no-image.gif&quot;;
var maxresults=6;
</script>
<script src='http://spiceupyourblogextras.googlecode.com/files/hover-related-posts.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast != &quot;true&quot;'>
</b:if>
<script expr:src='&quot;/feeds/posts/default/-/&quot; + data:label.name + &quot;?alt=json-in-script&amp;callback=related_results_labels_thumbs&amp;max-results=6&quot;' type='text/javascript'/>
</b:loop>

<script type='text/javascript'>
removeRelatedDuplicates_thumbs();
printRelatedLabels_thumbs(&quot;<data:post.url/>&quot;);
</script>

</b:if>

<div style='clear:both'/>
<br/><br/>
<a href='http://www.99blogger.com'><img alt='Best Blogger Tips' src='http://3.bp.bloodspot.com/_rKG-ziTSNUQ/TQ5eV0U0EiI/AAAAAAAACik/xo2eFaDbfrE/s1600/best+blogger+tips.png'/></a>
<!--end related posts code Info : http://www.99blogger.com--->

Optional Changes

-You can change the title above the gadget from Related Posts (In Blue Above).

-You can change the number of posts displayed from 6 (In Red Above)

-The Gadget is set to only display on the post pages, if you want it displayd on the home page also remove the code highlighted in Green above.

Step 6. Save your template.

Check out more of our Blog Gadgets and Featured Posts.

That's your Hover Effect Related Posts With Thumbnails, i would like to give credit to BloggerPlugins for the original script and BloggerzBible created the template in which i found the gadget along with making some changes to the original.

Drop Your Comments, Views And Questions Below.

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Blogging For Fun Vs Blogging For Money

If you ask a blogger if he or she blogs for fun or money, it’s likely you won’t get a proper answer. This is because, other than the professional bloggers who are out promoting products or services, most people blog for fun hoping to earn money in the process. Why do you blog? For fun or money?

BLOGGING FOR FUN

Before you blog, decide if you want to blog just for fun and not to make money. In this case, you don’t have to care for anyone’s opinion; just write what feels right to you and post your random thoughts. Keep it humorous and people will read your blogs. You can even write on controversial topics if you like; just know that you might get hate comments along with your fan mail.

If you have the rare talent of being able to make people laugh, start a funny blog and gain a good fan following. You can then use your blog to place Ads and make money. There are many ways that you can apply to convert your fun blog into a profitable blog.

Note that if you manage your blog well, you can always earn money off of it. So even if your initial intent is to start a fun blog, stay away from controversial topics. Earn a steady fan following by posting good and healthy content.

Unless you are a professional blogger who uses all the latest blogging tricks to generate revenue, try blogging just for fun. If your blog helps you earn money, it’s great. If not, just enjoy your blogging experience.

PROFESSIONAL BLOGGING

If you are blogging for money and not just for fun, your strategy and agenda must be totally different. You need to put in a great deal of thought into the reason behind your blog, and what you plan on achieving from it. Determine how much you want to earn in a year and manipulate your blog to earn this revenue for you.

Use all possible basic and advanced methods to attract traffic to your blog. You can do this by posting intelligent articles on different topics and asking for people’s opinion. You can also allow space for promotions for product and service websites on your blog.

You can upload blog posts in other similar blog sites and get your back links that way. You can use keyword optimization, and upload keyword-rich content on profitable niches and get paid by advertisers. One such profitable niche is medifast discounts and nutrisystem coupons; people are constantly scouring the web for articles and information on medifast discounts and nutrisystem coupons. As a professional blogger, did you know you could help promote other people’s businesses for money as well?

