There might be a recession, but there is certainly not a shortage of people looking for great bloggers!
Why not turn your hobby into a part time or full time blogging job?
Maybe your into snowboarding, fashion design, music, SEO. or choose from a wide list of interesting jobs.
Take a look at this list of 23 jobs for bloggers, and see if your next paid blogging job is waiting for you!
1) First thing you need is a new icon! You can create your own image in whatever image editor you are comfortable with (Paint Shop, Inkscape, MS-Paint, etc…), make the image 16x16 pixels & save as a .png image.
An alternative is to search Google for a 16x16 pixel .png image that’s already finished.
Here is a Google Image search I did for the word star imagesize:16x16 , you can change the word star to any subject you like, just keep the rest of the search string the same:
(example = cell phone imagesize:16x16).
2) We need to convert our .png image into a .ico file (icon image). Go to the Dynamic-Drive website, & use their online converter to upload you .png image, & create your new .ico file (icon image). After the icon is created, download the new icon to your PC desktop.
3) Now that we have our new icon, we need to upload the icon, to the internet. Blogger won’t let us host our own .ico file so we can use Google Sites for our host, you can follow a blog post I did Blogger - Host Javascript File for Free , this link will show you how to host your own files online for FREE, you do not need to change the extension for this tutorial, your icon URL should look something like this:
http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico
4) Paste the code below into your Blogger template just below the <HEAD> tag
<!-- Favicon -->
<link href='http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico'
rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico'/>
<!-- end Favicon –>
That’s it!
Visit your blog & you should see your new FAV icon at the top of your browser window.
What's all this mean, why do I need this?
The old way of creating Meta Tags for a Blogger Template, will only let us set the Meta Tag content for all of our Blogger blogs, as single Meta Tags, that shows the same content on every single blog page.
My new improved code will automatically write this dynamic content to the Blogger template for each individual blog page:
1) Title Tag = Blog Post Title + Blog Post Labels + Blog Title
2) Description Meta Tag = Blog Post Title + Blog Post Labels + Blog Description
3) Keywords Meta Tag = Blog Post Labels
The Blog Title pulls it’s content from Blogger Control Panel –> Settings –> Title. The Blog Description in the Meta Tag Description pulls it’s content from the Blogger Control Panel –> Settings –> Description. All the Label content pulls it’s content from each individual blog posts labels, so we use those Labels as Keywords inside the Meta Tags.
What all this does is provide Google our own unique content & keywords, that have a very good chance of showing up inside the Google Search results Pages description, just below the Title. The reason I say a very good chance of showing up is, it’s impossible for any website on the net to force Google to use content. With the Meta Tag Description, Google most times will look for that tag & use it in the SERP.
I’ve had my new Dynamic Meta Tags crawled by Google & already showing up in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), after only a few hours of testing.
The image below, you can see a screenshot of my new Meta Tag content, from my last blog post
My intention is to have Google notice my blog for a wider dynamic selection of keywords & phrases, than my old static template. I’ll wait about a month & keep monitoring how Google Search handles the content in my SERP results, before I post any code for others to use on their own blogs, I want the code to be 100% up & running with results to show everyone.
Keep an eye out for related future blog post.
While I’m tweaking the code, have a look thru this blogs source code, to check out how every single page on this blog has dynamic Meta Tags & Page Titles (no two pages are the same).
Have you ever wandered which of your own blog post was the highest rated on the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page)? I’m about to show you a very cool feature, that will show all of your most popular blog post, & not only that, everyone can view their own highest ranking SERP results for FREE!
Let’s get started!
1) First thing we need is a blog (check)
2) Go to Google Webmaster Tools
3) Select your blog name from the list of your blogs/websites
4) Click on the link Your site on the web
5) Click on the link Top search queries
6) You should see a list of words/phrases. Go to the far right side of the screen & click on the link that reads Position (see screenshot below)
What you see in the above screenshot is the most popular search results from real people on the internet, searching for relevant information to this blog, from the last seven days.
Beneath the Position link, shows the real position for each group of search words, that the visitors to my site used to find this blog (soswitcher.blogspot.com).
