Blog advice

Jan

23

Add Missing Share Buttons Back to your Blogger Blog

Blog advice / blog design tutorials / tutorials  Posted by / 6 comments

A while back, Blogger added “Share Buttons” to publish at the bottom of posts. But, if you have a modified template, the share buttons won’t publish correctly. As a solution, I used to recommend AddThis to my clients. But that involved setting up an account with AddThis. Just recently, I discovered an easier way to get the Blogger Share Buttons to show back up in your customized template. Without AddThis. So I had to “share” it with y’all, in case you were suffering from the same conundrum.

It’s really simple.

First of all, you must have the share icons enabled under “Configure Blog Posts.” To do this, from your blogger dashboard, click the tablet drop-down tab and select LAYOUT.

Once you are in your layout, click on EDIT inside the Blog Posts gadget.

The Configure Blog Posts gadget opens up. Check the box next to SHOW SHARE BUTTONS and save.

Great work so far.

Next, from your blogger dashboard, click on the drop-down tablet beside your blog name and select Template.

On the upper-right of your screen, click on “Backup/Restore” to download your current template to your desktop (just in case you make a mistake). Then click “Edit HTML.”

A pop-up warning box comes up. Don’t fret. Just click PROCEED.

Next, check the “Expand Widget Templates” box right above your HTML code box.

Then search for this line:

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>

or this line:

<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>

or this line:

<data:post.body/>

*Tip: Hit CTRL+F on your PC or Command+F on your Mac to open up a search box. Paste one of the above codes in the box and search until you find it. If you can’t find it, try using one of the other codes until you find one that matches.

Then, immediately after one of those lines (whichever one of those you find in your template – it varies), paste this:

<div class='post-share-buttons'>
  <b:include data='post' name='shareButtons'/>
</div>

Then click SAVE. View your blog and verify that the share buttons are there.

That should do it. Easy fix. And if they’re still not there, follow along with this tutorial:

http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/06/official-sharing-buttons-on-blogger.html

It’s a more-detailed tutorial, but it will definitely get the job done.

Glad I could help.

Thanks for reading! :)

Jan

19

Threaded Commenting in Blogger Has Arrived!!!

Blog advice / blog design / blog design tutorials / tutorials  Posted by / 3 comments

At long last, Blogger has finally updated their commenting system to allow for threaded commenting. Which means that you can now reply to each other’s comments like you can on WordPress blogs. I bet this new update is changing some people’s minds about moving their Blogger blogs over to WordPress, isn’t it? Be honest.

There are only two requirements for having threaded comments on your Blogger blog:

From your Blogger dashboard, click on the drop-down tablet beside your blog name and click on SETTINGS.

From there:

  • Set “Allow blog feed” to FULL (Settings > Other > Allow Blog Feed -> FULL)
  • Set Comment Location to EMBEDDED (Settings > Posts and Comments > Comment Location -> EMBEDDED)

If those two options are selected, you should automatically have threaded commenting on your blog.

But, if you don’t, it’s probably because you have customized your template, either by hiring a blog designer (like me) to create one for you, purchased a pre-made, or by editing it yourself. Never fear – you can still have threaded commenting by making one more simple change to your blog. So save the frantic emails to your blog designer, and just follow along with me. Besides, I am very much a do-it-yourself blogger, and I think it suits every blogger out there to know a little more about their blog other than typing a post and hitting publish.

So, here we go:

From your dashboard, click on the drop-down tablet beside your blog name & select TEMPLATE.

From there, in the upper-right of your screen, click on  ”Backup/Restore” to save a copy of your current template to your desktop. Then click on “Edit HTML.” (While you’re there, please enable your mobile template. Thanks in advance.)

(Click on images for a larger view.)

A warning box comes up. No worries. Just click PROCEED.

Below the HTML code box is a small clickable text area that says “Revert widget templates to default. “ Click on that.

Another Pop-up warning box comes up. Don’t freak about that either. It won’t affect your design – it might just rearrange your sidebar widgets, if it all. So just click OK.

That’s it. Now view your blog and verify that the threaded commenting is showing up. It should be.

If your sidebar widgets have been rearranged, just arrange them back to the way you like them via the LAYOUT tab in your dashboard. Sometimes, if you had a custom signature on the end of your blog posts, that might disappear, too. So if something bad happened to your design (which it shouldn’t – trust me! – but if it were), you can always re-upload the saved template that you downloaded to your desktop. Just know that the threaded commenting will disappear again. So, basically, you need to decide which is more important to you – the threaded commenting or the custom signature.

And if you really want both, it’s entirely possible -> just follow my tutorial on how to create a custom signature and insert it back into your template, as described.

