Spice Up Your Blog

Blogger Adds Built In Stats For All Blogs

2010-07-05T01:31:00.006+01:00

Continuing with the almost constant addition of new features to Blogger the Blogger team today announced the release of 'Blogger Stats'.Many Bloggers use Hit counters or Stat counters to keep track of visitors to their blogs.However now at first in Blogger In Draft and soon to be added to the main blogger dashboard you can access in dept stats and facts for all your blogs.

What Stats Are Covered

Not only can you see how many visitors your blog gets daily, weekly, monthly and over all time you can also see some interesting and useful information connected to your blog.Which posts are getting the most hits, Traffic sources -Were are the visitors coming from (Which websites or search engines), Traffic origins - were in the world visitors come from and more...

"....The coolest thing about the new Blogger Stats is that it monitors and analyzes your visitor traffic in near-real-time. You can see which posts are getting the most visits and which sites are sending traffic to your blog right now. For example, if a reader shares one of your blog posts on Twitter and the post is getting lots of clicks, you will see a traffic increase in Blogger Stats almost instantly, with the particular Tweet mentioning your post being identified as the traffic source. Of course, traffic data across longer time periods (day/week/month) and all-time historical data are available as well...."

How To Access The Blogger Stats

As with all new features stats has been added at first to Blogger in draft.This way if there are any errors they can be reported and fixed before being added to the main site.New features are usually added to the main site within a week.

You can check out the stats right now by going to your dashboard via Blogger in draft click here.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post. If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

This is another great feature and having the stats associated to your blog available via the dashboard will be a great help.You can view the Blogger in Draft blog post on Stats by following this link :

Blogger in Draft: Introducing Blogger Stats

Were you using a hit counter or Google Analytics for your blog ?

What do you think of the new Stats ?

New Blogger Features - Share Icons - Video Player - Post Previews

2010-06-27T20:00:00.005+01:00

Over the last few weeks the Blogger team have added a few great new features to Blogger.Included in these changes are a much improved preview feature, a new video player and a set of Share buttons you have below all your posts.These features are available to all bloggers and in this post i will show you how to use them on your blog.

New Blogger Video Player

As Google own both Blogger and YouTube it makes sense that they would make the YouTube style video player available on Blogger.The old Blogger video player was slower and didn't have the option to skip to different parts of a video.The new player has the speed we are used to on YouTube and the time bar allowing you to skip.The old video was also missing the full screen option which is now available.

New Share Options Below Posts

The new Blogger share buttons are easy to add and offer readers the option to share your posts by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and Blogger.The buttons can be added by ticking the new section provided when you edit the post options on your Layout/Design page.The image below shows how to find them.

New Improved Blogger Post Previews

The old post previews were poor at best but the latest addition to Blogger allows you to see a preview of your post exactly as it will look when published.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post. If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Official Blogger Posts On New Features :

Official Blogger Buzz Post On Video Player And Previews

Official Blogger Buzz Post On New Share Icons

All great additions to Blogger i think you will agree.Hopefully they will now get to work on Improving the comment system which needs to be updated (Hence this blog using Disqus comments).

What do you think of the latest features ?

P.S. Some people were holding out on making the change to the new post editor because it did not have a spell check.You will be glad to know the Spell check has been added to the new post editor and it's also been improved.

How To Add A Free Toolbar To Your Blog

2010-04-24T17:00:00.002+01:00

Many bloggers have taken advantage of the extra options they can provide to readers by adding a toolbar to their blogs.You may have seen the toolbars in question on some of your favorite blogs and wondered how to add a toolbar to your blog or what are the advantages of using a toolbar, in this post we will look at were to get a toolbar and the options offered by the two big sites that offer free toolbars.

The two biggest free toolbar websites are The Meebo Toolbar and The Wibiya Toolbar and both offer options for sharing, chat, Stats, Rss and more.

Meebo Toolbar

The Meebo bar allows visitors to your blog to share posts on the major social bookmarking and networking websites.Visitors can also access their social networks and chat directly from the toolbar.Among the other features is an accurate analytics option to track how many hits your blog is receiving.You can see all the options and instructions for adding the Meebo bar to your blog on www.Bar.Meebo.Com

Wibiya Toolbar

The Wibiya toolbar probably offers more options than the Meebo toolbar however adding too many options may only confuse readers.Included in the options is a blog search, translate option, lots of facebook options including sharing and chat, live stats and much more including blog notifications.For more info and details on how to add the Wibiya toolbar to your blog check out www.Wibiya.Com

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Pros And Cons

Adding a toolbar to your blog is totally a matter of taste, both toolbars work well and wont slow page load time on your blog too much.Wibiya defiantly has more options and you can add or remove as many addons as you like.Check them both out and see if a toolbar can help your blog.

