But who offers such a service?   These tools are not normally offered in a very prominent place and you have to do some digging on each site for them. After some browsing, I found 5 services who offer secret email addresses for you to update while on the go.   There are probably many more but here are 5 of the top ones that a lot of people normally use.

Flickr

Flickr is the first service I found that supplies secret updating email addresses.   If you take a photo with your phone and you want to directly send it to your Flickr photostream then doing so is extremely easy.

Just go here to see your own updating address (Flickr log-in is required).   Then add that address to your email address book (you can even ask Flickr to send the address to your email address book if you are too lazy!).  You can also specify any default tags you want added to emailed-in photos.   Since I will always be using the email function with my mobile phone, I chose to have added #frommobile with these pictures.

Then in the future, when you take a photo with your phone :

• open a new email window
• add your secret email address
• add the photos as attachments
• put the desired title of the photo in the email subject line
• put any photo description in the body of the email
• tags can be put in the subject line or in the body of the email using the tags: title.

Or for those of you who like graphical explanations :

When I tested it, it took 15 minutes for photos to arrive on my Flickr photostream. So it isn’t an instant thing. But if you are out and away from your computer anyway, 15 minutes won’t make any difference.

If you think your secret upload email address has been revealed to others, you can also easily reset the address by pressing a button on your Flickr page.

As soon as the picture(s) arrive at Flickr, the site even offers to put them on your blog automatically.   Is there anything Flickr won’t do for you?

YouTube

This one is a bit redundant for me as my Android phone already has YouTube uploading built in.   But for those of you who haven’t got this feature by default, here’s a quick and easy way to send your videos to YouTube.

By going here (again, log-in required), you will see your secret uploading YouTube email address.  Now whenever you want to send a video to the site, just attach it as an email attachment and send it to your secret address.

Be aware with this one that virtually all email services have an attachment size limit.   Videos are normally huge in size so unless you keep the video clip small, you may have trouble getting your email service to accept it.  So no uploading Ben-Hur!  Keep it short, simple and small.

Facebook

The Facebook one seems to only allow the uploading of photos so no status updates or poking with this address.   But if you regularly upload lots of drunken party photos to Facebook then go here and find your secret Facebook uploading address.  Speed is of the essence if you want your boss to find out why you really took the day off sick.

Blogger

Blogger has two methods of letting you post content via your mobile, and of course, me being me, the first method didn’t work at all!  Typical.

The first method, which you can read about here, involves authorising your phone to send content to your blog.   But when I tried, I got an email back saying that my “device was not authorised”.   Wait a minute – a Google Android phone is not authorised to send content to a Google-owned blogging company?   Spot the irony there.

The second method is to set up a secret blogging email address.  Unlike the other services, you can choose what the second half of the address will be (so you can choose a secret word or phrase that only you will remember).   You can set this up by logging into Blogger then going to settings–>email & mobile.

The title of the blog post goes in your email subject line and all blog images go as email attachments.

Posterous

I couldn’t do a post like this without mentioning Posterous, the blogging site which seems to be doing surprisingly well.  The whole concept of Posterous is that you email in everything and it will be automatically posted for you – text, photos, mp3’s, videos, documents, the lot.

Just set up your blog, associate an email address with it and then send your blog entries with that email address to post@posterous.com .   It will then shortly appear on your Posterous page.  The simplicity of it is winning over a lot of bloggers and I have to admit, I am starting to weaken.

So there are 5 services where you can email in your updates.   Do you know of any more?   If so, let us know all about them in the comments so I can update my email address book…

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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As he discussed here in How To Start A Blog That Gets Instant Traffic, it’s vitally important that you write content that is SEO optimized for search engine traffic. Yet there is one SEO trick that is overlooked quite a lot by Blogger users which could boost their traffic; how they appear in the search results. And I’m not talking about where they appear, but how they appear.

Below is a screenshot of my new blog in the Google search results next to MakeUseOf in the search results. Notice anything different between the two SEO-wise?

