BeginnersBlogGuide

Monday, July 27, 2009

Add A 5-Star Rating Widget to Your Blog.

Hey guys, i have found a great widget to talk about. Do you really want your readers think about your post? Do want to enhance user experience? So that your writing skills get better and better. If you do, then this one is for you guys. Its a 5-star rating widget by outbrain. By adding this widget to your blog or site, you will not only get immediate feedback from your readers but also provide them similar useful contents. You can add this widget to Blogger, Drupal, WordPress, TypePad and to sites as well. Go ahead and have a look at the full post.

In this post I will show how to add it to Blogger. A similar procedure should be followed to add it to other blogging platforms and sites.

Go to outbrain homepage. Click on Blogger.

Choose the language and on "Get Widget Now".

This will open Blogger in a separate window. Login to your account and add the widget to your blog. It will by default add the widget to a particular spot in your blog. You can later copy paste the code anywhere you like on your blog. If you want the ability to track your audience then you have to register with outbrain. To register click on "Register Here".

Give the necessary information like username, password, email-id and select "yes- I want to install the outbrain widget and/or access my blog reports".

Select the blog url and blog platform and click "continue". It will open a new window and add the code to your blog. Thats it, done.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Place A Signature In Your Blog Post.

Introducing a signature generator tool. Do you have a signature of yours at the end of each of your blog post. If not, take a look at this. It can generate signature of different colors and sizes. It also takes care of the inclination of signature. You can also animate your signature but that service comes with a price tag. Take a look on how to place a signature in your blog post.

Go to MyLiveSignature website. Register and login.

Select "My Sigs" tab and create your first signature.

Enter your name.

Select the font.

Select the font size.

Choose the color.

Select the signature slope.

Name your signature and click on "Finish".

If you want to animate your, signature click on the animate button. But that does not free of cost.

Click on "Use Sigs" tab and then select "Generate HTML code".

Click on "Generate a code for yout 'handwritten' signature".

Select the signature and click on "Generate Code".

Now copy the code.

Now you can place the code at the end of each post. In the post go to "Edit HTML" tab and place this code at the end of each post. If you are tired of doing this, can place the "Post Template" part. This code will then appear on every post. For this, go to Customize >> Settings >> Formatting. Scroll down and place the code in "Post Template" and save it. Make you write the post at the top and the code lies below. Otherwise, the signature will appear at the beginning of the post.

Regards,

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Add A "Recent Posts" Widget To Blogger.

This post is about adding a "Recent Posts" widget to your Blogger blog. Its pretty simple. You need not paste any code for this. The only thing is to burn your feed in FeedBurner. Note down your original feed url. You will need this to create the widget. Go, check it out.

Your feed url will look something like this.

http://YOUR_BLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Now login to your Blogger account. Go to Customize >> Add a Gadget and select "Feed" from the list.

Now type your original feed url under "Configure Feed" and press "Continue".

Here you can make changes to your widget. Give a title to your widget, "Recent Posts" or anyhting you would like to call it. You can also decide to add date and author name. You can decide the number of posts to be shown in the widget. It can show a maximum of 5 recent posts on the widget. Configure your widget and click save. Thats it. Job done.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Turn Your Readers Into Listeners.

Do you have a favorite blog which you listen to daily? Download it to your ipod, laptop, moblephones etc and listen to it. Not many i guess. Do you want to give the readers of your blog the same privilege I am talking about. If yes, then this one is for you. Odiogo is service which converts the text in your post to podcast. This turns you from a blogger to a podcaster and gives you an edge over other bloggers. It expands the reach of your content. Odiogo provides automatic podcast generation with near-human quality text to speech. The listen button can be deployed in Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, TeraPad etc in a minute. Want to hear a demo!!! Click on the listen button at the top of every post on my blog or suscribe to my podcast. The next few paragraphs will teach you how to add this to your blog. In this example, I am adding it to a Blogger blog. Well, i forget I gives a detailed download statics of your listeners. You can also earn money from embedded ads after your listenership reaches a significant level. All these and more at absolutely no cost. Check it out.