Opinions And Others

While their are other options such as the AddThis ShareBar i think these are the top two, but maybe you have found others if so let us know.

Will you be adding Meebo Or Wibiya to your blog ?

What Other Ads Can Be Used With AdSense On Your Blog

2010-03-21T23:00:00.003Z

For bloggers AdSense is the main option when it comes to making money from blogs.In fact AdSense is the only option when it comes to target advertising on your blog.There are two reasons behind this, first under the AdSense terms and conditions (T.O.S.) you may only use one target advertising service on your blog or website.By target advertising what is meant is an Advertiser like AdSense that crawl your blogs content and deliver Ads based on the content of each page.The second reason AdSense is the only option for target advertising is the competition is at best poor.You can only use one so the smart money is on AdSense and not a competitor like Bidvertiser.

Note : Their are some affiliate links in this post for Infobarrel and Chitika.

I go in to this in more dept in a recent article i wrote for InfoBarrel that you may also want to check out for ways to make more money from AdSense that are within the T.O.S. - 12 Ways To Make More From AdSense without getting banned.In fact Joining Inforbarrels AdSense sharing scheme will also help increase your AdSense earnings, you can get all the info on joining here - Make Money From Info Barrel.

Getting back to the subject, we know we cant use two advertisers that use content to target ads at your readers so what advertising can you use ? Lets first look at a few options and then i will tell you what in my opinion is the best option.

Types Of Ads That Can Be Used With AdSense

Directly Selling Advertising On Your Blog - You can sell ad space on your blog, you can sell the ad space directly or use an outside agency to sell the advertising for you.The outside agency like Buy sell ads provide you with "Advertise Here" banners and when people click they buy that space from the agency.The agency is a middleman and takes a cut for it's services.The problem with selling ad space or more to the point getting people to buy the ad space is you need traffic and lots of it.If your blog is not getting a few thousand page views a day its likely to be a waste of time as you wont find buyers.

Affiliate Advertising On Your Blog - Affiliate advertising works in a similar way to selling ad space, you place banner ads on your blog for other websites.The big difference is when you sell ad space you are paid Weekly/Monthly or for impressions with affiliate marketing you get paid when someone clicks and ad on your blog and buys a product or spends money on the advertisers website.You will get paid a commission and the commissions vary for each advertiser.

Some of the options for affiliate advertising include the popular Amazon which can be added automatically for Blogger users.Google have their affiliate branch (Of course) the Google option is the Google affiliate network and this can be connected with your AdSense account.In fact their is no shortage of affiliate marketplaces such as Clickbank and Commission Junction to name a few.

Search Targeted Advertising - While i do display affiliate ads from both clickbank and the Google affiliate network the advertiser i make most from after AdSense is Chitika.Chitika ads work on a Pay Per Click system like AdSense but because they target the ads in a different way you can use them along with AdSense.

How Chitika Ads Work - While AdSense crawl your blog and base the ads on the keywords and phrases used Chitika ads are based fully on search traffic.Once you Sign Up For Chitika and add the code to your blog ads are only displayed to search traffic.So if someone finds this blog by searching Google for Blogger Tips they will be shown ads based on Blogger tips, if someone comes to this blog in any other way Chitika ads will not be displayed (You have the option to use filler ads).

I have Chitika ads in the sidebar of this blog right now - If you came here via a search engine you will see them, if you came directly or via any other link or feed they are not visible.

There is a bit more into the workings of Chitika ads that you can find out on their website or help pages.I would defiantly recommend checking it out and you can get all the extra information and sign up options here : Chitika Ad Network.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

With any advertiser including AdSense traffic equals cash plain and simple.But you don't need to be getting monster amounts of traffic, a steady flow of a few hundred page views a day may help pay for your family holiday.

Have You Had Success With Chitika Or Any Of The Mentioned Advertisers Mentioned ?

What advertising if any do you use on your blog ?

Blogger Custom Domains - How To Create A Sub Domain

2010-03-13T20:10:00.004Z

When you first start your blog on blogger.com you are provided with a free URL / Web Address.When i started this blog i choose the free URL www.spiceyourblog.blogspot.com.This free URL is different to a normal URL and is called a Sub Domain, the reason it is called a sub domain is because it is part of a main domain.The main domain in question is www.blogspot.com and every blog started on blogger is given a sub domain connected to www.blogspot.com.