Here is how I rank for these search strings in the past seven days:
1) google for free javascripts hosts
2) visible title code for blogger
As you can see I’m indeed number one in both of those search strings, for the last seven days. What’s better is, you can search for longer periods of time, example the screenshot below is for August.
The most interesting search I found, that just blew me away was one of the shortest search strings. The search string blogger change, shows I was number one in the month of August, but get this (here’s the good part) The search string blogger change has over 451,000,000 other pages, below my blog (I’m now 2nd place as of this post, still very happy).
All I can say is WOW!
Note:
Google Webmaster Tools takes a while to crawl your blogs pages, If you are new to GWT then you should follow my other blog post Better Google Sitemap when setting up new sitemaps for Google to crawl. The longer your involved with GWT the larger your list of SERP keywords will be.
Go check out your own Google Webmaster Tools, list of most popular search words, I think you will be very surprised at how well some of your blog post are ranking.
Lets hear how well your ranking. :)
Today I was looking thru my Blogger Page Titles, & discovered the power that text plays in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), now I’m not talking about Hypertext Links, I’m talking plain old text, you know the same as this blog post.
Let’s backtrack a bit.
Back in April of 2009, I wrote a small Mp3 Plugin for Windows Live Writer, & posted the plugin on the Windows Live Writer Gallery. Inside of the description I posted a text only version of the URL to a sample of what the Mp3 Plugin would look like, so that the end user could make a quick decision to decide If that plugin was what they wanted. Since Windows Gallery wouldn’t let me post an actual hyperlink, I had to settle for a plain text version, & hope that anyone looking thru the Windows Live Writer Gallery, would copy & paste my text URL that I posted, into their own browser, & then find my blog.
Fast forward, to today.
I was looking thru Google Webmaster Tools, & found that I was getting a lot of Mp3 related organic search traffic from Google SERP. My first thought was that Google is wrong in what they are finding. I do have a few short blog post that are Mp3 related, but that wasn’t my ultimate goal for this blog, sure this blog is all about me sharing what I know, & what I discover while pushing this blog towards the top of the SERP. Could Google really be on to something, in my Google Webmaster organic search results?
The search results in question is Windows Live Writer Mp3, If you follow that link to the Google SERP, you’ll see that I’m not number one (or am I), the number one spot points to the Windows Live Writer Gallery, the really cool thing about this is, If you look at the number one spots description, it shows that single plain text link, that I posted back in April 2009, multiple times.
Now don’t take this post the wrong way, I’m not bragging about how well I’m ranking in the Google SERP, in fact 1million hits isn’t really that much as far as SERP goes. What I’m blogging about, is that plain text is a powerful tool, & can be used to replace hyperlinks, when your in a situation like I was, If the site your posting on doesn’t allow hyperlinks.
Now again only use this trick when you are actually contributing something to others, don’t use it for spam, nobody likes spam. In this example I did a lot of work to get that plugin working, I did days of research to learn how to hook into Windows Live Writer, with VB.NET to write my first Mp3 plugin, just try & do a Google search for any good info on the related subject.
Use the “POWER of Text” wisely. :)
That’s right …
If you are using the default code as your sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools, your site is missing out, for every single page that is over the 26 page limit. So say I have 150 pages on my Blogger blog, the math says I’m missing out on the opportunity to allow the Google spider to crawl 124 additional Blogger pages, on my blog!
I’m ready for change …
I actually found out that I was allowing my Blogger blog to be short changed by the Google spider, on one of my other Blogger blogs, & this wasn’t only a few pages, it was a huge amount of pages, in fact my blog was over 400 pages long, & out of those 400 pages I was only allowing the Google spider to crawl 26 of my latest blog post.
Whooooa… STOP THE BUS!
The default sitemap code looks like this (see red/bold text below):
1) http://YOUR_BLOG_NAME_HERE.blogspot.com/atom.xml?orderby=updated
The code above is all good, as long as you have less than 27 blog post, but the fact is you’ll quickly find that you will with no doubt exceed that maximum limit at some point in your blog.
