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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
In Detail
Blogger is a blog publishing system from Google with a friendly interface specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.
It allows users to easily create dynamic blogs with great content and many outstanding features including RSS feeds, link-backs, photo slideshows, and integration with popular Google applications like Picasa. Its versatility and ease of use has attracted a large, enthusiastic, and helpful community of users.
If you want to create powerful, fully-featured blogs in no time, this book is for you. This book will focus on transforming a typical blog into something fresh and professional that stands out from the crowd. It starts with an introduction to an example blog, discussing what it is lacking, and then adding all the features of Blogger to make it successful. This book will tell you how to transform a slow-paced typical business blog into an attractive and interactive profit-making blog with measurable results. It has a very user-friendly approach and shares tips, tricks, and resources to continue to grow your blog.
This book will take you beyond the basics of Blogger, helping you take full advantage of the rich and powerful features of Blogger to transform your blog into a fresh and state-of-the-art blog as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Approach
Written in a clear, easy-to-read style, the book takes you through the essential tasks required to create a feature-rich blog as quickly as possible. From initial setup to customizing modules, each task is explained in a clear, practical way using an example blog developed through the book. You'll also learn how to market and measure the success of your blog using Google web applications and other popular tools.
This book deals with using the current Blogger and third-party tools to optimize and create widgets for your blog. You'll transform your blog using existing tools then take it further with more challenging approaches to customizing your blog. All the steps involved in each example are listed under the section called "Time for action". Similarly, the results of that action are listed under the section called "What just happened". This structure adds to the clear, simple, and focused approach of the book.
Who this book is for
The book is aimed at current users of the Blogger platform who want to get the most out of Blogger and people who use a different blogging platform and are planning on switching to Blogger. Blog owners who promote their own services, expertise, and products, and want to increase their blog's success by pushing the limits of what Blogger can do will get the most out of this book.
The book doesn't require any specific knowledge of Blogger or the related technologies: RSS, CSS, HTML, and XML. Everything you need to know to grow beyond the basics is covered in this book. The companion website to this book (http://bloggerbeefedup.blogspot.com) includes free resource images and content.
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Seitenzahl: 410
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008
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Table of Contents
Blogger
Beyond the Basics
Lee Jordan
Blogger
Copyright © 2008 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: April 2008
Production Reference: 1230408
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847193-17-9
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
Lee Jordan
Reviewer
Narayan Bhat
Senior Acquisition Editor
David Barnes
Development Editor
Ved Prakash Jha
Technical Editor
Dhiraj Chandiramani
Copy Editor
Sumathi Sridhar
Editorial Team Leader
Mithil Kulkarni
Project Manager
Abhijeet Deobhakta
Indexer
Monica Ajmera
Proofreader
Angie Butcher
Production Coordinator
Aparna Bhagat
Cover Work
Aparna Bhagat
About the Author
Lee Jordan is an avid user of Blogger, Twitter, and other useful web applications. She designs interactive customer service portals, enterprise-level websites and other web-based applications and writes web content and user guides. She applies over ten years of experience designing and writing for the web to developing interactive, user friendly web sites and writing technical guides to popular web technologies. This is her second book with Packt Publishing. Get Blogger tips and download source code on her companion web site to this book at http://bloggerbeefedup.blogspot.com.
A big thanks to my daughter Celeste who practiced her reading skills by looking over my shoulder, and editing my writing. Her cheerful suggestions kept me motivated.
An Innocent Drinks smoothie or ten is owned to David Barnes. His vision for the book, and constructive feedback kept me focused and helped me through the rough spots.
About the Reviewer
Narayan Bhat is passionate about wandering the Internet and Blogging.
Preface
This book actively immerses you in going beyond the default Blogger blog. Descriptive tutorials help you take action and learn to customize Blogger templates, add and create your own widgets, use social bookmarking tools, optimize your blog for search engines, attract more readers, play nice with other bloggers, understand Google Analytics, and make money with your blog.
As a bonus, you will also learn many delicious fruit recipes and have access to a rich array of images, code, and tips for your blog.
What This Book Covers
Chapter 1 will help you start by comparing a default Blogger blog with top blogs. You will meet Georgia and her organic fruit company Fruit for All. Georgia's blog will be our example throughout the book. Developing a wish list of the features and design elements for her blog will include an overview of the many types of features and online tools used by bloggers.
Chapter 2 will help you plan and customize your Blogger template to give your site its own look. This will include the blog post, sidebar, header, and footer areas of the blog. Tweaking the template will include quick fixes such as fonts, colors and background images and then cover more complex tasks, including adding a third column to your design.
