Friday, 5 March 2010
Part-2 Technology
The most important item is the choice of a suitable Blog skin for your Blog. The templates are distinctly made for various kinds of subjects from Culinary blogs to High tech blogs. Wrong choice of the template could kill a blog even if it has a decent content. For a good selection of templates my suggestion would be to see the popular blogs on the subjects and choose the right one for you. If it is a standard template then you will have no problem in customizing your content in it otherwise you may have to study the design of the template by viewing its source HTML / XML code and writing your own template code. Examples of Simple no frills Marketing Blog Designs:
http://tnmg4u.com/, http://www.ceveni.com/, http://marketerskaleidoscope.com/, http://www.msigeek.com/ Examples of Culinary blogs: http://www.kamalascorner.com/
Designing of the layout into 3 column or 2 column type would depend on your basic aim of blogging. For example, if you are intending to make some money as part of your objective then you need to provide spaces for fielding advertisements and sponsored logos etc and perhaps a 3 column design would suit you. For a simple blog on poetry, family, etc a 2 column design without much clutter would be ideal. Again there is no hard and fast rule for this selection. It is upto you to choose the correct design in tandem with your subject.
Feeds are the most essential part of your blog. An interested reader would like to subscribe to your posts so that he does not miss any new posts in future. Ensure that your feeds are properly configured by joining agencies like "Feedburner" etc and test your feeds for coverage of content. As people prefer to read them at leisure it would be advisable to provide a email link also.
When you post some pictures, videos etc from internet do provide the information as to its source to give credit to original authors/owners.
Speed of loading of your Blog content is very vital for sustaining viewer's interest in your blog. Too much of widgets, CSS, Pictures (not optimized), java scripts, etc would tend to slow down your page loading time considerably. After selecting the most essential ones be sure to compress the CSS code by using suitable CSS Compressor. I am using CSS Compressor at this url:
http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/main/csscompressor/ as recommended by my fellow blogger Shri.Karthikeyan and my loading time is between 0.11 to 0.17 seconds which is quite good. For guidance on compression please go to this url: http://technoalley.blogspot.com/2009/12/reduce-loading-time-of-your-blog.html
Meta Tags are the important portion of your blog template / source code because they make the Title, Description etc appear in a way that best describes your blog.
What are Meta Tags
These are information placed in the <head> area of your html code, mostly for instructions regarding how the information about your page has to be displayed. Title meta Tag however displays the title of the page. Examples of Meta Tags:
<head>
<title>My Musings</title>
<meta name="description" content="Saras blog, post and musings on human values, life, childhood, acrostic, poetry, short stories" />
<meta name="keywords" Content="Saras blog, post and musings on human values, life, childhood, acrostic, poetry, short stories" />
<meta name="auhor" content="Saras" />
</head>
</head>
<body>This is my First HTML file!</body>
</html>
Save the above into a file called "my file.html". The file extension "html" or "htm" is very important because it tells the browser that it is a HTML file. Clik it to run in your browser! This is just a simple HTML file and you need to learn more codes for making it robust and add more types of content like Pictures, Tables, Sub-Routines etc.
Posting articles in your blog should be done with care. Instead of writing long and tortuous content continuously split them into neat paragraphs and always format them by using html "justify" format so that it looks neat. You can do this by choosing the html option in your posting tool (I am talking about Blogspot domains) where all the html codes can be used and check the output in "compose" mode before publishing the same. You can also use the Justify button in compose tab to do this formatting.
It would be a good habit to use online dictionary to run spell check on all your articles before publishing them. The readers love well written articles with a good command over the language. Incidentally Blogger tools provide you with an opportunity to write in various languages, like Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil by just using the drop down button for languages. For example: வணக்கம் नमस्कार ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ were all produced using this tool!
Adding widgets
When adding widgets ensure that you put only the essential ones like "About You", "Feed", "Archive", "Labels", "Email-Subscription" etc besides display of your Pagerank and Alexa Rank perhaps. Unnecessary widgets could affect the page loading time and scare the visitors away! Blogger provides a very convenient tool for adding a lot of widgets. Clik the layout button and goto "Add and Arrange Page elements" page and clik on "Add a Gadget". See pictures below:
Choose HTML/Java Script from the gadget popup and paste the code for your gadget.
