Blogging Tips

Posted: 18 Nov 2008 05:00 AM PST

Welcome to the 13th Reader Blog Critique. Last weeks critique of TechZilo had some great replies from Clare, Rarst & Desk Coder. I’m sure this weeks critique will generate some great feedback too.

This weeks review is on Linkers Blog, a blog which helps you build links, traffic and PageRank.

Here are the questions the owner Danny would like to ask you all about the blog :

What is your favourite and least favourite part of the design?

Is the text easy to read?

How many ads should there be on the left hand side?

Is there any widgets you would like to see on the right hand side?

Is there anything blairingly obvious missing or anything you think is horribly wrong with the blog?

The most helpful and constructive commenter will get $10. Alternatively, if you prefer, I can register a domain for you at eNom and push it to your account Danny will decide who the best commenter was.

As usual, I remind everyone that positive or negative, all feedback should be constructive.

If you have any questions about any of this please let me know in this thread

Blog to be Reviewed : Linkers Blog

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Links Roundup - November 17th 2008

Posted: 17 Nov 2008 10:15 AM PST

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

A quick roundup of some of good posts which have caught my attention in the last week

Social Media "Rockstars" vs. "Narcissists" - Brett Borders gets his new social media blog off to a great start with this comparison of social media rockstars and self absorbed douchebags!
181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers - A fantastic collection of Twitter images and widgets.
10 Mistakes That Could Be Killing Your Blog - Leo Babauta looks at 10 things that could be hurting your blog.
3 Ways To Be a Better Blogger - 3 very good tips to help you improve your blog.
Social Media Lines are Blurring - Bernie Borges looks at how social media sites are evolving.
Building Your Blog's Tribe - Some good tips on building a community around your blog.
Guru Roundup Update … Wow! This Is Fun! - Blogging Tips regular Suzanne Franco talks about the help she has received from some well known friends. Stay tuned this week on Blogging Tips for an exclusive interview with Suzanne.
35+ Social Media Tools That Make Life Easier - A great collection of social media tools.
Fixing Custom Favicons for Blogger Blogs - Amanda shows you fix your broken blogger favicon (Posted a week or so ago).

Blogging in a Recession: How to Keep the Visitors Flowing In

Posted: 17 Nov 2008 08:00 AM PST

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

According to the latest reports on CNN, Japan, the world's second largest economy behind the United States, is officially in a recession. If you blog for money, this news should be important to you because bloggers run international "empires," so to speak.

So, how can you keep the visitors – and the dollars – flowing in during a worldwide recession? Following are three things to keep in mind that help.

3 Ways to Keep Your Blog's Visitors Coming Back During a Recession

Pay attention to existing subscribers: Most bloggers are so busy chasing new subscribers that they forget to fully service the ones they have. Most marketers make this mistake.

But, consider this, marketing experts say that it costs three to fives times as much time, energy and money to obtain a new customer (subscriber) as it does to sell more to an existing one. How can you capitalize on this?

Offer existing customers a special deal, report, ebook, teleseminar, etc. to show your appreciation. FYI, as this is the holiday season, it's an ideal time to show your appreciation to existing customers.

Market Even More: On an almost daily basis, I receive emails from freelance writers who are struggling in this economy. What I tell them is what I'm going to tell you as a blogger – market more. Many make the mistake of cutting back on their marketing efforts in a tough economy.

This is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. And with blogging, there are so many free, effective ways to market your blog that it will only cost you time.

Stay Cool and Consistent: Blogging is all about consistency. Some bloggers make the mistake of cutting back on their blogging – especially if they feel like "nobody's reading it any way."

It's like trying to find a good deal in a trendy neighborhood. To make money in real estate, it's all about location – and timing. Same thing in blogging. If you have a blog, you've already staked out your location. Now, you need to turn the timing to your advantage.

How can you make blogging in a recession work to your advantage, ie, take advantage of this time? Write really insightful posts about what's going on in the world at large – and make it relevant to your niche. This can really set your blog apart, building its reputation as an authoritative, insightful spot visitors will want to visit to keep abreast of how the world at large affects their life.

Remember, most people have a herd mentality. Meaning, they will always do what's easy and what everyone else is doing. Recessionary blogging is about doing what's hard – riding out the storm until things turn around; finding the relevancy in what's happening in the world at large and bringing it to your readers; having faith that things will turn around (it always does you know).

So, chin up. If you want to keep your blog's visitors coming back, even though major world economies are in a recession, remain cool and consistent – in your marketing efforts, and in your blog posting.