Chapter 3 covers the types of social bookmarking and network tools, along with the most popular sites. Promoting your site using social bookmarks and using related widgets adds interactivity. You will use social bookmarking techniques with your blog and apply them to different parts of your blog. Blogger and third-party tools are customized and integrated into your blog.
Chapter 4 is all about being an active citizen of the Blogosphere. You will set up Blogger link backs, use tools to make it easier for other bloggers to link back to you, and learn ways to attract other bloggers to your blog.
Chapter 5 covers the best widgets for Blogger. Widgets are small, self-contained programs that can help you build a community, provide rich content, show and sell products, and make money. They give you more choices for how you can use your blog. You will not only add Blogger and third-party widgets to your blog, you will create your own custom widgets. Picking the right widgets for your blog is covered by widget type and function.
Chapter 6 will help you make the most of Blogger's feed syndication. You'll learn how to make it easy for people to subscribe, use tools like Feedburner to promote, measure and share your feed, and go beyond basic feed syndication with widgets and optimization tips.
Chapter 7 covers advertising as a source of revenue for your blog. Using Google AdSense and other popular programs, you will select ad formats, customize widgets, and place ads on your blog. Rich media formats including YouTube AdSense units are explored.
Chapter 8 covers the ways to measure the performance of your blog using Google Analytics. You'll start with installing Analytics code on your blog and learning how Analytics is useful for Blogger blogs. This chapter is full of active tutorials on getting the most out of Google Analytics, including how to use regular expressions to create custom filters. Understanding and analyzing the reporting features of Analytics is also explored.
Chapter 9 focuses on optimizing your blog for search engines. Create site maps, understand the cryptic syntax of robots.txt, and learn tips specific to how search engines crawl and rank blogs. Taking action with checklists and techniques designed to get you started in five minutes or less.
Chapter 10 integrates your blog with your main website or any other site or blog you already have. You will add dynamic universal navigation, match the fonts and colors of your blog to other sites, add content from your blog to an external site, and learn multiple ways to use a custom domain for your Blogger blog.
Who is This Book for
The book is aimed at current users of the Blogger platform who want to get the most out of Blogger, and people who use a different blogging platform and are planning on switching to Blogger. Blog owners who promote their own services, expertise, and products, and want to increase their blog's success by pushing the limits of what Blogger can do will get the most out of this book.
This book doesn't require any specific knowledge of Blogger or the related technologies: RSS, CSS, HTML, and XML. Everything you need to know to grow beyond the basics is covered in this book. The companion website to this book, http://bloggerbeefedup.blogspot.com includes free resource images and content.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
There are three styles for code. Code words in text are shown as follows: "Every link used within the Blogger template begins with <a expr:href."
A block of code will be set as follows:
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be made bold:
New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".
Note
Important notes appear in a box like this.
Note
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader Feedback
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If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note in the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com or email <[email protected]>.
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Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Downloading the Example Code for the Book
Visit http://www.packtpub.com/files/code/3179_Code.zip to directly download the example code.
The downloadable files contain instructions on how to use them.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our contents, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in text or code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing this you can save other readers from frustration and help to improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the let us know link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata are added to the list of existing errata. The existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.
Questions
You can contact us at <[email protected]> if you are having a problem with some aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.
Chapter 1. All Blogs Are Not Equal
There are so many features and tools you can use to power your Blogger blog. It can be difficult to decide where to begin. By the end of this chapter you will have learned to plan a blog that visitors will love to interact with.
Blogs are approachable and look great, casual or dressed up, just like a good pair of jeans. We're going to have fun exploring many ways to make default Blogger blogs better. This chapter will focus on getting your feet wet with our tutorial blog. We're going to:
Let's meet Georgia, the owner of Fruit for All—a company specializing in shipping high quality fruits and southern hospitality.
Meet Georgia Peach, Fanatical Fruitier
Georgia grew up on a small farm. She would sneak bites of freshly harvested strawberries packed in sugar from the family freezer. She began to share her passion for fruits when she opened her first fruit-stand on the Main Street in a small North Georgia town. Word quickly spread about her fresh local fruits and exotic finds. Chefs from Atlanta and the surrounding countys begged her to save specific lots for them, or to find them a particular type of fruit. Georgia made contact with suppliers all over the world in her quest for unusual and delicious fruits.
She was worried though that only the elite were lucky enough to enjoy the treasures she found. What if there could be a way regular people like herself who shared her love for fruits could have fresh fruits delivered right to their door? It was then that Fruit for All was born.