None of this should cause an anxiety attack or tears of any kind, I promise. If it does, it’s probably cuz you’re wound just a little too tight, and I can’t help you on that – see your doctor. Or a massage therapist. Or your liquor store or something.

Thanks for reading! :)

Sep

01

Why You Should Always Downsize Your Images

Blog advice / tutorials  Posted by / 0 comments

from google images

Who hasn’t heard the story of the unfortunate blogger whose personal family photo ended up being used in a billboard abroad? If you haven’t, enlighten yourself here. Really, you should definitely read that post. Cuz it could happen to you too, if you’re not careful.

Because of that article, I have always downsized every image I have ever uploaded to the Internet, using my photo editing program (in my case, Photoshop):

  •  First of all, I change the resolution size to web quality of 72 pixels/inch. So, if someone were to try to print my photos, it would look like one blurry mess.
  •  Secondly, all of my images never exceed 600 pixels in width. That way, they fit perfectly into my 2-column template at full size.
  •  Lastly, if my images include a personal picture of me or my family, I add a personal watermark. Right across the face(s). So that it can’t be easily edited out.

Let those foolish Internet image thieves even try stealing my photos now! Pffbbbtttt.

Anyhoo, I recently learned yet another reason to downsize your images before uploading them to your Blogger blog. As if you needed another. Cuz the one above is certainly scary enough. But, let me tell you a story…

A few days ago, I was doing a blog redesign for a Blogger client. And in the process of uploading her brand new header, I got the following alert:

Me: ????? < – totally confused

I clicked on the Blogger Help link provided, wondering what new changes Google had made to their blog-hosting services (cuz they’re forever changing something). And, as I was reading, it began to occur to me that every image uploaded to a Blogger blog gets hosted on Picasa. And this was news to me. I mean, I knew the images got hosted SOMEWHERE, but I never thought much about it. Until now.

What had happened is that my client had maxed out her “free storage space” for images on Picasa. I didn’t even know that that was possible. But, yes, ma’am, it is!

As I read through the Google Picasa help web pages, I learned that every blog has the capacity to use 1 GB of image storage space. Which is a lot of space. Unless you have a blog that’s several years old and you upload a ton of pictures to it. Cuz if that’s the case, your free storage space is probably dwindling fast at this point.

There is a loophole to this storage space conundrum, thankfully. And it is this: if you properly downsize your images before upload, you won’t use up ANY of your free storage space. 

Let’s read, shall we?

So, if you have a Google Plus account, as long as you downsize your images to 2048 x 2048 pixels (which is still a generous size), you will never max out your free Picasa storage space. Phew!

But what about those that don’t have a Google Plus account? Well, read on…

So, if you haven’t yet signed up for Google Plus, all is not lost. And that’s a relief! Picasa still allows for free storage, but the limit is smaller. 800 x 800 pixels. And for blog purposes, 800 pixels is plenty! Remember, I have always downsized my own images to 600 pixels. Which means that, to date, I have not used up any of my free storage space on Picasa (I’m now on WordPress, but a lot of the images in this website are still hosted over on Blogger). I love happy accidents! Go me!

So, there you have it: TWO IMPORTANT REASONS TO DOWNSIZE YOUR IMAGES:

1. Theft.

2. Running out of free image storage space.

I hope y’all have learned something important, today. Cuz I certainly have. And, please, feel free to share the knowledge!

Thanks for reading! :)

Aug

19

My Top 5 Favorite Plugins

Blog advice / WordPress plugins  Posted by / 0 comments

Wordpress PluginsIn addition to the other must-have plugins I’ve previously mentioned in this post and this post, I came across some other handy plugins that help keep this site looking (and performing) like da bomb. Check them out:

? Broken Link Checker – If you frequently add links to your posts/pages, this plugin will scan your entire site at a pre-set interval to check if all your links are still valid. When it finds a broken link, it will alert you so that you can edit that link. The first time I ran this plugin, it found over 15 broken links throughout my site, which I fixed in just a few simple clicks. And the plugin will continue to scan for broken links every 72 hours & email me if/when it finds any. Love it!

? Email Subscription Box after Post Content – it does what the title says – it puts an email subscription box, which subscribes your readers to your Feedburner feed*, at the end of your single post pages. The box looks like this:

email subscription plugin

Now, I went one step further (not recommended if you’re not comfortable editing php files, but I am – kinda) and replaced the box with my own custom image. You can see it in action at the end of this post. (Oh, yes, And feel free to sign up, since you’re there and all …)

*You must have ‘email subscriptions’ enabled in your Feedburner account to use this plugin… obviously.

? Thumbnails for Excerpts – I can’t even begin to tell you how enthused I was when I found this plugin. The default for WordPress is to publish your teasers without any thumbnails. Which makes for a very blah teaser, don’t cha think?