It’s in the titles. You can see that my blog’s title is NovelInThirtyDays. Now for some reason I can’t see many people Googling that anytime soon. However, look at the MUO title: ‘Cool Websites, Software and Internet Tips’. Many more people will Google things like that, thus driving more traffic to the site.

So in short, my advice is to change how your blog’s title appears in the search results. One of the best ways to do this for a small to medium blog is to reverse the order in which the blog title and post title are displayed so that the post title comes first. This will SEO optimize every post.

Here’s how.

Log into the Blogger dashboard and select your blog. For demonstration purposes we’ll be breaking out the MUO test blog again. By the way, it has changed significantly in appearance since my last blogger post, because I used it to test coding and themes.

Select your blog and then click ‘Layout’ along the top. Underneath this, select ‘Edit HTML’.

Using CTRL + F, find the following piece of HTML code:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

In most templates it’s around 5-10 lines from the top. Replace that code with the following code:

<b:if cond=`data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;’>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>

Once you have pasted that into the HTML as shown in the above screenshot, your Post titles should appear first in Google search results (not immediately though, Google will have to crawl your blog first before it changes).

However, the SEO optimized results will be noticeable immediately in the tab along the top of your browser.

So now when people search a phrase that appears in the title of a post on your blog, your post will appear higher in the search results. This is a much more likely scenario than someone searching for the actual title of your blog.

For more tips about how to SEO optimize your blog so it gets more traffic, see Ryan’s post entitled How To Start A Blog That Gets Instant Traffic.

For more ‘Blogger’ tips see my recent article entitled 4 Easy Tips to Improve Your Blogger Blog.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• 5 Online Services You Can Update By Email With A Mobile Phone (8)
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However, I’d say somewhere in the region of 90% of the Blogger blogs are underperforming or have simply been abandoned. The free blogging platform, while good, doesn’t have much in the way of taking your blog to the next level. In this article, I’m going to discuss a few Blogger tips and tricks you can use to spruce up your blog in a single afternoon.

I don’t want to start changing all the work I’ve done to my blogs and website in the past few weeks so for the purpose of this article I’ve created a test blog on Blogger seen here in the screenshot below; pretty bland right?

Themes

It’s painfully obvious to any visitor that your blog is just another lame project that barely gets worked on if you’re still using minimia black with hopes of getting high readership. You have to make it look attractive and inviting. Not like it was made in Soviet Russia.

There are tonnes of Blogger templates available but I’d suggest this site. It has 120 really beautiful templates on offer that will rock your personal blog. Once you have found the theme you like, download it using the download link. There will be an .XML document in that file which you’ll upload later.

Go to your blogs editor at Blogger and select ‘Layout’. Then, select ‘Edit HTML’ from the tabs along the top. You see the window in the screenshot above. Click the button that says ‘Download’. This will download a copy of your existing theme to back it up in case something goes wrong later.

Then, upload the .XML document that you downloaded earlier and click ‘Save’.

Your new theme will then be displayed on your blog. There may be some missing gadgets which you can replace later. These would have had to be moved because of the new template design.

Getting Rid of the Blogger Toolbar

Across the top of all Blogger blogs there is that annoying toolbar (pictured above). Not only is it obviously there to get others to create their own blog but it also links to other blogs and is downright unattractive and unprofessional. By uploading a new theme, you’re getting rid of your blogger toolbar for good as the HTML which displays the blogger toolbar will be erased.

However, if you haven’t uploaded a new theme, a quick change to the HTML will get rid of it.

Paste the following under the blog credits in the HTML near the top as seen in the screenshot.

#navbar-iframe { display: none !important; }

Adding Promotion Buttons

Adding promotion buttons to your site (such as ‘Tweet’, ‘Digg’ and ‘Stumble’ can really increase your traffic, not to mention make your blog look better. For this example we’ll focus on Twitter, but by adding the HTML code for any other buttons below them will work just fine if you want Stumble, Delicious, Digg etc.