Georgia provides fresh, seasonal fruits grown organically by local farmers. Her customers are fruit lovers from all over the globe. Whether they crave peaches or papayas, they know she will ship them the highest quality fruits from eco-friendly sources. She doesn't just want to sell fruits to people, she wants to develop a personal connection, and bring the "fruit-stand experience" to her customers in the comfort of their homes.
The Way She Blogs Now
Georgia's blog is a celebration of fruits and a business blog. She wants it to be a fascinating blog for fruit lovers. Her typical customers are not just "foodies"; they are "fruities", in search of exotic fruits or high quality staples such as strawberries.
She currently uses her blog to share the fruits she has for sale and also for recipes on fruits, including household remedies and unusual uses for fruit. Her suppliers and the growers are also mentioned, wherever possible.
Georgia found Blogger easy to set up and began using it to get messages out to interested customers. She would love to make her blog play a bigger role in her marketing. She's using a default template she chose when she created her blog. It doesn't look bad, but it doesn't reflect her company's unique personality.
She thinks she has readers, but doesn't know how many. All she has to go with are the comments they leave. She wants to use the blog to foster a community of customers. But, at present, not many are emailing her and she also finds the blog comments limited. She has noticed some increase in business since she launched the blog, but not as much as she was expecting.
She posts regular updates, but doesn't know which are the most popular. If she knew the topics that excited her readers the most, she could focus more on information relevant to them. Do they want more recipes on cherry sauces, or the best fruits for holiday breads? She needs a way to find out.
We will take Georgia's default Blogger blog and transform it into a blog worthy of a benevolent global fruit shipping empire. This business will be a great testing ground for all the advanced work we want to do. When we are done, we will have a professional blog and a greater knowledge of fruits. Georgia's current blog is shown in the following screenshot. It can also be found at (http://fruitforallbefore.blogspot.com). Let's take a look at it now and see what areas need improvement at first glance.
The default blog has many areas we can improve. The contrast between the text color and the background color on the side bar and the main content sections need to be increased for readability. The blog looks too generic to be taken as a serious source of knowledge on fruits. We will increase the visual impact of the blog by changing the colors, images, and the basic blog template in Chapter 2— Customize and Create Templates.
First time visitors might struggle to understand the purpose of the blog. There is no description explaining why Georgia is blogging, who her audience is, or what topic the blog is focused on. Georgia will need to clearly explain what her blog is about to new visitors to gain their trust and encourage potential sales. We will explore many ways to do this throughout the book.
The blog is not currently using anything but the basic default page elements that were included with the template. She feels it looks like every other blogspot blog. The only elements that stand out here are her image displayed in the profile page element on the sidebar, and the images of fruits used in her posts. There are no social bookmarks. The only way users can respond to her blog is through comments. The Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) link is hidden at the footer of the site. New visitors looking for the familiar orange feed symbol or RSS/XML/Atom links on the side bar or under each post may miss it.
The blog uses the default image header from the template Georgia selected when the blog was created. The block images on the sidebar also do not match the content. Georgia thinks the gray sidebar color is too boring and the gray wave doesn't really fit the template. She wants to keep the white background and dark text for her posts.
Now, we have a basic grasp of what is lacking on the default blog. We are ready to explore what other bloggers are doing to make their blogs stand out.
What's Out There
There is a lot Georgia can do to make her blog stand out. Georgia wants to build a blog that is as tart and sweet as her fruit. Customizing her blog will attract more readers, turning them into regulars, building a community, and thus selling more fruits to all, while reinforcing the Fruit for All brand.
She decides to take a look around the blogosphere and make a list of the features and tools she likes the most. Georgia begins exploring Blogger blogs using the Next Blog link. The following screenshot shows the standard Blogger navigation bar, called the "Navbar", used by bloggers to search, flag, explore, post, and customize Blogger blogs. Clicking the Next Blog link will cause a recently updated random blog to appear.
The Blogs of Note site http://blogsofnote.blogspot.com/ is a monthly selection of Blogger blogs suggested by the Blogger team. Exploring them will give Georgia examples of engaging content and template styles from a wide pool of other bloggers who use the Blogger platform. Blogs of note from October 2007 to December 2007 can be seen in the following screenshot. They cover a range of topics from paintings to primates.
Cooking with Amy
Georgia finds the Cooking with Amy blog (http://cookingwithamy.blogspot.com) that features a variety of navigation paths, search, cool photos, and delicious recipe ideas. It uses an image, instead of a logo, for the top header section. The About Me section has been replaced with an About link describing the purpose of the blog. Readers can still choose to read her profile by clicking on Read my profile link under Who's Amy? A Search box is next on the left sidebar. This is an easy to reach location for anyone who wants to search the blog. The Get Cooking! link contains multiple drop-down boxes organized by recipe type. Visitors can easily drill down to the recipe they are looking for with minimal clicks. The posts use eye catching images that illustrate the contents of the post.