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Top 3 Contact Form WordPress Plugins

If you’re using mailto:your-mail-box links, it is not a wise move because your email will be scanned by spammer viruses. Contact form is one of the most effective anti-harvesting method from spammers. The contact form provides a textarea for the message, and an input for the sender’s e-mail address. The server-side script that processes the posted form data, is then responsible for sending the actual message, which means that the e-mail address of the recipient is never exposed.
If you’re using wordpress, you’re in luck. There’re many different wordpress plugins you can use to create a contact form to reduce spam. I’m including some of the most common ones below:

WP-ContactForm Akismet Edition

The basic purpose of WP-ContactForm Askimet Edition is to make it easy to have a “Contact Me” form on your WordPress blog. Additionally, if you have Akismet installed, all messages will be checked for “spaminess” before being sent to you, effectively keeping the spammers out of your face. The reason why I listed it here because I like the idea of this plugin as combining with Askimet. With this plugin you don’t need any annoying image verification codes or checks to see if the user is “human” or not. If anyone attempts to spam you, it will likely never reach your e-mail box. Only one note for you, this plugin is not currently compatible with WordPress 2.5. He said that he was going to update it but there’s no update since April 22, 2007

WordPress-Ready Contact Form

WordPress-Ready Contact Form is an easy-to-install contact form with many accessibility, usability, and security features. If you use some of the more popular WordPress Themes such as Green Marinee, Connections, Ocadia, … contact form themes have been provided to get you up-and-running faster than ever. I’ve just noticed that Brian Gardner, owner of Revolution Themes is using this one.

CForms II

Cforms II is a highly customizable, flexible and powerful form builder wordpress plugin, covering a variety of use cases and features from attachments to multi form management, you can even have multiple forms on the same page! I personally use CForms II on my blog (you can see it live on my contact page) because I love its features. The only thing I do not like this plugin is its size (900KB+) then I do not update it regularly! Anyways I highly recommend this plugin for building your contact form.
Main features of cForm II plugin

• Customizable fields with optional checkboxes, radio buttons, …
• Several fancy “styles”, change the look of your form with a single click
• Create multiple contact forms and display them on however many pages you want.
• Tell-a-friend form support.
• Backup and restore custom forms to other sites.
• Visitor verification questions, along with CAPTCHA support

That’s about it. Hopefully you find my post interesting and if you have any other great plugins for me then I’d like to see them. Do not forget to subscribe to our feed to stay up to date with all of our free themes and tutorials!

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Contact Forms for Blogger

Naturally, blogs include a method of getting in contact with the owner or editor/writer of the site – through comments. However, this isn’t the best method for contacting the owner, especially if you need to give personal details or something that can’t be shared with the entire community.
Some blogs don’t even contain a contact form – they rely solely on comments, but this isn’t an ideal situation should a user encounter a problem with your site (copyright, display issues, and so on). Therefore, it is essential to place some type of contact form on your blog.
Previously, we’ve covered Top 3 Contact Form Plugins for WordPress, but through use of Blogger and other systems, there have been few solutions to adding a contact form seamlessly without having to code the form into a new blog post. The best solution for resolving this problem is using a solution that creates contact forms using HTML or using an off-site solution that gives you some of the same functionality.

Kontactr

Kontactr provides a simple, easy way to create contact forms. All you have to do is use their three-step process to create your very own contact form for your website. They even claim that it’ll take “no more than 10 seconds to sign up.” The service requires that you sign up for an account but this is likely due to the need to add your email address.
When you create the account, you will be able to embed links in your website or blog, which presents a more attractive way for your readers to contact you than through a direct mailto link.

Free Contact Form

This form allows you to implement a fully accessible, spam-free form on your website. It is more than just a contact form, as you can use it for other purposes.
While there is a professional version, you can still use the free version, although it lacks some of the main features of the professional version.

Mailjol.net Contact Form

This site provides a solution that allows you to create various forms. However, I noticed that the styling isn’t the most ideal of all solutions, but is desirable if you want a more contact-like rather than survey-like version.
A number of the key features include: No Ads, Unlimited Questions, Easy Form Creator, Spam Protection, and more.

Wufoo

The Wufoo site presents a clear message: to make forms easy, fast, and fun. You can create contact forms, online surveys, and more with their tool, which doesn’t involve editing or viewing a single line of code. They have several payment options, starting with a free solution (one user, three forms, three reports, and ten fields, up to a hundred entries per month) through an account that allows unlimited forms and reports.
All in all, this service stood out the most for me, not for what is included in the free package, but what you can do with what is at your disposal. Just take a look at their Examples Page.