How It Works.

There are 3 types of servers that make it possible. The Odiogo Podcast Producer Server, the Odiogo Advertising and Billing Server and the Odiogo Storage Server. The Odiogo Podcast Producer Server produces high quality audio files from the textual post in a RSS feed. They monitor the feeds on a regularly and keeps track of new posts so that it can generate MP3s as we post new content. The Odiogo Podcast Producer Server are basically used for normalization, phonetization and speech sythesis. The Odiogo Advertising Server insert audio spots into the content while the Odiogo Billing Server calculates the revenue share among the parties. All the Odiogo-enabled RSS files are stored on the Odiogo Stirage Server.

How To Add It To Your Blog.

Its very simple indeed. Just go to Odiogo site. You will see two fields called "Your Blog or Feed URL" and "Your Email". Fill them and click "Go". Now a page opens up which has a "Add Odiogo Listen Button Widget" button. Click on it. Now you have to login to your Blogger account and add the Odiogo suscribe button to your blog. It will by default add it to the top of your blog. If you want to change, you can copy the code and place it in any other location in your blog. Now refresh your blog and you can see a listen button at the top of every post.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Add A Feedback Button To Your Blog.

This is about adding a feedback button to your Blogger blog. This can added to other blogging platforms like WordPress, TypePad etc as well. It will float at the right-hand side of the blog, little above the "Go To Top" button. But you can always customize the position of the button according to your taste and requirement. Anytime the visitor wants to give a feedback about your blog, he/she can just click on it and give you a feedback about your blog. Feedback is very important. It a is tool to improve your blog and your blogging skills. In almost all blogs you see something called "Contact Me". It looks pretty harmless but if it is used in the right way it can be very useful. Sometimes your readers may be too lazy to go to the "Contact Me" button. Most of the time it is at the top of the blog. It goes out of sight as the reader scrolls down. But this feedback button will always remain in sight. It leaves you with a better probability that the reader will give you a feedback. Your blog runs because of your readers and if they are not happy, they wont visit again. You may or may not listen to all of them (sometimes the feedbacks may not be constructive enough to be followed), but whenever a constructive comment or feedback is given, its for your own good to follow them. And whenever you do follow some of the feedbacks do leave a comment on the blog. This will make your reader comfortable when they know that their voice is heard. So, go ahead and add it.

To embed the Feedback button, do the following:

First place the Feedback button in photobucket, picasa or any other image file sharing service. Note down the direct link of the image. You will need it later. I have used photobucket for my blog. At the end of the post there are some button images. You may choose to use them or have button images of your own.

The content in blue should be replaced by your respective links. In href give the url of your "Contact Me" page. For title give any relevant for your Feedback button. For img src give the direct link of your button image that you had saved before. Now go to Blogger --> Layout --> Add A Gadget --> HTML/Java Script and the paste the above piece of code after the modification. Now can you see the Feedback button. Click that and verify whether it works or not. If it takes you to your "Contact Me" page and then its perfectly done. Treat yourself for a job well done.

Here are a few Feedback button images that you can put to use.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Get "Go To Top" Arrow Button For Blogger.

This is about creating your very own "Go To Top" arrow button. Sometimes the posts gets a little longer and sometimes the number of comments are so huge that it takes a hell lot of time to scroll upto the top. This is for your loyal blog visitors who would like to go to top of the post with a single click. This button floats at the bottom right hand corner and slides along with the post. When clicked, takes you to the top of the page. Convenient, isn't it? Go take a look at how to create this simple but very useful button.

First get a up-arrow clip art. At the end of the post there are a few of them. Select any one of them, create your own clip art or look for up-arrow clip art in google images. Then load this clip art to image sharing services like photobucket, picasa etc. Note down the link to the image. You will need that in your code.

In the code above change the content in blue with your own link. This is the link to your clip art image. Click "Add A Gadget" in your Blogger and paste the modified code there. View your blog. Can your see your arrow at the bottom right corner of your blog. If yes, well done or else you can write back to me.

Below are few clip arts. Try them out.