Georgia decides that her blog is a mix of both personal sharing and industry news. Amy is both a cook and a writer. So the blog gives her the freedom to discuss topics she is interested in and is an active example of her writing and cooking skills. Her self promotional tools include a special Syndicate this site block on the left menu and a social book marking button at the bottom of every post. This is where visitors expect to find them. Unlike Amy's blog, Georgia's blog buries the feed subscription link in the footer of the blog. In Amy's blog we can see the header image, the about page element, the link to her profile, her blog search, drop-down site navigation, and a sample post.
Next, Georgia takes a closer look at other popular blogs. She wants to know if the tools and features they have match their apparent business objectives, and if she can discover any best practices to follow for her own blog.
Meeblog
She is a fan of Meeblog (http://blog.meebo.com/), Meebo's company blog. The Meebo logo is used with the word "blog" added to better identify the page. Text site navigation links are displayed in the upper right section of the top header. The search box below the site links adds balance to the right side of the header. The pages block on the right sidebar leverages the ability of blogs to incorporate static pages, making it double up as the Meebo corporate site. Georgia is inspired by the where are you? block. Would her customers benefit from a map that showed the source locations of her fruit? The top 10 meebo fans list looks like a nifty way to encourage readers to link back, or spread the word about Meebo. Georgia wonders if she can do something similar for her own site to help build community. Scrolling down, she notices the Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) photo widget. She could display seasonal fruit or popular fruit selections, maybe even start a photo group for fruit enthusiasts, on Flickr.
The business objective of Meeblog is to communicate news about Meebo with current and potential users, retain current users, and spread the word about the Meebo chat tools. Its focus is the Meebo site. She thinks that their use of branding is strong. Georgia thinks that the blog does a good job of retaining current users, but thinks that they could do more with social book marking and syndication to spread the word about Meebo.
Georgia does not have her blog set up to channel traffic from her blog to her commercial site. We'll take this step with her in Chapter 10, integrating her blog and her commercial site together. Next, let's look at an example of a blog integrated with multiple sites that successfully uses advertising. BoingBoing's blog has a strong personality that is carried across all its related sites.
BoingBoing
The BoingBoing blog (http://boingboing.net) shares quirky, interesting articles submitted by readers and makes income from merchandise and prominent site ads. The site's plain white background showcases horizontal site navigation, easy printing for posts, relevant ads, and a standard two-column blog layout. We can see the strengths of the blog in the following screenshot. The site has logo-based links for all three related sites above the top menu bar.
The main logo for the BoingBoing blog is placed below the menu. The strong color provides high contrast and makes it stand out, even with multiple flash ads enveloping the site content. Georgia decides that using banner ads might drive users away from her site. The SEARCH block is in an easy to spot location, just below the main menu. She makes a note of the color coordinated text ads on the rightside bar, a Don't Miss block of suggested posts and a block for Recent Comments by users. She finds the Subscribe buttons for the RSS, podcasts, and emails, buried at the bottom of too many, front page, blog posts. Visitors can click on the Subscribe link on the top menu, but that adds a click. The Suggest a Link menu item makes it easy for visitors to send content and promote their blogs. Georgia wonders if ad revenues really help pay for the site.
All the blogs we've looked at so far are two-column blogs. There are many successful three-column blogs. Georgia's favorite is the Innocent Drinks Daily Thoughts blog (http://innocentdrinks.typepad.com/). This blog, of a commercial fruit smoothie company, manages to be fun and professional at the same time.
Innocent Drinks
The Innocent Drinks blog team makes carefully structured use of a three-column layout. We can see in the following screenshot that they have positioned their logo in the standard top left position with overall site navigation taking up the top right side.
Upcoming events and new products are featured in the left column of the blog. Posts take up the center column. The right side contains elements commonly seen on blogs. A subscription link is featured in the top right, followed by a list of recent posts, recent comments, and links to social network groups they participate in. Georgia notes they are using Flickr groups (http://www.flickr.com/groups/bigknit2007/) to share photos of their community projects. Continuing down the right column are other blogs by the innocent drinks team: a monthly archive block, categories for blog posts, and a Search box. There are a rich collection of elements on the blog for visitors to explore. Georgia may want to share her own community projects on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) or through other social networking sites in the future.
We've seen blogs with their own answers to how blogs should look and function over the last few pages. Looking at each one, we have narrowed down what features are most important for a successful blog.