It is hard explain it any clearer than that, but the main thing to know is that if you bought a domain name directly from Blogger or Google you can also create a sub domain for the main domain you bought.

Lets look at an example - The domain name for this blog is www.spiceupyourblog.com and i bought this domain directly from blogger.

Last week i added a sub domain to www.spiceupyourblog.com , i wanted a unique about me page (We will look into this in a later post) so i created this sub domain :

www.about.spiceupyourblog.com

You can see the address is in the same format as the blogspot domains :

www.xxxx.blogspot.com
www.xxxx.spiceupyourblog.com

As Sub domains are just additions to your original domain they are free.

I have used a sub domain for an about me page but the possibility's are endless :

www.forum.spiceupyourblog.com
www.templates.spiceupyourblog.com
www.contact.spiceupyourblog.com

You could have sales pages, sign up pages, landing pages, anything you like really, you could even start a whole new blog using a sub domain.

Setting Up A Sub Domain With Blogger Bought Domains

The main reason people buy domains directly from blogger is ease of use.When you buy directly from Blogger all the work involved in connecting the new domain to your blog is done for you.For a beginner this is very important, However changing the settings of a domain bought directly from Blogger is a little tricky.

So far we have talked about buying domain names directly from blogger, of course Blogger is owned by Google so in fact you are buying from Google (You are using Enom but lets not make it too confusing).

Once you bought your domain you were given a Google Apps account, Remember ?

The first step is to go to your Google Apps account, so lets get started.

Step 1. Go To Google Apps : https://www.google.com/a/

Step 2. On the Google apps home page under the header you will see the log in option:

"Returning User ? Sign In Here" <--Click that option

Step 3. In the area provided Enter Your Domain Name and from the drop down menu choose "Manage This Domain" then click Go as shown below :

You still have to enter your username and password - This is the username associated with your Domain.You got a free Email account with your domain name this is the username.

Step 4. You are now in your Google Apps dashboard.

Click "Domain Settings" Then "Domain Names" Then "Advanced DNS Settings" as shown below :

Step 5. You are now at the last step within Google Apps, you will be provided with a username and password to log into Enom and manage the advanced settings.

Remember or copy the username and Click "Sign in to DNS console" then sign in your domain management with those details.

You will now be on a page similar to the one below :

Step 6. Click the "Edit" button for the section "Host Records" as shown below :

Step 7. For this example we are going to add a contact subdomain - The sub domain will be :

www.contact.spiceupyourblog.com

A - Click "Add New" (circled in red below) Twice to open two new sections.

B - Enter contact and www.contact (circled in blue below) into the "host name" areas.

C - Enter ghs.google.com. (circled in black below) in both "address" areas

D - Enter CNAME(Alias) (Circled in brown below) in the "Record Type" areas.

Step 8. Once your sure you have everything in the right place click save in the bottom right.

You have now created a Sub Domain and the next step is to create the blog that is going to use that sub domain.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Creating A Blog And Connecting To Your Sub Domain

If you are creating a sub domain for your blog you have obviously already gone through the process of connecting a domain to blogger.Connecting your sub domain is the very same.

You create your new blog, pick a name, choose the blogspot URL - you will be changing this to your sub domain so its not important.

Once your new blog is set up go to Settings > Publishing > Switch To Advanced Settings > Enter the Sub domain you created into the area provided > Scroll to the bottom of the page and save.

As with your original domain your blogger sub domain may take a little time to connect although usually it connects within a few hours.

I hope you can follow the steps and take advantage of Sub Domains, remember if you do not renew a domain or let a domain expire you will loose the domain and all associated sub domains.

Let us know if you managed to create some Sub Domains for your blogger blog.

Did you know you could create sub domains ?

Remove The Blogger Quick Edit Pencil And Spanner Icons

2010-03-06T23:25:00.003Z

A recent question i received was about the quick edit icons on blogger.The quick edit icons are the spanner and screwdriver that appear below all the gadgets on your blog and the pencil that appears at the top or bottom of your blog posts.

These icons are shortcuts you can use when on your blog to make quick changes.The spanner and screwdriver can be clicked to make a change to any gadget in your sidebar or elsewhere on your blog while the pencil can be clicked to edit a post. I actually find these very useful, however if you want them removed from your blog it's an easy process.