• Graceful Degradation
• W3C Valid XHTML and CSS
• 508 Accessibility Compliant
• Can be Personalized and Branded with Themes
• Customized Confirmation Messages
• Redirect to Web Page on Confirmation
• Confirmation Email Receipt to user
• … plus hundreds of additional features

Free Contact Forms

A simple, effective solution for creating a brief contact form for your website.

WRASAP

Despite the rather ridiculous acronym for a simple tool, this “Will Reply As Soon As Possible” contact form does one thing – allows you to place a contact form on your website or blog. It sends you an email message with each new comment, and integrates a CAPTCHA-driven spam filter. Essentially, it’s just a customizable webpage with a contact form.

Response-O-Matic

Ideal for people who want an effective solution, this site offers the ability to create a contact form without the need to learn HTML. Simply tell the wizard what you want to see in your form, then copy and paste the code into your website – it’s truly that easy.
The free account is limited but should suit most users.

Odio Works – Custom Feedback Form

A simple and easy-to-use contact form for placing on nearly any site.
If you want to customize your form or implement a more advanced solution, check out Web Resources Depot’s post with 16 Free AJAX Contact Forms.

Conclusion

If you choose to search elsewhere for contact form plugins or scripts, please be aware that some have more advanced spam protection, better options, and ways to customize the form template to your liking. Not every solution is easy to use nor compatible with every blog platform.
If you have any other work-arounds for placing contact forms in non-WordPress blogs, please let me know through the comments

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Free Essential Tools for a Blogspot Blogger

Today's post is a collection of free internet tools essential for any Blogger Blogspot webmaster but particularly beginners who wish to improve and grow their blog.

While there are lots of tools on the internet that are of use to a Blogger Blogspot blogger you have to hunt for them. Chances are that you may have already discovered some of these while others may be quite new to you. Here is my list of some free internet tools that I find invaluable in building my blog. This is not a definitive list by any means. I will update it regularly as I discover more and more tools.


Free Banner Generator
Banner Sketch is an easy to use tool to help you create a title banner and other banners for your blog


Free Icons for RSS Feeds
Find stylish rss feed icons for your blog at Hongkiat Ultimate List of Feed Icons



Free Image Watermarking Service
Add a watermark to your images to deter image theft on your blog with this free image watermarking service from Pictureshark.com


Free Fav Icon Generator
There are a bunch of places on the web that you can go to create your own fav icon. Try these:
favicon.cc
Dynamic Drive
Online Icon Maker


Free Clipart
There are lots of places to find clip art on the net but WPClipArt is my personal favorite offerring thousands of high quality public domain images all completely free

Free Code Converter
Code Converter
Use this tool to parse Google Adsense code and other third party code before entering it into a Blogger template


Free Keyword Tools
Wordtracker will help you identify keywords in your subject area

You could also try Google Adwords


Meta Tag Analyzer
These Meta Tag Analyzers will provide you with detailed information about your blog description, keywords and meta tags
Submit Express
SEO Centro


Free Keyword Density Tool
Check the density of your keywords in your posts with this free keyword density tool from SEOChat


Free File Size Checker
Web Sniffer will check the size of your burned Feedburner feed to avoid exceeding the 512K maximum file size



Free Google Page Ranking Lookup Tool
Find out what your Blogger blog's Google Page Ranking is with this free lookup tool from SEOChat


Free Browser Testing Tool
Look up how your Blogger Blogspot blog will appear to a variety of internet browsers and detect any problems with your template with this free browser testing tool from Browsershots


Free HTML Tutorial Help
Need help with HTML I have found w3schools.com provides excellent tutorials and information on HTML


Free File Storage
FileAve.com offer up to 50MB of free file storage and hosting which is ideal for storing files and scripts. Particularly useful for storing any files that readers can download from your blog.

Also try Boxnet.com which offer 1GB of storage and 4shared.com which gives you a whopping 5GB.


Free Web-Based File Extractor
Sometimes you may wish to extract a file online. My Webzip provide a free archive creation and file extraction service that works on the fly supporting zip, rar, tar and tgz file archives. Also try Wobzip which offers a similar online service


A collection of free internet tools aimed at the beginner Blogspot Blogger. If you have any suggestions for other tools you have found useful please let me know.