What They Share
Georgia discovered that all the most popular blogs she looked at shared several best practices. The blogs used a strong color difference between the text and background, usually dark text over a white or pale background color. All the more popular blogs Georgia looked at used search and clean column-based layouts. Both Meebo and BoingBoing had site navigation menus and features to encourage visitors to interact. Each blog used strong logos or other visual imagery to create an environment that visitors would remember and associate with the site.
Time to Plan
Now that Georgia knows what's out there in the blogosphere, she needs to define her goals and decide how she can use the Fruit for All blog to achieve them. Georgia puts pen to coffee shop napkin and begins to brainstorm.
Defining Goals
First, she begins to draw a visual mind map of the many goals she has for the site. The word "fruit blog" is placed in an oval in the center. Then she draws a line branch for each idea and connects it to the center oval or another idea. When she is done, she has a network of ideas to pull and organize her goals from.
She then takes the main ideas from the mix and creates a list of the biggest goals for her blog. She will use these to guide her decisions. Whenever she thinks she is losing focus, Georgia can refer back to the list and the idea map.
Georgia's big goals are:
With her list of goals in hand, Georgia excitedly shares her ideas with us, over some tasty cornbread pancakes with cherry sauce. "High on sugar and the chance to work on a fun project", we agreed to help sharpen and shape up her blog. We take Georgia's list of goals and use them to make an outline of requirements for her blog. This way, we can match her business objectives to the tools and features that will bring them to life.
Attract More Readers
We decide that the two core issues before Georgia are: bringing more readers to the site and turning them into repeat readers. There are many ways to resolve these issues. We will help Georgia customize her blog using the following methods:
Bringing Them In
Georgia needs to work on how she is going to bring visitors to her blog. Using a strategic combination of rich content, search engine optimization, social networking, and integration with her main site will draw in new visitors.
Georgia can get more out of Facebook by adding more details to her profile, joining groups, sharing photo albums, and adding events. She should add a Facebook badge to her page, and perhaps a link back to Facebook in relevant posts. She can use Facebook to network too.
Links to news and sites of interest are sorted on category, how new they are, and how "hot" the topic is. Georgia can vote links up and down and submit her own. If a link she submits becomes popular, she will gain a reputation in the community. Reddit also has the flexibility to adjust the links displayed to readers based on how they vote. Georgia should set aside time to regularly submit articles she finds and her own content to Reddit.
Digg
In Dingg Links to news and interesting sites are added and voted on by readers. Georgia needs to add her blog and Facebook links. She can network and find other people who share her passion for fruit and share links she finds. Digg can create a "big circle of submission", as readers to her blog increase her posts are more likely to be submitted to Digg by her readers. As more Digg visitors come to her blog from Digg, she will have more readers. We will help Georgia add a Digg bookmark button to her blog posts in Chapter 3.
Submitting news makes Georgia part of the social network of fellow foodies. The more interesting the links she submits, the more likely that new readers will visit her blog. She fills out a simple form after logging in to the Digg site whenever she has a link to submit.
We will explore social networks and book marking for blogs in depth, in Chapter 3. Being a good neighbor in the blogosphere, including trackbacks, blogrolls, and networking with other bloggers, will be covered in Chapter 5.
Georgia wants to do more than just attract people to her blog. She wants to build awareness for her company and share it with a community of other people who share her passion for organic fruits.
Reinforce her Brand, Build a Community
The more recognizable her blog is, the easier it will be for readers to describe her blog to others. She wants it to be welcoming and fun-filled, where visitors can go and try the latest fruits and maybe find a reliable recipe for blackberry cobbler. Let's look at some ways to make her blog more memorable:
Customizing the default Blogger template and building our own unique template for the Fruit for All blog will happen in Chapter 2. We will start with the layout and design ideas, and then build a homegrown Blogger template.
Sell More Fruits, Explore New Revenue Opportunities
Georgia needs to expand on how she communicates with readers and experiment with new ways to encourage sales.
Measure and Improve
Georgia wants to know who is visiting the blog, the sites they come from, and what their favorite posts are. She also wants to collect information about the general effectiveness of her blog.
We will explore the above options to measure and improve Georgia's blog in Chapter 8 and Chapter 9.
Summary
In this chapter, we've met Georgia Peach and her fanatical fruit business. We've seen that she has a lot of options on how to use her blog. She will have to go beyond the standard Blogger blog to reach her goals. To go further, she needs to:
In the next chapter, we'll see exactly how to do all this and more on our Blogger blog. We'll build our own exciting custom Blogger template.