Screenshot Of Blogger Quick Edit Options

The quick edit pencil for editing your posts and the quick edit spanner and screwdriver for editing your gadgets are removed separately and here's how it's done.

Remove Quick Edit Pencil

Step 1. In your blogger dashboard click 'Layout'

Step 2. Click the 'Edit' option for your blog posts as shown below :

Step 3. UN-Check the 'Show Quick Editing' box as shown below :

Step 4. Click save and the quick edit pencil will no longer appear on your blog.

Remove Quick Edit Spanner and Screwdriver

Step 1. In your dashboard click 'Layout' > 'Edit Html'

Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs html :
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to find the code - More Info)

]]></b:skin>

Step 3. Paste the following code Directly Above / Before ]]></b:skin>

.quickedit{display:none;}

Save your template and the quick edit tools have been removed from your blog.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

You can always switch back in the future, and remember if you keep them in place no one else can use them.

Have you removed the quick edit options, and if so why ?

How To Add A Reply Option To Blogger Comments

2010-03-06T03:20:00.005Z

One of the options the default blogger comments lack is the option to reply to an individual comment.In fact it was one of the reasons i changed from blogger comments to Disqus comments.I have however come across a cool blogger hack that will enable comment replies for blogger.

With a small piece of code your comments will include a reply option.This cool tutorial was originally posted on thisischen.com.

ScreenShot :

You can see a quick demo of the effect on this blog : Demo Blog - Comment replies

This is a really helpful blogger trick and you have have the comment reply option on your blog in just three steps !

Adding Comment Replies To Blogger

Step 1. In your dashboard Click 'Layout' > 'Edit Html'> Tick the 'Expand Widget templates' box

Step 2. Find the following code in your blogs Html :
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code - More Info, Blogger Basics)

<data:commentPostedByMsg/>

Step 3. Paste the following code Directly Below/After <data:commentPostedByMsg/>

<span class='comment-reply'><a expr:href='"https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=YOUR-BLOG-ID&postID=" + data:post.id + "&isPopup=true&postBody=%40%3C%61%20%68%72%65%66%3D%22%23" + data:comment.anchorName + "%22%3E" + data:comment.author + "%3C%2F%61%3E#form"' onclick='javascript:window.open(this.href, "bloggerPopup", "toolbar=0,location=0,statusbar=1,menubar=0,scrollbars=yes,width=400,height=450"); return false;'>[Reply to comment]</a></span>

Edits : You must make one change to the code - In order for the gadget to display the posts for your blog you must add your blogger I.D.

To find your Blogger I.D. simply go to your layout page, posting page or any of the pages you access from your dashboard and copy your I.D. from the address bar at the top of the page.

Your Blog I.D. is a the number that appears in the URL - This is how your I.D. will be displayed :

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Once you have your blog I.D. added save your template and the comment replies have been added.

If you need more help just ask, have you added the reply option ?

Add A Full Lenght Gadget Or Adsense Leaderboard Below Your Blog Header

2010-02-24T22:41:00.005Z

At the time of writing i have a 728x90 AdSense leaderboard between the header and post area on the home page of the blog.Basically i have added a gadget that spans the entire with of the layout.The default settings for this template and for lots of custom templates do not allow you to place gadgets in this area.

If your in the same position you will be glad to know changing this setting is easy.I have opened up this area for an AdSense unit but once you have changed the code you can of course add any gadgets across the top of your blog.

You may also be thinking why cant you see the AdSense leader board on this page, i recently posted a hack showing How to show gadgets on only your blogger home page or post pages.With this hack in place the leaderboard is only visible on the homepage.

Cross Column Gadgets

Gadgets Not Allowed - This area is called the Cross Column and the screenshot below shows there is no option to place gadgets in the cross column :

Gadgets Allowed - Once we change the code you will have a brand new 'add a gadget' area :

Placing gadgets in the cross column

Step 1. In your dashboard Click 'Layout' > 'Edit Html' > Tick the 'Expand Widget Templates' box

Step 2. In your template find the following code :
(Click CTRL and F for a search bar to find the code - More Info)

<b:section class='crosscol' id='crosscol' showaddelement='no'/>

Step 3. Change Showaddelement='no' to Showaddelement='yes' as shown below :

<b:section class='crosscol' id='crosscol' showaddelement='yes'/>

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

You can now save your template and return to the layout page where you will be greeted with the new 'add a gadget' option.

Allow Gadgets In All Available Areas

Break down the change you made - There may be other areas you can add gadgets to your layout that are blocked.The code i changed is 'showaddelement' which breaks into 'Show Add Element'.Search your template for every occurrence of 'showaddelement' and switch 'no' to 'yes'.