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10 Tips to Build Blogger Blogspot Site Traffic

This article discusses 10 easy ways Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers can build site traffic and in many cases improve SEO - search engine optimization. By implementing these steps you will improve the likelihood of your site ranking more highly in search engine results of major search engine players Google, Yahoo and MSN and as a result increase the number of visitors accessing your site.

10 Easy SEO Tips for Blogspot Bloggers to Improve Search Engine Rankings

1. Make Your Title Tags Search Engine Friendly
One of the most important tweaks necessary for Blogspot Blogs is the adjustment of the title tags of your website because Blogger.com by default has not optimized these for search engines. To prove this point navigate to an individual post on your blog and you will see that the blogname appears first in the title bar at the top of your browser followed by the post name. As search engines place greater value on the first words of an entry this puts your site at a disadvantage in search engine results. Fortunately it is easy to reverse the blog name and the post name with a simple tweak. For instructions on how to change the order of these title tags please refer to my article entitled Adjust Blogger Title Tags to Improve SEO



2. Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks
Blogger automatically generates a permalink based on the title of your post each time you make a post. For this reason it is important to craft your title carefully. Permalinks are sometimes less than ideal especially if you have a long title. Take for example the following permalink for one of my posts:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/improved-permalinks-for-blogger-posts.html

You will see that it is search engine friendly in that in contains 2 keywords blogger and permalinks. However you may be surprised to know that How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts is actually the title of this post not Improved Permalinks for Blogger Posts. I have initially used a title that is keyword rich and then after publishing gone back and entered a more descriptive title. No matter how many times I change the title the original permalink remains. If I had entered the second title straight away I may have ended up with the following permalink:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-create-search-engine-friendly.html

Not very pretty is it? And as you can see the whole point of the post is lost.

For more information on crafting permalinks please refer to my article How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts


3. Add a Social Networking Button to Your Blog
By adding a Social Bookmarking button to your website you will enable visitors to your blog to create links to popular social bookmarking sites such as Google, Technorati, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Furl, Yahoo etc. This means that visitors to your site will be able share these links with others thereby helping you attract more traffic to your site and encourage return visits.

Another benefit of a social bookmarking button is that you will be able to identify visitor trends and social bookmarking behaviour on your site. For more information on how to add a free Add This Social Bookmarking button to your Blogger blog please refer to my article Add a Social Bookmarking Button to Your Blog.



4. Submit a Sitemap of Your Blog to Popular Search Engines
If attracting traffic to your site is important to you then it is imperative that you ensure that your Blogger (Blogspot) blog is properly indexed by popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. One way to expedite this is to submit a sitemap to each of three major search engines. Please refer to my tutorials on website submission, authenticating your site and adding your site feed to Yahoo Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools and MSN Tools.

Google - Submit Your Blogspot Blog Sitemap to Google

Yahoo - Submit Your Blogspot Blog to Yahoo

MSN - Submit Blogger Sitemap to MSN Live Search

Also take a look at my tutorial on submitting your blog to major search engines

5. Build Quality Links
If you want to rank highly in Google and other search engines then you need to generate quality in-bound links. That doesn't mean exchanging links with everything and everyone as I see some new webmasters do. A few quality links from authoritative sites will boost your page rankings quickly and are far superior to a bunch of links from low ranking sites.

There are several good ways to generate links to your blog. One easy way is to to submit your site to blog directories. For more information on recommended blog directories please see my article Submit Your Blogger Blog to Blog Directories. Another way to cultivate in-bound links is to submit your best articles to article directories. A third possibility is to actively participate in forums and on other related blogs where commenting affords you the option of adding a link to your site.

I would recommend linking to DMOZ (Open Directory Project). Care needs to be taken to submit your site to the correct subject area. Becoming listed can take awhile so patience is needed.


6. Write Quality Content and Post Frequently
If you have read any articles on the subject of Blogging and SEO you will no doubt have observed writers emphasising the importance of quality content. I can't stress enough how much return visits depend on providing inducements to visitors to come back. If your site content is well written and informative half the battle is won. Make sure you post frequently so that visitors can see the value of subscribing in a reader. Take some care with the presentation of your content and images as this will present a professional image. Avoid common pitfalls like bad grammar and spelling mistakes which stand out like a sore toe and detract from a visitor's overall positive experience of your site.