Teasers without thumbnails

I searched for a full day, trying to figure out how to spice up my teasers with thumbnails, and then I found this extremely simple plugin that did the work for me in seconds. Now my teasers look like this :D :

Teasers with thumbnails

? No Self Pings – This is another plugin that does what the title says it does. I very frequently link to my other posts/pages (heck, I did it twice in this very post) and it was getting annoying to approve my own pingbacks. So I installed this plugin to stop the insanity.

? Top Commentators Widget – this plugin allows you to add a widget to your sidebar, listing the top commentators on your site, with links to their site, adding optional Gravatars. It promotes therefore encourages your readers to leave comments.

What are some of your favorite plugins? Add a comment below, & share the knowledge :D

Aug

12

Blogger to WordPress: Ten (More) Must-Have Plugins for the Newbie

Blog advice / Blogger to Wordpress tutorials / tutorials / WordPress plugins / Wordpress tutorials  Posted by / 0 comments

Okay, bloggy-friends, I have another list for you: 10 MORE must-have plugins for the Blogger to WordPress newbie.

1. Onswipe – Makes a simple custom theme for iPad readers. I am an iPad reader most of the time. So, I love to see this plugin in use. Even if you don’t have an iPad doesn’t mean your readers don’t, too. Think of them, and install this plugin STAT. It can be customized with colors, select fonts and even an uploaded logo & banner, if you wish. Suh-weet!

2. Widget Twitter VJCK – Okay, let’s face it – there are a lot of Twitter plugins out there. And if you have a public twitter account, you should connect it to your website. No doubt. After trying out a few, I finally settled on this basic Twitter plugin (view it in action on my sidebar), mostly cuz of its simple appearance. Sure, there are more involved plugins, with optional color selections and whatnot, but again, less is more, no? I found some of the other plugins to be complicated and confusing, and, if you’ve just moved to WordPress from Blogger, you’re already confused enough, are you not? So, my advice: start here … and then move on up once you get the hang of WordPress and its advanced terminology.

3. Twitter Friendly Links – This is a fun plugin. It gives every one of your posts and pages a unique tinyURL using your domain name. If you promote your posts via Twitter, this is a must-have. And it works with the SexyBookmarks by Shareaholic plugin, too. So, when your readers promote your posts for you, your custom tinyURL’s are promoted as well.

4. Tweet Old Post – An interesting plugin, if used correctly and in moderation. You can connect your Twitter account to your blog, and it will automatically tweet your old posts at a chosen interval, adding selected hashtags, if you so desire. Also, you can deselect certain posts to be tweeted. If you do choose to install this plugin, I recommend taking the extra bit of time to customize the options. Cuz I personally think that tweeting your old posts every 4 hours is a bit annoying. And it can get you un-followed in a heartbeat. Also, if you’ve posted about giveaways and such that are long-ago expired or the birth announcement of your now 4-year-old child, you should deselect them from the list. Just my advice.

5. Sidebar Tabs - I LOVE this plugin. It might even be my favorite plugin of all. Simply put, it compresses your sidebar widgets into a group of tabs. I’ll admit, there’s a *tiny* bit of know-how to set it up, but it’s definitely worth the effort. I compressed 4 of my widgets into one → Subscribe via email, search, archives, and a text widget. There are many options to choose from regarding coloring, tab appearance, etc, etc, etc, to customize it for your blog. And, best of all, it really cleans up your sidebar. I particularly despise cluttered sidebars. I can’t help it. So, this plugin – FANTASTICO!!!

6. Comment Luv – “Reward your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. Encourage a community and discover new posts.” I’ve seen it on other blogs myself & thought it was a great idea, so you know I installed it on my own.

7. Most Popular Posts - creates a basic widget for your sidebar based on the top commented-on posts.

8. Contact Form 7 – create a contact form so that your readers/advertisers can easily get in touch with you. I use it on my “About Me” page. If you do use this plugin, it’d be wise to also install the corresponding Really Simple CAPTCHA plugin, to weed out the trolls. Just some more friendly advice. When it comes to CAPTCHA in commenting, I always say no, cuz Akismet will grab it, but for these forms, it’s a necessity.

9. Add Link To Facebook - If you knew me IRL, you’d know I’m not a fan of Facebook. At all. But I’d be remiss to not recommend a plugin for it. This one will “automatically add links to published posts or pages to your Facebook wall, pages or groups and more.” Sounds simple enough.

10. WP Super Cache - speeds up pageloads for your visitors. In an impatient world, this plugin is uber-important!

To view my first list of 10 must-have starter plugins for the Blogger to WordPress newbie, click here.

Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon for more Blogger to WordPress tutorials!

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