From all my research & trial & errors, on all my Blogger blogs for well over a year & a half, I’ve found the code below to be a better alternative to the default Blogger sitemap code. The new code will break the sitemap down into multiples of 100, so for every 100 pages on my blog, I need to tweak the sitemap code a little bit.
New sitemap code (Google spider crawls the first 100 blog post)
1) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100
So in the new sitemap code above, we start with the very first blog post (start-index=1) & now allow the Google spider to crawl to page 100 (max-results=100).
Say you have over 100 blog pages, what you need to do is submit additional sitemaps for the same blog at the Google Webmaster Tools website. As an example I have a Blogger blog that has over 400 pages, for that blog I have 4 sitemaps, that look like the code below.
1) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100
2) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=100&max-results=100
3) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=200&max-results=100
4) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=300&max-results=100
Notice how each new sitemap starts at a higher start-index, by 100 blog post. So for the sitemaps I have, I’m covered for the first 400 blog post of my Blogger blog.
Below is a screenshot of my sitemaps, for one of my blogs that has over 400 pages.
NOTE:
When you submit sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools, for a Blogger blog. Google won’t crawl your Blogger Labels, that’s the reason why every page isn’t being crawled in the screenshot above.
This new sitemap code has greatly improved how Google crawls my blog, I went from having only the first 26 pages of my blog crawled to now having 324 pages crawled by the Google spider.
I have internal links hard coded into my template, on every blog page, so it’s important to me to allow Google to crawl as many pages as possible, as often as possible. I also have widgets that have text that changes often, that text also is picked up by the Google spider, which allows my blog to show a massive amount of relevant keywords, for my Blogger Blog.
It’s actually very easy to show all the blog post from one label, on a single webpage in Blogger, here’s how:
1) First we need a Label from our own blog, I’ll use the Label Blogger from this blog, as an example.
2) Next we need the URL/link of our Label, so for my Label Blogger, I go to my blog that already has a link to my Label (Blogger), & Right click –> Properties then copy the URL. My Blogger Label URL/Link looks like this: ( http://soswitcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger )
Notice the name of my Label at the very end of the URL/Link (Blogger), that Label can be any Label that is on your own blog. Also you should know, that Labels are case sensitive.
3) Here is how we control the maximum number of Blogger blog post for a specific Label, on a single page. We already have the URL/Link from our Label (Blogger), now we need to add this small bit of code to the end of the Label ?&max-results=3 so now our Labels new URL/Link will look like this:
http://soswitcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger?&max-results=3
The example URL/Link above will return the last three blog post from my blog, click here to see.
4) The last step is to put our new Label URL/Link into HTML code so we can use the link anyplace inside our blogger post, or a Blogger HTML/Javascript gadget. Here is how to do that:
<a href="http://soswitcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger?&max-results=3">Blogger Label=3</a>
This text ( Blogger Label=3 ) can be anything you want it to be.
A few examples from my Blogger Label:
NOTE:
In my example above I have a total of 11 blog post on this blog that include the Label Blogger, so any number higher than 11 will still only show 11 blog post. This can be a good thing, If you want to show a fixed amount of blog post (example=30).
Just remember it’s annoying to have a single webpage with long blog post that runs on forever, so don’t over do it. :)
Again, all Blogger Labels are case sensitive, so make sure you don’t use blogger instead of Blogger, for our example, because my Blogger Label started with an uppercase B.
We will use Google Sites to host all of the files (flash, javascript, & mp3) for this project, you can find out more, on how to host files for free from my previous post Blogger - Host Javascript File for Free
1) The first thing we need to do is visit 1pixelout.net & download the audio-player.zip file that includes all the necessary files.
2) Unzip the audio-player.zip file that you downloaded from 1pixelout.net
3) we need two files from the audio-player folder
4) We need to rename audio-player.js as a text file to be hosted on Google Sites, since Google Sites won’t allow us to host javascript files, again you can learn how that’s done by reading this post. So our audio-player.js should now look like this example: audio-player.txt (notice the .txt extension)
5) Upload both the audio-player.txt & player.swf to your own Google Sites webpage. The Url’s should look similar to the links below:
6) Go to your Blogger Account –> Layout –> Edit HTML, & then make sure the Expand Widget Templates checkbox is checked.