You may also want to see how to put AdSense above or below your header.

More Help Is Only A Comment Away.

The 5 Reasons I Changed From Blogger Comments To Disqus Comments

2010-02-23T18:21:00.004Z

You may have noticed i changed the blogs default comment system to Disqus comments this week.The decision to make what is a major change to Spice Up Your Blog was not taken lightly.Comments are important to all bloggers and the feedback from comments can determine the direction we take going forward.On a Help blog like this it's also important to make it easy for people to ask questions and also easy for me to reply.

The change to Disqus probably would have been made earlier, but the comments already left on posts in the archive would have been deleted and for me this wasn't an option.There was an option to use Disqus comments only on new posts, but it looked odd when you went from a post with Blogger comments to a post with Disqus comments and Visa-versa.Recently Disqus added the option to Import all the existing comments onto their system and that was the green light needed for me to make the change.

Top 5 Features Of Disqus Comments

There are lots of small settings and functions that swayed me to make the change but here are the deciding factors, they may help if your thinking of changing to Disqus.

1. Moderate And Reply Options

When a new comment is posted i receive an Email the same as with Blogger comments however the options to reply to a comment are much more versatile.

Reply by Email - With Disqus i can reply to the comment directly from the email.I click the reply button in my Email and enter my reply directly below the comment as it appears in my inbox , once i click send my reply is posted on the blog.

Reply from the dashboard - When I'm away from the computer for a few hours if i have received for example ten comments i can go to my Disqus dashboard to manage the comments.From here i can read the comments and see which posts the comments were posted on.I can click on each comment and reply or delete the comments from the dashboard, now i am replying to 10 comments on one page without the need to go to the blog.

Direct reply - The default blogger comments do not allow you to reply directly to a comment, this can lead to confusion and i often see bloggers having to use '@' to specify which person the were replying to for example '@Pat...' '@John...' i can now post a reply and it will be attached to the bottom of each comment.

Image : The Disqus Dashboard / Moderate comments

Circled In Blue : Recent Comments
Circled In Brown : Replied To comments Via Dashboard
Circled In Red : Most Recent Commend Click To Read And Reply

2. 'Comment As' options and attachment options

The Disqus comments allow users to comment as a guest with their Name and URL or if they have a Disqus account they can comment with that profile.But they can also comment with their social network and online profiles.I have provided the options to comment using the following profiles :

*Twitter *Facebook *Yahoo *OpenId (Did You Know Your Blogger URL is an open Id?)

When you leave a comment you can also add an image or video to your comment.

Image : Disqus Comment Options

Circled In Red : Comment With Your Social Accounts
Circled In Blue : Set How To View Comments

3. Reactions

If you share a post on Twitter, Facebook, Digg or any of the main social bookmarks or networks it is displayed as a reaction below the comment area.If for example you share this post on twitter it will be displayed with a link to your Twitter account and a link to your blog or website.Extra encouragement for users to share posts and more posts being shared for the blogger.You also have a 1 click option to share you actual comment on your Twitter and Facebook.

4. Ratings

The rating system is similar to the Facebook option of 'Like This' .Each comment has the option for users to click 'Like This' if they see a comment they like.While this is a nice social feature for your comments it also serves in deciding the order in which your comments are displayed.

I have my comments ordered by 'Popular' so the comment that most people liked Will appear first not the comment posted first.I can also order by date, newest first or oldest first and the user can change how the comments are ordered with the drop down menu show in the image Above.

Image : Disqus Reactions And Rating

Circled In Blue : Like This And Reply Options
Circled In Brown : Who Liked The Comment
Circled In Red : Reactions

5. Appearance

We cover many topics on Spice Up Your Blog but the main subject is appearance and Disqus comments simply look better.There are three default styles you can use *Narcisuss *Classic A *Classic B and you can also add custom css to style the appearance or choose color themes to suit your blogs theme.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Notes : If you decide to make the change be sure to click the option 'Import old comments' and follow through to the import page.

The other most popular comment system is Intense Debate and you may want to check them out before changing.

I'm not saying you should change there is nothing wrong with the default blogger comments but if you are looking for more comment options Disqus is a great solution.If you decide to stay with the default comments, there are some Tips and Tricks for Blogger comments you can try.

I would love to hear your opinions on Disqus and if you like the change, also if your a Disqus user why did you change ?