Click the ‘Expand HTML’ box above the HTML editor and use ‘CTRL + F’ to find this line in your HTML:

<p><data:post.body/></p>

When you have found it, paste this code below it:

<div style=’float:right; margin-right:10px;’><script type=’text/javascript’> tweetmeme_url = ‘<data:post.url/>’; </script> <script src=’http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js’ type=’text/javascript’> </script> <script type=’text/javascript’> digg_url=&quot;<data:post.url/>&quot;; </script>

Click ‘Save Template’ and your button should appear on each post like mine here in the screenshot. You can add any valid promotion site’s HTML under this. Most are available on their website or can be found by running a Google search.

You can see that with a new theme and promotion buttons our blog is starting to look much better with less than twenty minutes work.

Affiliate Widget

Now that your blog is look in sharp and is being promoted, it’s time to gain a little revenue and make it look even more professional. Affiliate sites are a much better way to earn money than AdSense for most blogs and they look way better than the bland Google ads.

Go to the Amazon Affiliate Site and sign up for the service. They’ll have to check out your blog first, but once they’ve done that you can start adding widgets like the one in the screenshot below that will earn you money.

On the affiliate homepage you can see the option to add a widget or a banner as pictured in the screenshot below. Select what type you would like and customize it by selecting products from Amazon. While you get a percentage (around 5-6%) of the sale from your widget, don’t be tempted to put expensive items on your widget. People don’t just see a laptop for sale and decide to buy it.

Think in the context of your blog and the people who will find it. If it’s a blog about tennis, look for tennis accessories or DVDs; something cheap that they don’t have and can’t just walk to a shop and get. Odd gadgets or helpful books also bring in high revenue.

Once you have finished customizing your widget, copy the HTML given in the screenshot above (yours will be different – you can also see red rectangles where I blocked out my personal affiliate code).

Then, go to the ‘Layout’ section in Blogger and select where you want to add the widget. The top of posts and the sidebar are good areas. Select ‘Add a Gadget’ in the appropriate slot and paste the HTML into the HTML gadget as shown. Your widget will now appear.

So in just an afternoon you can transform your mediocre blog into a great looking site that will have subscriber counts soaring. I’m a firm believer of ‘the proof is in the pudding’ so to have a look at the final MUO test blog I used for this article – click here.

What tactics and tips do you use to make your blog look better?   For some more ideas, check out Mark’s articles on livening up your blog comments with MyBlogLog and 6 essential websites to get your blog noticed.  Aibek also discusses 12 no-crap tools to make your blog better.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• The 5 Free Wordpress Templates To Dress Up Your Blog (15)
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With this said, there are easier ways to blog then others.  These Firefox add-ons empower you with quick and easy ways to blog.

Zemanta

With Zemanta you’re able to receive countless suggestions that correlate to your blog topic or content posted in your blog post. These suggestions can aid you in writing your post while you’re inside your blogging dashboard.

This extension lets you add your Flickr account and link any image you’d like as well by logging into the Zemanta web user interface.

You’ll also be able to connect to your Facebook, MyBlogLog and/or Twitter accounts as well.

This add-on not only gives you suggestions that have to do with your post, it also helps you with your search engine optimization by giving you suggestions on tags to use when you’re about to publish your posts.

Image selection from related content within your post:

WordPress.com Sidebar

By pressing alt + w when you’re in your browser you can bring up a quick sidebar that will allow fast and easy access to your WordPress blog without you having to access the actual site. This nifty little sidebar lets you view your site stats, create bookmarks relating to your post, and finally you can construct posts and publish them directly onto your blog without ever visiting your WordPress dashboard. Access this Firefox extension here.

View your blogs stats:

Create a post or copy and paste content from a web page and publish it onto your blog:

DashBlog

DashBlog feasibly lets you gather videos, images, texts, songs, and capture browser screen-shots from any existing web page. You can utilize this collection of content to publish them directly onto your blog or your Twitter account.