7) Find the </head> html tag, in your template, & past this code one line above it (remember to replace the http://sites.google.com/site/YourSiteName/mp3player/audio-player.txt link to your URL, on your Google Site, & also press the SAVE button below the Blogger Template editor:
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://sites.google.com/site/YourSiteName/mp3player/audio-player.txt"></script>
8) Ok the hard part is finished :), now each time we want to add a Mp3 to a Blogger blog post, we just need to add the code below, don’t forget to change the URL/links to your own links, & also change the actual Mp3 to your own mp3 that you host on your own Google Sites webpage for free:
Anytime you want to add more than one Mp3 to a webpage you need to make sure to change the “Object Id” so that you won’t have any conflicts between each mp3 player, example audioplayer2 & playerID=2 the player name can actually be named anything you would like to name it, it’s just easier to add a number at the end of each name. :)Here is the finished mp3 player in action
Credit goes to http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/ & http://www.macloo.com/
Microsoft, what a clever company it is…
What makes Microsoft so clever in this article, isn’t the article itself, it’s the long list of URLs that move the reader from the article to Bing search results pages.
What’s so clever about the way they are moving traffic away from this article, you say? Isn’t it just an average article with URLs, that just happen to be pointing to a search page? No, no my friend this is internet marketing at it’s best.
Search page marketing…
This article is setup to drive traffic to Bing. While the author of this article moves readers to a premade search string on Bing that will find higher paying strong Microsoft keyword Ads.
It looks like Microsoft is building their new Bing search engine, with the help of a small army of bloggers, embedding all their blog style articles with premade Bing search pages.
Bottom line is, everyone has an exit point on every webpage, with this technique Microsoft is moving their traffic to position readers in front of higher paying Ads.
Microsoft, very clever indeed…
The Blogger Page Title by default isn’t SEO friendly to say the least. I added a Title tag code snippet to my blogger template ( Blogger - Change Page Title Tags for your Blog ) a while back. Everything looked good on my Page Title, but when I did a Google search for each of my page Titles, my blogs homepage always showed up, instead of each specific page Title, in the Google search results, which wasn’t what I wanted at all!
The answer…
I started searching for a better way of handling my blog page Title problem, what I found was a snippet of code that would change everything about my page Titles in a far better way than I was looking to accomplish. This new code snippet not only added my blogs specific page Titles to all my Google searches, for my blogs page Titles, it also added all my Labels to my Google Search results (Very Cool)!
By adding my Blogger Labels to the Title of each page, I’m adding keywords to the Google search results, so that moves my blog post one step closer to the top of Google search.
The code…
Below are the steps to add your Labels to your Blogger page Title:
1) Backup your blog template .xml file, to your local PC
2) Go to your Blogger Dashboard & Layout –> Edit HTML
3) Find the <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> tags at the top of your template, & delete them.
4) Add this code, above the <head> tag, at the top of the template :
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<b:section id='titleTag'>
<b:widget id='Blog2' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='nextprev'/>
<b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='post' var='post'><data:post.title/></b:includable>
<b:includable id='status-message'/>
<b:includable id='comment-form' var='post'>
<div class='comment-form'>
<a name='comment-form'/>
<h4 id='comment-post-message'><data:postCommentMsg/></h4>
<p><data:blogCommentMessage/></p>
<data:blogTeamBlogMessage/>
<a expr:href='data:post.commentFormIframeSrc' id='comment-editor-src'/>
<iframe allowtransparency='true' class='blogger-iframe-colorize blogger-comment-from-post' frameborder='0' height='275' id='comment-editor' name='comment-editor' scrolling='no' src='' width='100%'/>
<data:post.friendConnectJs/>
<data:post.cmtfpIframe/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
BLOG_CMT_createIframe('<data:post.appRpcRelayPath/>', '<data:post.communityId/>');
</script>
</div>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'/>
<b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'><head>
<title>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>—
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast != "true"'>,
</b:if>
</b:loop>
</b:if>
</b:loop> —
<data:blog.title/>
</title>
</head></b:includable>
<b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinks'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'/>
<b:includable id='comments' var='post'/>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/> AnyCustomTextHere</title>
</b:if>5) Replace the text AnyCustomTextHere in the new code snippet (towards the bottom of the code), with any text that you would like to show at the end of your blogs Title.