One leading professional blogger Yaro Starak recommends the use of pillar articles. These are articles that don't change over time and continue to attract visitors. The best pillar articles explain some concept, provide definitions, give advice or present some argument. Your site needs to have at least 5 pillar articles and more if you can manage it. Pillar articles need to be more than 500 words long, crafted to generate interest and provide a welcome resource to your visitors.

7. Ensure Your Content is Keyword Rich
Apart from the quality of your content there is the question of keyword density. The more keyword rich your posts are the greater the likelihood they will appear higher in search engine results. This means it is worth the effort of crafting your content in such a way that you make use of important keywords and keyword phrases frequently used. Don't go overboard however as Google is smart enough to recognise if your pages are littered with keywords and nothing much else. A useful free SEO tool to help you optimise your site using keywords and labels is Google Adwords. Another good tool to help you quickly craft keyword rich material is Live Keyword Analysis which assesses the keyword density of keywords and keyword phrases of any post you paste into the analysis box.

When writing posts make sure your opening sentence describes what the article is about and contains your keywords and keyword phrases. It is important that your first sentence is keyword rich as search engines like Google give more emphasis to content at the beginning of the post. Also it is worth including a short ending statement about the content of the post as there is some evidence that Google also places value on the content at the end of the post.

8. Manage Your Feeds Carefully
Feeds help your visitors find your site so they need to be managed carefully in order to make the most of them. Your site feeds are an important way to create backlinks too. Backlinks from authoritative sites are highly valuable and can boost your page ranking. For information about showing backlinks please refer to the Blogger Help Article About Backlinks

Ensure you have your RSS feed icons clearly visible for visitors to see. The most superior positioning of the feed icons on your site is in the header. Watch out for coming tutorials on how to improve positioning of RSS feed links.

You can redirect your feed to a feedburning service like Feedburner and then add a chicklet to your site (orange RSS feed button) so that the feed is instantly available on click. Please refer to my tutorials about Blogger feeds:Burn a Blogger RSS Feed at Feedburner and Blogger RSS Feeds and Feedburner. To add a FeedFlare to your burned feed check out my tutorial.

If you haven't burnt your feed you can try adding a Subscription Links widget to a sidebar too to encourage visitors to subscribe to your site in popular on-line readers such as Google Reader. You will find the Subscription Links widget available under the list of gadgets.


Display your most recent posts by configuring a feed widget. Under Layout > Page Elements add a feed gadget to a sidebar. Enter the URL of the default feed of your site which will be:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Enter Recent Posts in the title and then Save. For more information about adding a posts feed widget to a sidebar please refer to my article Add a Recent Posts Feed to a Blogger Blog

You can do the same for comments if you wish to have a list of recent comments displayed in your sidebar. In this case you would enter:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

For more in depth coverage about adding a comments feed to your sidebar please see my article Add a Recent Comments Feed to a Blogger Sidebar

Ensure you set up your site feeds to show the full text. To check this navigate to Settings > Site Feeds and select yes from the dropdown box for all three feeds.

Consider having a feed specifically for a popular label if it contains 20 or more posts.


9. Optimize Your Use of Images
Chances are you don't give a thought to images when you insert them into your posts but images can be optimized by careful use of filenames and the alt attribute. When naming images avoid long names. Instead give your images distinctive filenames rather than something generic like 00045.jpg which has no meaning.

The alt attribute allows you to specify what text is displayed when a visitor's mouse hovers over an image. The alt attribute also gets displayed if the image is not available for some reason. By optimizing your alt attributes you are increasing the likelihood of your images appearing in Google Image Searches.

Optimizing your alt attributes is easy. Every time you insert an image into a post look for the alt attribute which will be empty by default

style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />

Fill in the alt attribute with a useful description of your image

style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Blog Know How Sidebar Showing Add This Bookmark Button" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />

Depending on the subject of your site you can gain a lot of traffic from the images you post on your site. The more unique the content of your site the greater the likelihood that your traffic will stem from images. Without going overboard ensure you have a good mix of images to support your articles.