Supporter blogs include but are not limited to: Blogger/Blogspot, Tumblr, WordPress and more.

From any web page all you have to do is click on the small DashBlog icon located at the top left hand corner of your browser and the DashBlog options userface will instantly pop up.

How it Works

A few steps are needed to post content on your blog from DashBlog:

Create a post with content located on the webpage of your choice (text/quotes, images, videos, and audio)

Click on the “OK, Post” button and wait for confirmation that the post has been blogged.

Now visit your blog and view your DashBlog post. Your readers will have no idea that you used a third party Firefox extension to create the post they are reading.

What Firefox add-ons would you recommend that help you to blog more easily?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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“Yeah, I know man…the technology is almost there. It won’t be long now.”

So I went on my way, angry that mobile technology couldn’t keep up with my ultra-geek needs. Just a few years later, mobile technology has advanced to the point where visiting a website as simple as eBay is child’s play. Today you can check movie showtimes, email videos clips and pictures (captured with the phone itself) to your friends and family, and you can use applications like Fring to chat with your IM buddies without using up a single minute of your cellphone time.

Now you can moblog with Blogger.

One of the relatively newest mobile Internet advances is a phenomenon known as “Moblogging,” or mobile blogging. The way this works depends on which blogging platform that you use, but generally it involves sending a text message or an email to a particular address, and that message is automatically routed to your blog as an instant update. Why would anyone want to blog from their cellphone? If you consider the possibilities, it’s pretty obvious how this can come in handy.

• Post updates to a blog while you’re hiking the Appalachian trail.
• Update your family with mobile snapshots of you and your friends at Spring Break (or maybe not…)
• Investigative journalists can instantly publish breaking news to a news blog before anyone else.
• Publish a snapshot of that UFO to your blog before the FBI can confiscate your phone.

The possibilities are limited only by your own imagination.

How to Post To Blogger With Your Cell phone

Many websites that provide for mobile functionality require cellphone users to have an expensive data plan for their cellphone account. However, Google found a way to provide all cellphone users with the ability to moblog with nothing more than a text message. However, if you do have a data plan, Google also offers the ability to post even more content, including images, to your blog by simply emailing your post to a special Blogger email account.

Step 1 – Register For A Mobile Blog

Setting up your phone to moblog with Blogger is very simple. First, you just need to either text or email a message “REGISTER” to go@blogger.com from your phone. In my case, I have a data plan, so I used Yahoo Go to send the email to Blogger.

Within barely thirty seconds of sending the email, I received the following response back from Blogger.

A few seconds after receiving this response, I received a second response with my new blog name and the claim code. This code is how you can connect this particular device with any blog you like.

Step 2 – Enable Your Mobile Blog With The Claim Token

The next step is to use the code to claim your new blog.  To do this, get on any regular computer (not your mobile device) and visit go.blogger.com. On the right side of the page you’ll find this Sign In area.

Enter in the claim code that Blogger just emailed to you, enter the human code below it, and then click continue.

Step 3 – Configure your existing blog as your mobile blog

If you sent the “REGISTER” command with the same email address that you used to register existing blogs with Blogger, the system will recognize that you have other blogs, and provide you with the option to connect your mobile device with those blogs.

The new blog assigned to my mobile device was owlnut631, but on this screen, Blogger recognizes that I have three other blogs and offers the option to change where my mobile posts are published. Finally, I click “Switch to Better Content,” and I’m done with the registration and set up process.

If you don’t have any other blogs, then you can keep the default blog that Blogger created for you as your new mobile blog.  Also, if you sent the “REGISTER” command from a different email address, you’ll need to go into your mobile blog and modify the “Mobile Devices” setup displayed on your Blogger Dashboard page.