If you need any help with any aspect of the post you can try out the new comment system and leave a comment and i will be glad to reply...Directly.

How To Display Gadgets On The Page Of Only One Post In Blogger

2010-02-18T05:41:00.004Z

In a recent post we looked at how to display gadgets and widgets on only the home page or the post pages of your blog.The effect could give both your home page an post pages a unique look and make the most of the space on both.

A comment on that post from Kate asked the following :

Is there a way to make a gadget appear on only ONE of the extra "Pages" that Blogger allows us? Or, a way to add a gadget to one Blog Post that I can create a hyperlink to?

I looked at using a similar technique as in the other post and it worked, So The answer is Yes You can display gadgets on only the page of a specific post, great question and here's how it's done.

Post Specific Gadgets In Your Blog

Step 1. You must first have the post published and then add the gadget as normal.

You will have to find the gadget in your blogs html so make sure to give it a unique title.You should give it the title xxxxx and later change this or remove it.You will also need the URL address of the post you want the gadget to be available on.The URL is the address that appears in the address bar at the top of your browser.

Once the gadget is added you can move to the next step.

Step 2. In your dashboard Click 'Layout' > 'Edit Html' > Tick the 'Expand widget templates' box

Step 3. Now you want to find the gadget in your template so you look for the title of your gadget or xxxxx if you used that name.

(The easiest way to do this is to click 'CTRL and F' for a search bar to help find the code - for more info on this Click Here.)

Step 4. Once you find the gadget it will look similar to the code below you can see the title xxxxx, the code displayed here is the entire code for the gadget :

<b:widget id='HTML1' locked='false' title='xxxxx' type='HTML'>
<b:includable id='main'>

<b:if cond='data:title != ""'>
<h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<data:content/>
</div>

<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:includable>

Note: For some gadgets like your archive, the section will be larger but you want everything between :

<b:widget id='HTML1' locked='false' title='xxxxx' type='HTML'>

And

</b:includable>

Step 5. Now we have the code for the gadget we have to add two pieces of code to make it display on only one post.

Copy the code in red below and add it to the positions as shown :

<b:widget id='HTML1' locked='false' title='Recent Posts' type='HTML'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "PUT-THE-POST-URL-HERE"'>

<b:if cond='data:title != ""'>
<h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<data:content/>
</div>

<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:if>
</b:includable>

Now replace PUT-THE-POST-URL-HERE with the URL of the post you want the gadget to be on.

Once you sure you have the code added correctly you can save your template.The gadget should only appear on the page of the post you entered.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Note : You can edit the gadget and change the name from xxxxx or remove the title.

Great question Kate, i hope this helps and I'm sure it's a trick that will help other as well.Here is the link for the post on setting gadgets to post pages and the home page only.

If you ever have a question or a suggestion for a post you can use the comments or the 'Contact me' form I'm always looking for suggestions.

How To Create A Mobile Device Version Of Your Blog For Free

2010-02-16T01:05:00.002Z

In this post we are going to bring your blog to a whole new audience.Have you ever tried to view your blog on an IPhone ? Not a pretty sight and very hard to navigate so by the end of this post you will have a Mobile version of your blog available with it's very own URL address, a cool look, Mobile phone friendly and it's free.

According to IDC (Interactive Data Corp) there will be over 1 Billion people using the mobile Internet 2013.We bloggers have to jump on that bandwagon, that's 1 Billion potential readers for your blog.The mobile traffic available from Twitter and Facebook alone is huge.You can even monatize your mobile blog with AdSense and other ad publishers.

The great thing is how easy the mobile version is to set up, it only takes a few steps and you can add a small piece of code to your blogger template that will detect when someone access your blog with a mobile device and send them to the mobile view.

I have set up a mobile version of Spice Up Your Blog so you can see how it works and it genuinely took me less than 3 minutes.You can later go into detail and you could even build a totally custom mobile layout but we will look at first getting your blogs mobile version 'Live' .

Your Blogs Mobile URL

You can buy a custom domain for the mobile version of your blog, i have used the free sub domain and here it is :

www.spiceupyourblog.mobify.me

If you have a mobile device connected to the Internet you can check it out, if not you can still see the page on your computer and get an idea of whats displayed.

I have not had the chance to do much work with the mobile blog yet so you will notice i only have the header and posts included.

How to get your mobile blog online

Step 1. Go To Mobify.me and register for a free account.Once registered ou will arrive on your dashboard.