Note:
This code does have a couple of things I don’t really like, still it does a much better job at blog post SEO than the default Title tags, or any other Title tags I’ve tried on any of my Blogger blogs, not to mention adding all your Blogger Labels into Google Search results :
Update:
Here is a link to a 2nd text file that includes similar code as this tutorial, this new code will only return Blogger Labels in the Page Title, everything installs the same on both versions.
(Download Blogger Labels Only - File)
Update:
Here is a link to a 3rd text file that includes similar code as this tutorial, this new code will only return Blogger Titles (without labels) in the Page Title, everything installs the same on all versions.
The last time I checked Google Blog Search, I found 604,632,067 search results for the word “blogspot”. Now that’s a lot of Blogger blogs out in cyber space.
I got to thinking about other bloggers that use the Blogger platform to host their blogs, but more specific, I was wanting to know If I could find any bloggers in my own town, you know geographically close to me.
What I found…
It’s actually very easy to find all the bloggers that host their blogs on a Blogspot domain, & are in the same town or at least very close to you. In the example below, I’ll look for all the Blogger members that are located in Bismark, North Dakota
To find your own town/location change the text in red, If you state or town has two parts to it’s name (example:North Dakota) you will need to add a plus sign between the words, like I have done in the example link above.
You should also know that this only works on members that have filled out their Blogger Profile page. The example URL is also based on a search in the USA, If you have another country you would like to find, you can fill out the location of your profile page, in your blogspot profile. Once your blogspot profile location is completed you can right click/properties on the locations link to get the code for the country your in. Then just change the town, etc… to something close to your own location, If nothing shows up for your own town.
It’s kind of fun to see If you can find anyone you know in person, good luck with your search & have fun. :)
A Blogger Blog List is a gadget that will list your favorite blogs. Blogger Blog List gadgets can also be used as a simple blogger seo tool. My Blogger Blog List Gadget is at the bottom left side of my blog, it’s a short list of outgoing links, to my favorite blogs. What looks like any other gadget, is by all means an interesting gadget.
Here’s why!
I’m always tweaking my blog (who isn’t, right? lol), most times tweaking the template. What I found was, while researching some of my blog post Titles in Google search, was that my Blogger Blog List was also showing up in my search results page.
You might think, well so how is that a good thing or why does it matter at all? When one of my favorite blogs post a new blog post on their blog, what happens is, their RSS will update the Blogger Blog List gadget at the bottom of my blog (stay with me).
Here is when the magic happens.
When Google crawls my blog, looking for new content, well guess what I haven't made a blog post in a week, no fear, one of my friends in my Blogger Blog List made a new post on their blog. Google looks at my blog while still crawling & see’s that BINGO my Blogger Blog List has new content. That’s right, Google see’s new content! So what If I didn’t post anything new in the last week, the Google spider found something that’s changed on my blog.
So what does all this mean?
The Blogger Blog List gadget will let you piggyback on the shoulders of your friends new blog post, & not only that, you get search engine optimization for FREE, so what it’s not keyword specific to any of your blog post, what matters here is, your getting your own blog post messages ranking in a new way.
Below are some of my own examples, from my Blogger Blog List:
Blogger Templates
WebHostingGeeks – Most Efficient Web Hosting Review Website
The MLxperience
Can Zemanta make my blog posts more interesting? (It won't take much)
So, have you noticed your Blogger Blog List showing up in your Google search?
Pinging a new Blogger Post, with a long list of Ping Services can be very easy for any blogger that publishes their new blog post with “Windows Live Writer”.
What is pinging, you ask?
Pinging a Blogger blog post, is a quick way to notify search engines that you have just published new content on your blog. Sure the search engines will crawl your new blog post eventually on their own. Why wait for the search engines to decide when to visit your blog?
This is why pinging a blog is beneficial, by pinging our own blog, we give a boost to our new blog post, to allow them to be updated on search engines like Google, sooner rather than later.