How to Make a Mobile Blog Post

Now that the mobile account is set up to forward posts to the correct blog, all you need to do is make a post!  If you are sending Instant Messages to go@blogger.com to create your posts, the procedure is pretty straightforward. The MMS text you type in becomes the post. If you send an email from your phone, you have a little more flexibility.

If you send an email from your phone to go@blogger.com, the subject becomes the post title, the body becomes the post itself, and you can even insert pictures as you would with a regular blog post. To test it out, I sent the following email to go@blogger.com.

After sending off the email, within just a few seconds I received confirmation back from the Blogger gateway that the post was successful. I couldn’t believe it posted so fast, but sure enough, when I checked my blog I discovered the post.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen the capability to convert data from a mobile phone into a web page so quickly. However, this sort of technology is booming. Now, you can also share photos, or post to YouTube, eBay, or Facebook. There’s no end in sight to both the possibilities and the potential for this kind of technology that integrates your mobile world with your online world. Today, there really is no such thing as being “offline.”

Do you post to your blog with your cellphone? If so, what have been your experiences with it?   Good? Bad?  What about moblogging to other blogging platforms such as Wordpress? Does anyone have any advice on how to go about it?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Use Your Cellphone To Send All Your Thoughts & Ideas To Jott (13)
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• How To Add A Simple Search To Your Blogger Blog (17)

Zoom Clouds offers a simple way to include a tag cloud on your Blogger blog. The process only takes about 5 minutes to complete.

3 Steps to Add a Tag Cloud to Blog

• Create a account at Zoomclouds
• Design your cloud.
• Add the HTML code to your site as a widget.

Step 1:

Sign up by giving yourself a username, adding your email, and create a password.

Step 2:

Once you have verified your account you are ready to create your tag cloud. Fill out the form with:

• your tag cloud name (no spaces in the name)
• a short description
• your RSS feed URL
• how many days you would like to include

When you have filled out the form click Create Cloud!

On the next page click Go update my cloud! so the system can grab information from your RSS feed to generate keywords for your tag cloud. When the system is complete click set the look of your cloud. . . to customize the look of it.

Click Design at the top right to change the size, font, border, pixel width, and link colors.

Click Filters to add keywords to the list that you do not want the tag cloud to show. You can also add words you definitely want the tag cloud to show all of the time.

When you have the tag cloud the way you want it, go back to Design and copy the HTML code to use on your Blogger blog as a widget.

Here is an example of a Zoom tag cloud I made for my site. Try it and you will see that it is very easy to create a tag cloud for Blogger using ZoomClouds.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Use Skribit On Your Blog to Get Reader Suggestions (11)
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• How To Add A Simple Search To Your Blogger Blog (17)

Many of the Blogger templates do not include a search box. These simple instructions will show you how to add one to your blog.

Note: These instructions are for Blogger.com (Blogspot) blogs.

Follow these simple instructions:

1. Log into your Blogger.com account.

2. Click the Layout tab from your blog Dashboard.

3. Click Page Elements.

4. Click Add a Gadget above the section you want to put your search box in.

5. Click the plus sign next to HTML/Javascript.

6. Type Search this site (or whatever you want) in the Title box or leave it blank.

7. Copy and paste this HTML code in the text area.

• To modify the width of the search box change the size=”XX” number.
• To center the search box add <center> before <form… and </center> after </form>.

<form id=”searchthis” action=”/search” style=”DISPLAY: inline” method=”get”><input id=”search-box” name=”q” size=”25″> <input id=”search-btn” value=”Search” type=”submit”></form>

7. Click Save.

8. Click Preview.

9. You may have to drag the search gadget into a new area until you get it positioned where you want it to show on the blog.