Step 2. Enter your blogs address in the 'Mobify a website' section and click Mobify

Step 3. You will Now View Your Blog inside a frame, choose the areas of your blog you want to be available on your mobile blog.

You choose what is to be imported onto the mobile version of your blog with a simple 'Select and Click' method - Hover your cursor over the area you want added and you will see red borders appear around the area, press select and it's added.

For larger areas drag the red border until it covers the whole area.It's recommended to use a one column layout, basically your header, posts area and footer.

Read More = Full Posts

On the Home page of this blog i use preview boxes (Click here to see the home page in a new window) that contain a thumbnail image and short summary.I simply dragged the red border over the whole area and all the summary box's.As you see on the mobile Spice Up Your Blog this converted into my full posts being showed.The same will apply to blogs with the 'Read More' function.

Once you have selected the areas you want added click save to get a preview and then 'LAUNCH' - Your mobile version blog is live online.

Directing Mobile Traffic From Your Blog To Your Mobile Device Blog

You now need to add a piece of code to your template that will send mobile visitors to the mobile version of your blog.

In your Mobify dashboard click 'Live' under your your blog title - You can see it in the screen shot above with the text bubble 'Have you launched your site yet'.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see the code needed as shown below :

No in your Blogger dashboard Click 'Layout' -> 'Edit Html'

Find the following code in your blogs html :
(It's at the very top)

<head>

Paste the code you copied from mobify Directly Below <head>

Save your template.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

These steps will get you started but when you have the time take a look at the mobify forum for extra help and tips on adding extra css style and page elements to your mobile blog.

What do you think - Cool Yeah ?

Extra Note - When i was checking the numbers of Mobile Internet Users the report i mentioned also stated that more than 2.2 billion people, over one-third of the world's population, will be using the Internet in some form by 2013.That's up from around 1.6 billion today, it's a great time to be a Blogger.Once your mobile blog is live you can click 'Advertising' in the edit page to put an AdSense unit on the page.

Add A Feed Icon Beside Your Labels And Give Every Category It's Own Feed

2010-02-02T02:29:00.003Z

Recently we have been talking a lot about Rss Feeds, Email feeds and Feedburner.In this post we will stay on that subject, the trick i cover in this post has a few purposes but the main purpose is to give readers of your blog the option to subscribe to a category you write on as well as subscribing to your entire blog.Every label on your blog has its own feed by default but there is no easy way for people to access it.Once you have made this change every label in you labels list will have a feed icon beside it.

You can see the effect used in my labels in the sidebar, i have titled my labels list 'Recommended Categories'.If you click any of the icons you will go to the feed page for that category and will have the option to subscribe to all posts i write using that label.

As well as giving the option to subscribe to a single category, i think the icons look great and enhance the appearance of your label list.To that end i will show you how to change the feed icon image from the one i use and i will give you some samples.

Here is a screenshot of the result :

This tutorial involves replacing a section of code and although it's only a small section make sure your template is backed up in case you go wrong, click the 'Extra Help' link at the top of the post to see how.

Adding the icons

Step 1. In your dashboard click 'Layout' ► 'Edit Html' ► Tick the 'Expand Widget Templates' box

Step 2. You now have to find a small section of code in your blogs html.
Dont worry i will walk you through the process.

Here is the section we will be replacing :

<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<li>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<span expr:dir='data:blog.languageDirection'><data:label.name/></span>
<b:else/>
<a expr:dir='data:blog.languageDirection' expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
<span dir='ltr'/>
</li>
</b:loop>

The best way to find the section is to find the first line of the code shown below :
(Note: Click CTRL and F for a search bar to find the code - For more info on this click the 'Extra Help' link at the top of the post)

<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>

Now from the first line you can scan down to locate the entire section.

The section starts with - <b:loop.....
And ends with - </b:loop>

<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<li>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<span expr:dir='data:blog.languageDirection'><data:label.name/></span>
<b:else/>
<a expr:dir='data:blog.languageDirection' expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
<span dir='ltr'/>
</li>
</b:loop>

Step 3. Now you replace the section of code with the code below :

<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<li>
<a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl + "feeds/posts/default/-/" + data:label.name'><img alt='Subscribe To Label' src='http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad259/spiceupyourblog/rss-feed-16.png' style='vertical-align:middle;border:0'/></a>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<span expr:dir='data:blog.languageDirection'><data:label.name/></span>
<b:else/>
<a expr:dir='data:blog.languageDirection' expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
<span dir='ltr'/>
</li>
</b:loop>

Once you have replaced the code save your template and your feed icons have been added.

