to Start a Blog

In this Blogger tutorial (Blogspot tutorial) I show you how to add a quick edit wrench to Blogger if it is missing from a Blogger gadget. Check here to find a solution for a missing quick edit pencil not showing in Blogger The quick edit feature allows you to edit a Blogger gadget directly from the blog itself rather than having to go through the Design > Page Elements screens and then finding the actual widget itself before you can edit it. Heaps of times I have downloaded custom Blogger templates only to find that there are lots of omissions compared to a default Blogger template. If you are using a custom Blogger template with the quick edit feature missing here is a step by step guide to insert the missing quick edit feature into your Blogger template The quick edit can be missing from anywhere in your Blogger template. I have chosen to use the sidebar for this tutorial but the solution works wherever the quick edit feature has been removed or never inserted in the first place. ...

In today's Blogger tutorial I am going to show you how to add a Flickr Slideshow (Flickr Photostream) to a Blogger blog (Blogspot blog). This Blogger tutorial is suited to beginners and newbies to Blogger and contains step by step instructions to create your Flickr slideshow. This Blogger slideshow tutorial covers the steps to insert a slideshow widget (slideshow gadget) in the sidebar or footer of Blogger and display a set of images uploaded to Flickr. Note the maximum number of images displayed in the slideshow is 20. There are several different methods to add a Flickr slideshow to Blogger. Which method you use is largely dependent on your own individual requirements. I cover two different methods in the tutorial. Method 1 - Add a Flickr Slideshow Gadget to Blogger - Photos in photostream are not organized into sets Method 2 - Add a Flickr Slideshow Gadget to Blogger to display images that are organized in a set Method 1 - Add a Flickr Photostream to Slideshow Gadget in Blogge...

If you use Twitter then you are going to want to let your Blogger readers know about it. One effective way to show your Twitter updates on Blogger is to add a Twitter profile widget to the sidebar of your blog. This widget is quite a bit more fancy than the current Twitter Updates Widget available through Blogger which I showed you how to insert into your blog in my recent article Add a Twitter Updates Widget to Blogger . On the minus side the widget may slow your blog down so test it out first if fast loading time is crucial to you. How to Insert a Twitter Profile Widget into Blogger Go to Twitter Widgets and sign in Choose Profile Widget and you will be taken to a default profile widget page where you can customize your Twitter widget according to your needs. Choose Settings and make sure that your username is correct Choose Appearance and make any custom color changes you need to so that the widget will blend into your blog. At the very least you will need to change the shell...

In today's Blogger tutorial I show you how to add a simple drop down menu widget sometimes called a select box to the sidebar of your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog). If you want to add lots of links to your Blogger blog but are worried about the amount of space this will take up on your blog this tutorial is for you. A drop down widget is a neat solution to the cluttered sidebar problem as it is both space saving and easy to install. The convenience of a drop down menu widget can be seen on many blogs where it is used for lists like a long Blogroll, Categories list, Labels list or a Recommended Posts list. How to Add a Drop Down Menu Widget to Blogger Adding a drop down menu to Blogger is well within the capabilities of even beginner bloggers. Most of the work is in cutting and pasting the links which is not difficult for anyone with basic computer skills. So let's get started but first here is a working drop down menu list with links to various posts in my blog: - Blog Know H...

Did you know that Twitter can help drive traffic to your Blogspot blog? In today's Blogger tutorial I show you how to add a free Twitter Retweet button to your Blogger posts. Adding a Tweetmeme Twitter Retweet button to Blogger will help promote your blog on Twitter in 2 ways: one by attracting new Twitter followers and two by increasing the direct traffic to your blog from Twitter. Forget the preamble and take me straight to the instructions to insert the Retweet button into Blogger What is Twitter and How Does it Work? Twitter is currently the fastest growing free social networking site. Essentially, Twitter users micro blog about what they are doing or what others are doing by posting tweets of around 140 characters to Twitter. When Twitter members read these tweets and like what they read they can become followers much in the same way that your readers can choose to follow your blog. Twitter is great news for bloggers because it can be used as a vehicle to promote blogs. Blo...

If you are a regular Twitter user and have a bunch of followers you might want to add a Twitter Updates widget to Blogger (Blogspot). In today's tutorial I will show you the easy way to add a Twitter Updates widget to Blogger (Blogspot). It is fairly straightforward to add this Twitter Updates widget to Blogger so please don't be put off if you are a Blogger beginner as you can have this widget up and running in no time. If you are new to Twitter and don't have an account yet you can sign up to Twitter for free How to Add a Twitter Updates Gadget to Blogger There are several methods of adding a Twitter Updates widget to Blogger which I will be discussing over the next few posts. Today I will start with the easiest method by far. This Twitter widget won't slow down your blog loading time particularly but I suggest as with all HTML widgets that you place it near the bottom of your column of gadgets and limit the number of updates shown. This Twitter Updates widget will ...