10. To test the search functionality click View Blog.

Now you have a simple way for viewers to search your blog and the results will appear embedded in your blog so the reader isn’t taken off onto a new page or a site that doesn’t look like yours.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• Top 10 Blogger Hacks and Tips (123)
• How To Post To Blogger From Your Cell Phone (14)
• How To Create and Add A Tag Cloud To Blogger Blog (11)
• 4 Websites for Great Wordpress Themes & Blogger Skins (9)
• 3 Firefox Add-Ons To Help You Blog More Easily (19)

Of course everyone wants their blog to look pretty. As pretty as possible because looks count. You want your site to look tempting yet professional. You’ll be represented by your site’s appearance.

Perhaps some of you will want to make your own themes. If that’s your thing, Jeffry wrote a great article on how to create your own Wordpress theme here.

If not, read on. Below is a list of some very good places to find your free WordPress and/or Blogger themes.

Free WordPress Themes

Lets start out with the WordPress ones. If you’re looking for Blogger skins, please skip this section.

WordPress is a great blogging engine, and one I would certainly advise to people who want to have a more advanced input.

1. 49 Most Downloaded Wordpress Themes Of All Time (by HONGKIAT)

This site has made a list of the 49 most downloaded Wordpress themes of all time (at the moment of writing). This is a great site with a lot of the best themes available.

You won’t be exactly original, but there’s a good reason these were downloaded this much.

2. 83 Beautiful WordPress Themes (by Smashing Magazine)

Smashing Magazine looked at a few things while creating this list. First, it had to be beautiful. Next, it shouldn’t already be worn out by the community, they wanted things ‘you probably hadn’t seen’ yet. Finally, they wanted it to be user friendly.

“All themes offer quality and elegance.” Here you’ll be able to find some (83) great-looking themes, to give a distinct character to your blog.

Blogger Skins

Blogger has a less advanced interface than WordPress, but it’s still a great blog engine. It was even bought up by Google some time ago.

For people who don’t want things to get complicated, who want to blog in a few clicks without too much fuss, Blogger is great.

1. 70 Fresh And Modern Blogger Templates (by Mashable)

“You can never have a too wide choice of templates for your blog, especially if you’re the experimenting type.”

This is Mashable’s list of 70 free, fresh and modern Blogger templates. Here you’ll find some really great and professional looking Blogger templates.

This list features photo previews of all the themes, as well as a brief review.

2. BlogSkins.com

BlogSkins is my personal favourite. Compared to the above sites, this is not a static site, but a revolving, constantly changing template site. You can browse by Hot Skins, Recent Skins, and each day there’s an elected “Skin of the Day”.

“BlogSkins is a community of blog template designers, users, and friends. Whether you’re looking for a fresh new design for your blog or wanting to share your hot designs with others, this is the place for you!”

Go to BlogSkins.com to find the most recent and most popular blogger templates of the moment.

Where did you find your blog template? Do you have a secret online stash of templates that you’d like to share with us? If so, let us know the link in the comments and tell us why you like them so much!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• A Beginner’s Guide To Building Your Own Wordpress Theme (9)
• The 5 Free Wordpress Templates To Dress Up Your Blog (15)
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• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (29)

So I went out looking for how to do it. And here is that wisdom I uncovered. Consider it a gift from me to you. Poor old Blogger gets a bad wrap, namely because people do not know how to manipulate it. I hope this article helps you guys out and if you have any others please let me know in the comments…

1. Removing The Blogger Bar

I hated the blogger bar across the top of my Web site because it didn’t really go with my template and I already had a Google search bar integrated. So I went on a mission to remove it and de-bloggerify my blog. I searched far and wide and for some reason kept hitting a dead end. It turns out that the code used to change the old blogger templates no longer works! So after tracking down the CSS changes here is how I did it:

All you need to do is add the following CSS to your template under edit HTML. You need to put in anywhere in your template between the <style> tags.

#navbar-iframe { height:0px; visibility:hidden; display:none; }

2. Add a randomizer to show different quotes, graphics or html.

I used to be really jealous of Feedburner’s awesome quotes that change on refresh. I went out looking for my own way to do something similar. It was a long and grueling task but I found it (Well actually my buddy Mike Commodore found it). Check out how I use a free Randomizer ASP application to get my own random geeky quotes and ads to display. I have the quotes on display in my subheader here and the Wicked Tee’s Ad is also on a separate randomizer. To download the RandomQ program hit their website here. For detailed instructions on how we got it to work using iFrame’s check out these step by step instructions.