To change the "Fonts", "Color", "Size" etc of the content, clik on "layout" in editor and choose the "fonts and Colors" Tab which will open a window with options to make all the changes.
Part-3 Promoting your Blog
In the initial phase of your Blogging do not feel dis-heartened by the lack of visitors or Traffic to your Blog. There are so many of them that it takes lot of efforts to woo the audience to your Blog and greater efforts to retain them! Please visit other Blogs relating to your interest and read the posts sincerely and give your considered views on them as comments with a backlink to your Blog. A well drafted comment will surely attract the author to visit your blog as a reciprocal gesture. Apart from the Author, even other readers who are impressed by your analysis will start visiting your Blog to see your posts. Do list your Blog in "Yahoo", "Google", "MSN", "AlltheWeb", "AltaVista" etc which are popular search engines. Reasonable backlinks to your Blog will get a good Pagerank for your Blog.
Submit your Blog to "Webmaster - Tools" Google, "Alexa" etc to get the advantage of receiving Vital statistics about visitors to your Blog, their Location, type of browser, pages viewed etc etc. Google, Yahoo and MSN normally give you a code and request you to put them in your Meta Tags Area for their verification and authentication of your ownership of the domain. Ex:
Google Verification code
STOP PRESS!
Blogger has introduced a great feature in the form of "Designer Templates Design" in the layout option from where you can choose various designs of templates, layouts, size, width etc., It is amazing, Folks! Hold on before you rush to see it. It will not show up in your existing Blogger Dash Board yet as it is in draft mode. To use it follow this guideline. go to http://draft.blogger.com and log into your blogger. You will find a message "Choose to make this your default dashboard" with a radio button. tick the radio button and you are done!!
Exhaustive info on this is posted by Sri.Karthikeyan in his "Technoalley" Blog at this url:
http://technoalley.blogspot.com/2010/03/blogger-template-designer-new-feature.html
http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/main/csscompressor/ as recommended by my fellow blogger Shri.Karthikeyan and my loading time is between 0.11 to 0.17 seconds which is quite good. For guidance on compression please go to this url: http://technoalley.blogspot.com/2009/12/reduce-loading-time-of-your-blog.html
Meta Tags are the important portion of your blog template / source code because they make the Title, Description etc appear in a way that best describes your blog.
What are Meta Tags
These are information placed in the <head> area of your html code, mostly for instructions regarding how the information about your page has to be displayed. Title meta Tag however displays the title of the page. Examples of Meta Tags:
<head>
<title>My Musings</title>
<meta name="description" content="Saras blog, post and musings on human values, life, childhood, acrostic, poetry, short stories" />
<meta name="keywords" Content="Saras blog, post and musings on human values, life, childhood, acrostic, poetry, short stories" />
<meta name="auhor" content="Saras" />
</head>
While Title Tag displays your Title on the screen, the other tags are for instructions for the browser to display information on a search being made about the webpage. Ensure that your description gives full information about your webpage to the viewers upon a search made. Please be careful to see that you do not include any "prohibited words" like "Marijuana", "viagra", "porn" etc which are looked upon with askance by many search engines and your page will be ignored.
HTML Primer
HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is a simple way of writing your content to be read by a Browser and displayed on the computer screen through Internet. The syntax is so very simple and user friendly that even a school kid can master it. Example of a Basic HTML file:
<html>
<head>
<title>
</title>
<meta />
<meta />
<meta />
..............
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
The above codes are called "Tags" and are used to instruct the browser what to do with the content included between them. In order for the Browser to know that it is a HTML file it starts with the Tag <html> at the beginning. Tags are always enclosed between "<" and ">" for the browser to understand. Each Tag begins with "<>" and ends with "</>" containing some content in between. Note how the "html", "head", "title" and "body" Tags begin and end. You begin to add content now as follows:
<html>
<head>
<title>My Musings</title>
<meta name="description" content=",,,,,,,,, ......., ......" />
<meta name="keywords" content=",,,,,,,,, ......., ....." />
<meta name="author" content="your name" />HTML Primer
HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is a simple way of writing your content to be read by a Browser and displayed on the computer screen through Internet. The syntax is so very simple and user friendly that even a school kid can master it. Example of a Basic HTML file:
<html>
<head>
<title>
</title>
<meta />
<meta />
<meta />
..............