In today's tutorial you will learn how to place an Amazon widget on your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) to enable you to add a further income stream to your existing Blogger earnings. Adding an Amazon widget to Blogger is not difficult. No change or very little change to your Blogger template is required. There is some time involved in setting up the widget itself and choosing the products to link to and customizing the look to match your blog however. This tutorial will walk you through the steps involved but first a few need to know facts about Amazon's affiliate program. Important Details For Bloggers About Amazon's Affiliate Program Amazon have 2 referral structures: Classic Plan and Performance Plan For the Classic Plan - A flat rate commission of 4% is paid For the Performance Plan - A sliding scale between 4% and 8.5% commission is paid on general product items shipped. Consumer electronics is paid at a flat rate of 4%. Kindle, MP3,video on demand and game downloads a...

One way to get your blog to grow is add social bookmarking buttons to your Blogger Blogspot blog . In an earlier article I wrote about the simplest way to place social media on a Blogger blog - that is to add an all-in-one Add This social bookmarking button . However, as one size doesn't fit all situations there may be lots of times when you would prefer to add individual social bookmark buttons to your Blogger blog . That's why I have put together this list of useful free social bookmarking button sets. All are free to use on a personal blog and most have no restrictions for commercial use either but please do double check the license when you download them if you want to use the buttons commercially. Best Sources of Social Bookmarking Buttons for Blogger Blogspot 128 Completely Free Icons Set 128 Icons available in 48×48px. Includes Social Media Icons such as: Design Float, Digg, Delicious, Furl, Technorati, Flickr, Stumble Upon, Twitter & more… Web 2.0 Icons (23 icons...

Today's tutorial will teach you how to add a very simple image slider to the sidebar or content area of your Blogger Blogspot blog. The image slider will enable you to show off your images to readers and makes a nice addition to a personal blog. Each scrolled image is linked to the related post so that readers can find the posts they are interested in very easily. When the reader hovers over the image the slider stops and resumes again when the mouse is removed. See a for a working demo of this image slider in the content area or for a working demo of this image slider in the sidebar area . This slider is so simple you will be able to have it up and running in about 5 minutes. No change to the template is required making it a breeze to install. Even if you are very new to Blogger and a beginner I will show you just how easy it is to add an image slider to your Blogger blog. How To Add a Very Simple Image Slider to a Blogger Sidebar (note this code will scroll the image from bottom...

In this tutorial you will learn how to place a Twitter Follower Counter on your Blogger Blogspot blog to display the number of followers you have on Twitter. A Twitter count button will encourage readers to follow you on Twitter much in the same way as putting a Feedburner subscriber counter on your blog will encourage new subscribers. How To Place a Twitter Followers Counter on Blogger 1. Login to Blogger if not already logged in 2. Navigate to Layout > Page Elements 3. Click on the link to Add a Gadget to the sidebar or footer 4. Select HTML/Javascript from the list of gadgets 5. Paste the following script into the widget content box depending on the button your prefer: Standard Button <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://twittercounter.com/embed/?username= yourTwitterusername "></script> Black Button <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://twittercounter.co...

Outbrain provides a free and very stylish content recommendations and ratings widget which can be easily added to your Blogger Blogspot blog. In this tutorial I will discuss the benefits of Outbrain and also provide a step by step walkthrough of the process of adding an Outbrain widget to your Blogger blog and your Feedburner FeedFlare if you have burned your blog feed at Feedburner. Benefits of Adding Outbrain to Your Blogger Blog By adding an Outbrain content and ratings widget to your Blogger blog you will encourage visitors to record their reactions to a post they have just read. Along with features likes polls this is another good method of encouraging visitors to interact with your blog. Outbrain also makes it possible to display your most popular posts within the widget. In addition the Outbrain ratings widget may help drive more traffic to your blog when your visitors use the Recommended Posts feature which is embedded in the widget. By the same token it may also mean that the...

If you are experiencing problems with the Add a Gadget feature not showing up in the Layout Screen of your Blogger Blogspot blog then read on as I have found the solution to this annoying problem. The other day I discovered to my horror I had lost the option to Add a Gadget in the layout screen of all my blogs in Blogger. Typically it couldn't have happened at a worse time as I had just planned to sit down to write some new posts. I looked in the Blogger help section for the solution but could find no reference to the problem. I eventually found the answer, after about 15 minutes, buried in the Blogger Help Group section. I thought I would therefore post a short tip for anyone out there looking for a quick answer to the loss of the Add a Gadget function from the Layout Screen. Clear Your Browser's Cache When the Add a Gadget feature is missing from you Layout screen and you have tried refreshing it probably means you need to clear the cache of your browser . In Internet...

Blogspot blogs at Blogger.com have no categories only labels. This Blogger tutorial will show you how to manually create categories in Blogger from your existing labels so that all the articles listed under a particular label will be displayed. While this way to add categories to Blogger is not an ideal solution it will mean that you can display a logical grouping of your most popular articles under the one heading. This article is aimed at new bloggers and beginner bloggers although it is suitable for all Blogger bloggers (Blogspot bloggers). No changes to the template are required to add these categories to your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog). How to Create Categories from Labels in Blogger One easy way to create a categories section in Blogger is to simply rename the title of the labels widget as categories. This solution does not work for me because on this blog I have a huge number of labels and I don't want to show this widget at the top of my sidebar. An easy way round th...