Top 15 Most Useful Tricks Everyone New to Blogger Should Know

If you're new to Blogger more than likely you're looking for those little tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of the platform. Here's a list of a few easy things that you can do that don't take much time but will help improve your Blogger blog.

1. Make a test blog on the same account. This is a good way to try new things out or completely build a new template on your test account before implementing it on your main. You can easily hide it so all you see is your main blog as well.


2. Add your own Favicon to replace Blogger's default one. This will help with recognition of your blog, a favicon (favorites icon) will show up in the visitors bookmark/history next to your site and help it stand out.


3. If you create a post that is very long and or has a large amount of images a good thing to do is add a jump break. The visitor can read the first part of your post then click on "Continue Reading" to see the rest. This will tidy things up a bit and improve loading times.


4. Use a free HTML editor like Coffee Cup instead of using the compose or trying to edit the HTML in the small window. 

5. Download your template every time you change something. That way if you make a boo-boo you can always revert back to the saved file.

6. Do the title trick to optimize your Blogger blog for search engines.

7. There are a few universal text shortcuts that will help you out blogging. If you have to edit your template and replace or add code hit CTRL+F to quickly search for it. Sometimes its hard to select all the text/code in the box. To select all hit CTRL+A. To quickly save a post hit CTRL+S


8. Improve your site's design and layout by adding a navigation menu. Some visitors prefer searching by labels, others through the archive but most visitors will appreciate having a easy to read and understand navigation menu somewhere near the top of your blog. Especially those not used to a blog format.

9. Spend time and think of what your blog is about then go into your template and adjust it's meta tags and add the proper keywords. Remember, when it comes to keywords don't over do it. Just a couple relevant keywords on what your blog is about will suffice. Don't go crazy, adding unrelated keywords to try and fish for some visitors will do more harm than good in the long run.

10. Get serious! By purchasing a domain for your blog. Adding a custom domain to Blogger is incredibly simple. You can even buy it through Google and they will set everything up for you. By having your own domain, visitors will be more likely to take your blog more seriously now that you are.

11. Have an idea for a post? Go into your posts and just start writing. Even if you just have an idea for the topic, put it in the title and let it sit there. It will save it as a draft for you automatically. Then when you're feeling inspired come back and knock it out. I've left some for weeks until I found the right spark of inspiration.

12. If you start out your posts the same way each time, like for instance, having a big bold italicized title then use Post Templates. By setting up a Post Template you can pre-format all of your posts with whatever you like to save time. This can be found in Settings > Formatting

13. Get familiar with your picture album. When you made your Blogger account you now have a Picasa Album linked to it. You can use this to upload and manage pictures for your blog instead of using other free image sites or uploading through the compose window.

14. Promote commenting by allowing people without memberships to comment anonymously. This option can be found in Settings > Commenting

15. Instead of using the Follow gadget setup Feedburner for your site so readers can subscribe that way.


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