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
The above codes are called "Tags" and are used to instruct the browser what to do with the content included between them. In order for the Browser to know that it is a HTML file it starts with the Tag <html> at the beginning. Tags are always enclosed between "<" and ">" for the browser to understand. Each Tag begins with "<>" and ends with "</>" containing some content in between. Note how the "html", "head", "title" and "body" Tags begin and end. You begin to add content now as follows:
<html>
<head>
<title>My Musings</title>
<meta name="description" content=",,,,,,,,, ......., ......" />
<meta name="keywords" content=",,,,,,,,, ......., ....." />
</head>
<body>This is my First HTML file!</body>
</html>
Save the above into a file called "my file.html". The file extension "html" or "htm" is very important because it tells the browser that it is a HTML file. Clik it to run in your browser! This is just a simple HTML file and you need to learn more codes for making it robust and add more types of content like Pictures, Tables, Sub-Routines etc.
Posting articles in your blog should be done with care. Instead of writing long and tortuous content continuously split them into neat paragraphs and always format them by using html "justify" format so that it looks neat. You can do this by choosing the html option in your posting tool (I am talking about Blogspot domains) where all the html codes can be used and check the output in "compose" mode before publishing the same. You can also use the Justify button in compose tab to do this formatting.
It would be a good habit to use online dictionary to run spell check on all your articles before publishing them. The readers love well written articles with a good command over the language. Incidentally Blogger tools provide you with an opportunity to write in various languages, like Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil by just using the drop down button for languages. For example: வணக்கம் नमस्कार ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ were all produced using this tool!
Adding widgets
When adding widgets ensure that you put only the essential ones like "About You", "Feed", "Archive", "Labels", "Email-Subscription" etc besides display of your Pagerank and Alexa Rank perhaps. Unnecessary widgets could affect the page loading time and scare the visitors away! Blogger provides a very convenient tool for adding a lot of widgets. Clik the layout button and goto "Add and Arrange Page elements" page and clik on "Add a Gadget". See pictures below:
Choose HTML/Java Script from the gadget popup and paste the code for your gadget.
To change the "Fonts", "Color", "Size" etc of the content, clik on "layout" in editor and choose the "fonts and Colors" Tab which will open a window with options to make all the changes.
Part-3 Promoting your Blog
In the initial phase of your Blogging do not feel dis-heartened by the lack of visitors or Traffic to your Blog. There are so many of them that it takes lot of efforts to woo the audience to your Blog and greater efforts to retain them! Please visit other Blogs relating to your interest and read the posts sincerely and give your considered views on them as comments with a backlink to your Blog. A well drafted comment will surely attract the author to visit your blog as a reciprocal gesture. Apart from the Author, even other readers who are impressed by your analysis will start visiting your Blog to see your posts. Do list your Blog in "Yahoo", "Google", "MSN", "AlltheWeb", "AltaVista" etc which are popular search engines. Reasonable backlinks to your Blog will get a good Pagerank for your Blog.
Google Verification code
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="LwS2kdSvejWNEJJR-63juUlmZPrbp_aqyKvhHlZrxOo" >
Once you register with webmaster tools you can get a lot of information about sites linking to you, pages indexed by search engine, details of subscriber to your feeds, crawler data of webbots from search engines etc.
You can organise your promotional activities based on these vital inputs for better chances of success.
Once you register with webmaster tools you can get a lot of information about sites linking to you, pages indexed by search engine, details of subscriber to your feeds, crawler data of webbots from search engines etc.
You can organise your promotional activities based on these vital inputs for better chances of success.
STOP PRESS!
Blogger has introduced a great feature in the form of "Designer Templates Design" in the layout option from where you can choose various designs of templates, layouts, size, width etc., It is amazing, Folks! Hold on before you rush to see it. It will not show up in your existing Blogger Dash Board yet as it is in draft mode. To use it follow this guideline. go to http://draft.blogger.com and log into your blogger. You will find a message "Choose to make this your default dashboard" with a radio button. tick the radio button and you are done!!
Exhaustive info on this is posted by Sri.Karthikeyan in his "Technoalley" Blog at this url:
http://technoalley.blogspot.com/2010/03/blogger-template-designer-new-feature.html
(to be contd....)
Labels: Tips
6 Comments:
I have added pages..but they look ugly as a list...how do I turn them into a horizontal line of buttons?
Its high time I did something to my blog.
Pandiang chennai