We can use services like pingomatic.com to manually ping a list of servers, or for everyone that works with “Windows Live Writer”, we can enjoy the benefits of having our new blog post ping every single server in the list below automatically, each time we post a new Blogger post, here’s how.
<----- Start List ----->
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://ping.feedburner.com/
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
<----- End List ----->
Blogger & Feedburner are both great Google products. Did you know Feedburner images, posted on Blogger, will show up in Google Images, as a Feedburner .GIF image?
I actually found this out by searching for one of my blog post Titles, to see what images are showing up on Google Images.
This will only work If you already have a Feedburner account setup, & have the Feedurner image posted on your Blogger site.
So If you already have the Feedburner Feed on your blog, try this:
Something else that is cool, the above image will always be updated with the newest content from my blog, since it’s an animated .GIF, while it still shows on Google Images.
What’s funny is, my search results show more links pointing to bloggertricks, than my own blog (lol).
This might not look like a big deal, having a single image on the net, the way I see it, every little bit helps a future visitor find my blog. :)
Switcher
I was doing some research on my blog post Blogger Ad Code Converter, & found I didn’t like the way the Google Search results showed only the word “SoSwitcher”. What I really wanted was for each of my blog post Title to not only be on the Google Search, but for it to be first words of the Title, from left to right.
So, I searched Google & found a nice code snippet that would work, I added the code to my template & remembered reading a blog post a while back that someone said your blog page would load a little bit faster (maybe something like 1000th of a second faster, HA!), any way it made sense to me, instead of using the Blogger tag (example: <data:blog.title/>) for your Blogger Template to call up your blogs URL, to just hard code the URL (example: soswitcher.blogspot.com), since I’m already editing the Blogger template.
You don’t have to stop at just your Page Title either, If you notice some of the big names on the web, like Amazon, or Ebay, they both add keywords to their websites Title, & you’ll also notice that both Amazon & Ebay, also have those same keywords in their Google Search results.
Below is the Blogger Code that I added to my Template:
I decided not to put the URL in my Page Title, but instead add the single word “SoSwitcher”.
So the code in the textbox above will look like this:
I might be adding some keywords in the mix, sometime soon .
Switcher
Have you ever wanted to add Google Adsense code inside your Blogger Template, & found it’s not a simple copy & paste job?
Well, now your in luck!
I built a Google Widget that will allow you to convert Google Adsense code into Blogger xhtml code, & not only that, you can also add the Blogger Code Converter to your webpage or blog, since it’s a Google Widget.
The code converter is simple to use:
I’ve added the New Google Code Converter to my sidebar, on the lower right side. The Code Converter size can be adjusted, when you go to get the code from the Google button below.
Note:
It’s up to anyone that uses this widget to double check the Google Code Converter Widget code, for any mistakes, I’ve been working with this for a while, with no problems. Please let me know of any issues or suggestions you might have, with this widget, by adding comments below.
You can click on the Google button below to add this Widget to your own blog.
Bottom line is, control is everything, nobody likes a broken blog.
Below is an easy & Free way to host javascript files on your very own Free Google website:
1) Sign up for a Free Google Sites website
2) Create a new Google Sites webpage
3) Get the URL/link of the javascript that is hard coded into your New Blogger template (example: http://www.YourWebsite/YourNewJavascriptFile.js )
4) Download the javascript file to your local PC
5) Open the javascript file in a text editor (Microsoft Notepad, etc…)
6) Save the javascript text file as a regular text file, so our example file in the above URL will look like this: (example: YourNewJavascriptFile.txt )
7) Upload the New Text file to your Google Sites website
8) Right click & Copy Shortcut - on your New uploaded .txt file on your Google webpage, & get the URL/link (example: http://sites.google.com/site/YourGoogleWebsite/Webpage1/YourNewJavascriptFile.txt )
NOTE: I always leave off the very end of the URL, we don't need (?attredirects=0)
9) Right click Paste the new URL/Link into your Blogger template
You now know how to host javascript files on your own Free website, not to mention Google is great about keeping their servers running at 99.99% of the time.