10. Take Advantage of Web Analytics Services
Having implemented some strategies to improve crawling and indexing of your site by search engine giants Google, Yahoo and MSN chances are you will want to see how these changes have impacted on the traffic reaching your site. Web Analytics programs are a valuable tool for gaining insight into visitor behaviour and trends. The kind of information that a program like Google Analytics will provide is:

how users reach and behave on your site

the most popular content on your site

the impact of optimizations you make to your site (e.g. by how much did changing the order of title tags improve traffic from search engines?)

To integrate Google Analytics into your Blogger (Blogspot) blog please refer to my articles Track Visitors to Your Blogger Blog and Add Google Analytics to Blogger Blog

This article has discussed 10 easy ways to build site traffic and improve SEO for Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers by addressing the following areas: feeds, images, social bookmarking, title tags, permalinks, content, analytics, submitting your blog to search engines.

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How to Add a Subtitle to Blogger Posts

This Blogger tutorial shows you how to easily and quickly add a subtitle to your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) so that both search engines and readers will have more information about your post. I also discuss the benefits of adding subtitles to Blogger articles. This is an easy tweak to your Blogger blog that anyone can carry out in a couple of minutes.



Benefits of Using Subtitles in Posts
Adding a subtitle which appears below the title of your post can be both eye catching and informative. For instance a titling schema for this post could be:

Title: Add a Subtitle to a Blogger Blog

Subtitle: Make Your Posts More Search Engine Friendly and User Friendly

If you craft your titles and subtitles carefully you will encourage more targeted readers of your blog as they will be able to see at a glance what your post is about rather than reading the whole article. Your traffic therefore might be slightly less but they will be far more targeted to the content of your site resulting in a lower bounce rate.

If the subtitle you choose for your Blogger post is keyword rich then you are also improving your chances of gaining a higher position in search engine result pages because search engines give added weight to headings and to text early on in an article. By adding a subtitle to a Blogger post you have a SEO tool which if used effectively could result in more visitors finding your site because of higher keyword density.

You can of course add a subtitle manually to each post and format it everytime. The advantage of this method over doing it manually though is that all the formatting is in the stylesheet section of your template so you only have to change the colour scheme and font variables in one location and Blogger will look after the rest. Any change will be reflected in each and every post that has the subtitle &ltdiv> tags.


How to Add a Subtitle to Blogger Posts
This tutorial guides you through the steps to take to add a subtitle to your Blogger blog. The trick requires only takes a few short minutes and requires only a small snippet of code to be added to your template. Provided the instructions are followed anyone can do this including beginners and new bloggers. Interestingly it is not widely known or written about in technical blogs that a subtitle can be added to your Blogger Blogspot blog posts yet the advantages are considerable.

1. Log in to Blogger and navigate to Design > Edit HTML

2. Find the </b:skin> tag in your template. If you are have difficulty finding it use CTRL + F to bring up the Blogger toolbar at the bottom of your blog and enter the tag </b:skin> into the search box on the toolbar

3. Copy and paste the code below into your template making sure that it appears before the </b:skin> closing tag.

.subtitle{
font-family:Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Sans-serif;
font-size:15px;
color: #ca1717;
line-height:20px;
}

Update November 14, 2010. This code inserts a subtitle in red. You will need to change this color to match your template. See later in this post for information on how to add styling or change the color of the subtitle. If you wish to use a known variable as shown in the above image you can. color: $dateheadercolor; could be used for example provided this variable had already been declared in the variables section of the template.

4. Save Template

5. Go to the post you wish to add a subtitle to by clicking on the Posting tab and then the Edit Posts link.

6. Copy and paste the following code into your post ahead of any other text.

<div class="subtitle">Subtitle Text. Please Substitute for your own text</div>

7. Substitute your own text between the <div> tags

8. Navigate to Settings > Formatting and under the last option Post Template enter the following into the box:

<div class="subtitle"></div>

This will mean that every time you create a post you will have the tags appear automatically. All you need do is place the text of your subtitle between the tags. If you don't want to use a subtitle for a particular post just delete the tags.