3. Recent comments

Use this script to achieve a WordPress-esque Recent Comments module for your side bar! Start some riots among your readers! Let them know what others have to say. This site provides a widget creator that I used to make my recent comments module. I found that after adding this, it actually encouraged people to comment more frequently. I don’t know if they like seeing their name up in lights or if they read what others wrote and want to kick in their two cents… But either way it has increased commenting by about 70%!

4. That’s a lot of comments!!

Replace your commenting system with Intense Debate for more control over comments with a social flare. It is really easy to do, check out this information from their web site:

Interested in the comments your friends make? What if there was a way to follow your friends and be notified when, where, and also what they comment? Intense Debate provides this functionality through RSS feeds for each user. Subscribers will be notified in their RSS readers with a direct link to view the context surrounding the comment as well. Give it a try!

Also, don’t waste anymore time checking back in on a blog to see if anyone responded to your comment. Now you can get email notifications of replies to your comments, letting you know when the conversation continues while you’re gone.

5. Adding inline ads

Want to add advertisements into your posts for maximum exposure? By having your ads out their in front of peoples face they just might click them more often. I am not a big believer in ads. But maybe you are and by following these instructions from MyDigitialLife you can add adds in your post between post or even in the footer. It is not hard to do and involves a little modification to your template. Due to the fact that Blogger parses out some code and changes some characters when you enter it manually in the html this will show you a workaround for that.From their web site:

6. Use Feedburner

Feedburner lets you “burn your feed” and add feed flare. Before they were a Google company they were awesome but now that they are a part of the Google they are even better. I use Feedburner for feed statistics, monitoring users subscriptions, managing our daily email blast list and adding feed flare enhancements to your feed. This is a MUST do for any blog. Almost a no brainer. Blogger lets you specify your Feedburner information in their ‘Site Feed’ tab inside your dashboard. Once there you will see a place to plug in your Feeburners URL.

7. Add additional pages (Add links to older posts that you can customize like a contact page.)

This is one thing I always hear people complaining about blogger. But I can’t add a second page or even a page for contact information… Wahhh Wahhh Wahhh. How about a little creativity? For this hack all I did was create some posts labeled About Us Contact Us etc. And then made their published dates way back when and linked to the posts from my template. Result – pseudo additional pages!

8. Use a real domain name instead of blogger’s default naming conventions

In the beginning before we knew any better we though using a free service like Blogger meant being locked into certain things like the sub-domain name off of Blogspot. Google lets you “Brand” your blog and link up a real domain name to forward to your Blogspot address. But they did one better and redirect their address’s to yours. So even if you type in http://askTheAdmin.blogspot.com you will wind up at http://www.askTheAdmin.com! Sweet.

9. Add Instant Messaging to your Blogger blog.

Want to chat with your users real time? I added Plugoo to my site, linked it up with my AIM account and I am in constant contact with users looking for help or just wanting to say what’s up. This is not for everyone but I found it so cool I now turn my AOL IM mobile when I am AFK and my IM’s hit me via Text message on my Smart Phone.

10. Update you blog daily and have quality content. .

And the last but certainly not least Blogger tip/hack is not a hack at all but a piece of advice . Update your blog on a daily basis. Because that is all the readers want now isn’t it? Would you read your own site – if it wasn’t yours?? If your answer is no, then you got some serious re-thinking to do!

Do you have any additional tips or tricks for blogger or other blog hosts? We would love to hear about it in the comments!

(By) Karl L. Gechlik who spends his days managing a global network and his nights running a consultant company. Keep up with his tech tips and humorous geeky antics at http://www.askTheAdmin.com.

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