Show Date For All Posts in Blogger

Posted: 17 Nov 2008 07:00 AM PST

Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster

Most bloggers prefer to display the date a post was published, which is often relevant to the subject matter of the post. Indeed, most blog templates include some elements of CSS styling for the post date (or date heading as it is often known).

When using Blogger to publish your blog, the date heading is only displayed for the most recent post of any given day. This means that if you make several posts in a single day, the date heading will only display for the last post published in this day.

While readers of your blog may be able to deduce the posting date in relation to other posts, many of us would prefer to simply display the date, especially when using a calendar icon or other template styling to display the date in a particular way.

In default Blogger templates (and indeed in most third party templates) there is no option but to use the restrictive <data:post.dateHeader> tag to display the date only for one post each day.

So in this post, I’ll explain a quick and simple customization which enables you to display the date for all posts in your blog, to inform your readers of the exact date of posting and ensure any date styling in your layout is rendered correctly.

Using the “Time-stamp” tags

The only method we can use to display the date on all posts on home and archive pages with Blogger is to replace the <data:post.dateHeader> tag with that usually reserved for the timestamp (permalink).

This is because the Blogger engine will render only one date-header statement for each day of posts, whereas timestamps are generated for each and every post.

If you take a look at the Settings>Formatting page in your Blogger dashboard, you will notice there are numerous options for formatting the date style for the timestamp, many of which mimic those used for the actual date heading.

The method we need to use for this customization involves switching the date-header tags for timestamp tags, and formatting the timestamp so it appears more like a date-heading instead.

Changing the template code to accommodate the date for all posts

This is a very simple customization to make.

Simply go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard and check the “Expand widget templates” box.

Then search for the following section of code (or similar):

<b:if cond=’data:post.dateHeader’>
<h2 class=’date-header’><data:post.dateHeader/></h2>
</b:if>

Be aware that in your own Blogger template, the <h2> tags may have been replaced with a DIV or H3 tags instead. However, the surrounding code should appear in the same way.

Replace this entire section of code with the following instead:

<h2 class=’date-header’><data:post.timestamp/></h2>

Then preview your blog. If you have made more than one post in a single day, you will now see that the time-stamp is displayed for all posts on this day, whereas the date-header previously used would only display once for each day.

Optional:

As you are using the timestamp for the date heading of your posts, you may prefer to remove the timestamp from the post-footer section.

If this is the case, find the following section of code in your template:

<b:if cond=’data:top.showTimestamp’>
<data:top.timestampLabel/>
<b:if cond=’data:post.url’>
<data:post.timestamp/><a class=’timestamp-link’ expr:href=’data:post.url’ title=’permanent link’>Permalink</a>
</b:if>
</b:if>

And delete this entire section of code.

Be sure to preview your template agian before saving to ensure you have not accidentally deleted (or altered) any other aspects of your layout.

Formatting your new date heading

By default, the timestamp in Blogger blogs is set to display the time of posting, rather than the date. You may prefer to change this setting to reflect the date as this is more appropriate and informative for your blog readers.

To change this format, go to Settings>Formatting in your Blogger dashboard. On this page, you will notice a drop-down menu where you can choose the format for your timestamp:

Simply choose a setting which you feel would be more appropriate for your layout, and save this setting. Personally I prefer the full date option (ie: Tuesday, October 14 2008) though you may prefer a shorter date format instead.

Using this customization to display a calendar icon for each post

There are several Blogger customizations available which enable you to display a calendar icon to replace the date heading of your posts. It is possible to make this calendar icon display on all posts of your home and archive pages using the customization we have explored in this tutorial.

An example of a calendar icon

However, you should check the date format required to display your calendar icon correctly, and adjust the setting for your timestamp format accordingly.

Most calendar widgets for Blogger require the date to be formatted like this: dd-mm-yyyy. Unfortunately, this format is not available to use for timestamps. In this case, you would need to edit the JavaScript file used to parse the date in your posts, and replace this with a date-format which you can use as a timestamp (eg: dd/mm/yy).

Once you have edited the JavaScript file, upload this to your own hosting account and change the reference to this file in the <head> section of your Blogger template. You will then be able to see your calendar icon appear for all posts in your blog layout.

Here are two different calendar widgets which you could use in Blogger blogs:

I hope these tips have provided you with useful information for displaying date headings on your blogger posts. Please feel free to let me know what you think by leaving your comments and opinions below.