9. Save Changes to Post and click on View Blog to admire your new subtitle.



Customizing the CSS Styling of a Blogger Subtitle
It is easy to customize your subtitle for a different font type, color and size. Just change the code you added before the </b:skin> tag. If you want a specific color for instance you could change the color I have chosen for another color, increase the font size, and change the font face to Times Roman for instance. Thus your code would become something like this:


.subtitle{

font-family:Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size:16px;
color:#ff6600;
line-height:20px;

This Blogger tutorial has shown you how to add a subtitle to your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) quickly and easily. I have discussed the benefits of inserting a subtitle feature on a Blogger blog including how this might assist search engines to correctly index your blog articles. I have also shown you how to customize your subtitle to your own individual requirements using CSS styling

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Add a Feedburner FeedFlare to Blogger Feed

If you have burned your Blogger Blogspot blog feed at Feedburner you can easily add a FeedFlare to the footer of the feed. FeedFlare helps you to distribute, inform and create a community around your content. Adding a FeedFlare to the feed of your blog allows readers to select from a range of social bookmarking links which appear at the end of each post. FeedFlare offers subscribers some easy ways to email, tag, share, and bookmark your blog content by linking them with a range of services such as Stumble Upon, Digg This, Facebook, Technorati, del.icio.us and Mixx.

It is not difficult to add a FeedFlare to your Blogger feed but it does require you to add a snippet of code to the template of your blog. Don't be put off as I will guide you through this process by providing a step by step walkthrough. This tutorial caters for all levels of technical knowledge from the newbie Blogger to the experienced Blogger.

To see a FeedFlare in action right now check out the end of each post in the Blog Know How feed


How to Add a Feed Flare to Your Blogger Feed
If you have yet to burn your Blogger feed at Feedburner please refer to my articles Blogger RSS Feeds and Feedburner and Burn Blogger RSS Feeds at Feedburner for instructions on how to burn your feed and benefits of burning your blog's feed at Feedburner.

1. Login to Feedburner with your Google Account. From the My Feeds page click on the link to your blog

2. By default you will be taken to the Analyze page so you need to select the Optimize tab from the menu

3. Select FeedFlare from the Side Menu

4. To create a simple FeedFlare check the boxes of the options you would like. At a mininum I suggest you select email and comments count (for blogger) in addition to Stumble Upon, Digg This, del.icio.us and Facebook.

5. Once you have selected the desired options you can reorder them in the Preview/Reordering box below using drag and drop to shuffle the links around. I think it is a good idea to have comments either at the beginning or the end of the list as readers are more likely to notice it in this position

6. Click on Activate. Do not close this window as we will be returning here.

7. In a new window login to Blogger if you are not already logged in and navigate to Layout > Edit HTML

8. I strongly suggest you back up your template as a precaution by downloading it to your computer

9. Use CTRL + F to bring up the toolbar and enter the following code into the search box

&ltdiv id='post-footer'>

10. Return to the FeedFlare page at Feedburner and select Blogger from the drop down menu at the bottom of the page to get the HTML Feedburner code. A dialog box will appear with some instructions. Copy the code found in item #1. Editing Blogger Layouts. To copy right click your mouse and choose select all to highlight the code and then right click again and choose copy

11. Paste the Feedburner code into your template directly below the line of code in your template you just located &ltdiv id='post-footer'>

12. Click on the Save Button

13. Return to Feedburner. Immediately below your blog's title and just above the Analyze tab you will see two icons. Click on the RSS icon (left button) which will bring up your blog feed.


14. Scroll to the bottom of the first post and you will see your new FeedFlare in action.



Other FeedFlare Options
For smarter looking links you may choose to customize the FeedFlare's appearance by tweaking the CSS.

To prevent stealing of your original content otherwise known as blog scraping or splogging you can add personal FeedFlares such as a permalink to a copyright notice and a permalink to you the author of the blog.


In this tutorial you have learned how to create a FeedFlare at Feedburner which appears at the bottom of each post in your Blogger blog's feed. By adding the FeedFlare to the footer of your Blogger blog you help build an online community around your content by offering your readers some choices about how they share, link to and act on the information contained in your blog

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