A word of advice, Google once had a Free website hosting a while back, Google has since shut down new members to the first Free website, so grab a free site while you can, you never know If they will stop new members from the second Free websites (Google Sites). Also the old members still have active Google websites, just no new members, get them while you can, you never know when you’ll need it to host files.
The right sidebar includes a working example of how I’m hosting a “Recent Post Thumbnails Widget for Blogger” javascript file on my own Google Site, to prevent any future broken links.
The video below, will show how to get the URL from a Google Sites webpage.
Over on the BloggerTricks Forums, John Cena asked If it was possible, & how to add a Blogger Widget Poll to a Blog Post. The short answer is yes, it is possible to add a Blogger (Widget based) Poll to a Blogger Post, you'll have to work with some basic HTML.
1) Create a "Blogger Widget Poll" inside your sidebar, just like you've done before. Make sure to give it an easy to find/remember Title.
2) After the Blogger Widget Poll, is added to your sidebar, visit your blogs HomePage in your Browser (I'm working with Internet Explorer as my Browser).
3) After you have your HomePage loaded into your Browser window, Go to the top Toolbar & View/Source (of your blogs Homepage) HTML.
4) In a text editor (Windows Notepad) etc... Find/Search for the Title to your new Polls Title.
5) Copy (Right Click/Copy) the HTML Code that looks similar to the code below:
6) Paste your new Polls HTML into your Blogger Post/Article.
7) After you get the Blogger Widget HTML, you can go ahead & delete the Blogger Widget Poll, from your Sidebar, we only needed that to get the HTML source code.
Note:
The actual Poll is inside an Iframe, I also added bit of HTML code to prevent the Poll from adding a scrollbar to the Poll, I didn’t like the way it looks witha scrollbar on the Poll inside a Blog Post, so this is just an option, to remove scrollbars, after the (height="275") add this code (scrolling="no").
Once you have the Polls HTML Code, you can change a few things to make it look better in your Blog Post, for example, Blogger sets the default width of a Blogger Poll to 100%, If you want to add a Poll to a Post/Article I think it would look better as a fixed number (example: width:275), the same goes for the Poll Height, Iframe border etc...
This is the first time I've tried this, deleting a Poll & still keep the HTML, so I want to thank John Cena for the idea.
Below is a working example of a Blogger Widget Poll, inserted in a Blogger Blog Post.
Switcher
This is my third “Windows Live Writer Gallery” plugin.
This plugin will let you Insert the Google Maps code, that Google Maps will produce when you do a search.
The options are, Align map in blog post:
Step 1: Go to Google Maps & search for a map location.
Step 2: Click on the “Link” URL, Upper Right Side of your browser window (see screenshot).
Step 3: Right click on the “Paste HTML to embed in website” textbox, & copy that code to your PC clipboard.
Step 4: Select how you want the Map to be aligned in your blog post (left, center, or right).
Step5: Click the “Insert Google Code” button in the “Google Maps Plugin” (when you click the button, the code from Google Maps will be pasted into the plugin).
Step 6: Click the “Save” button, in the “Google Maps Plugin”
This example below has a map to “Disneyland” inserted into my blog.
Download this plugin “Windows Live writer Gallery”
This is my second plugin for “Windows Live Writer”.
This plugin will let you add a Windows Media Player to your blog post, options include:
The plugin can be downloaded, on the "Windows Live Writer Gallery".
Here is a demo of the player in action. The size of this player is 575 x 400.
Note:
For everyone that runs any type of Ads on their blog, I have a new Windows Live Writer plugin, in the works that I think everyone will like (stay tuned).
I’ve been busy today, writing my first published plugin for Windows Live Writer.
My new “Insert MP3 Player” plugin is a small Quiktime MP3 player that can be embedded in blog post.
I’ve only tested this on:
I built my “Insert MP3 Player” plugin with the free version of “VB.net 2005 Express”. The plugin can be downloaded, on the “Windows Live Writer Plugin Gallery”.
Here is how to install the MP3 plugin:
Below is the plugin in action..
Looking for a specific logo?
Have any logo links? Leave me a comment with the URL, & I’ll add them to the list.
© 2012