Change The Image

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

You will notice part of the code above is in Bold, that is the URL of the Feed icon being used which is this :

I have a few different images you could use instead, to use one of the images below just replace the URL in bold with the URL provided below.

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad259/spiceupyourblog/rss-1.jpg

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad259/spiceupyourblog/red-feed-16.png

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad259/spiceupyourblog/16-1.png

For more help with Feeds and using them to improve your blog Click Here.

Thats it have you added the Icons ?

How To Maxamise The Feedburner Email Subscriptions For Your Blog

2010-01-29T21:10:00.003Z

The Feed burner Email subscriptions is not only an awesome tool for your blog it's also a service you Must make available to the readers of your blog.In the next post i will show you how to create a stylish Subscribe by mail form as the default Feedburner form is very bland.Before we Spice up your Email form you should make sure to optimize the options already available to you.In this post we will look at making the most of the service and taking advantage of the options and settings available.

If you don't have a Feedburner feed yet Click Here to see how to get one and how to set up Email subscriptions for your blog.

Lets look at some of the things you can do with your Email subscriptions these are the four settings available and what they offer:

Subscription Management

The subscription management setting is were you get the code for the Email link and Email form for your blog.You can also scroll down to see how many people have subscribed by Email.You have the option to see the Email addresses of your subscribers and see which subscribers activated their subscriptions, when someone subscribes by Email they are sent a confirmation Email if they don't click the link in the Email they wont be sent your updates.If someone has not activated after a few weeks maybe you could send them an email reminder.

Communication Preferences

When someone subscribes to your blog by mail they receive a confirmation link they must click to activate, although feedburner send a default message you can write your own message and make it more personal.
You can also change the subject of that email, its currently 'Activate your Email Subscription to:'Your Blog Name'.
And you can change the address line of the email by default it will be you@youremal.com.

Email branding

Now that your new subscriber has clicked the confirmation link lets look at how you can change the style of the Email they receive with your latest posts.

Email subject line : The subject on the Email they receive will be the name of your blog, so for my subscribers the subject line in 'Spice Up Your Blog'.This can be changed to anything you like, maybe you want to make this more personal.

Logo URL : You can add a logo to the top of the email your subscribers receive.Simply add the URL of an image you would like to use and it will appear in the top right corner of all emails (You can see a preview of my logo below).

Style : You can change all the text sizes and colors, background colors, link colors and more..

The great thing is Feed burner show you a preview of how the changes will look so if you mess it up you wont have to wait for the emails to be sent out before you can fix it.

Here is the preview of how my Emails look, you can see i added a logo to the top right.I made this logo with a signature maker you can too Click Here to see how.

Delivery Options

With the delivery options you can choose when your Emails will be sent.Depending on were you live or were your main audience come from you should set this to the peak time in that area.

Almost 50% of the visitors to this blog are from the U.S.A. so i have my email delivered between 9pm and 11pm Central time.If your main audience is for example Australian then you should set the delivery time to suit.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

This is a quick look at the options available to you with the Feedburner Email subscriptions and you should optimize these settings for you and your blog not presume the default settings cover everything.

My next post will cover improving the default subscription form from the default like this :

To something more stylish like this :

If you need more help with this post or any feedburner settings just leave a comment.

How To Connect Your Free Co.Cc Domain To Blogger In 12 Quick Steps

2010-01-28T01:49:00.012Z

Last month i showed you how to get a free Domain name for your blog.This post has been very popular with lost of people taking advantage of the service and making the change from the blogger .blogspot.com sub domain.

The free domain offered is from Co.Cc and we covered the pros and cons in this post :

How To Get A Free Domain Name For Your Blog

Since that post i have been contacted by a few people that were unsure how to connect their new free domain with Blogger, others had made some mistakes or skipped steps when connecting their free Co.Cc domain with Blogger.

So in this post i have a full guide with screen size images to help you set up your domain with Blogger.

Here are the 12 steps required

Step 1. Log into your Co.cc account.

Step 2. Click the set up option for your domain.

Step 3. Once again click the set up option.
-

Step 4. Choose option 3 Zone Records and fill in the details as shown below, for value enter :
ghs.google.com

You now have the Co.cc side set up and ready to go we now have to change our settings on Blogger.

Step 5. Log into your Blogger account

Step 6. In your dashboard click 'Settings' then 'Publishing'
Step 7. Click 'Custom Domain'

Step 8. Click 'Switch to advanced settings' (Don't worry it's not too advanced)

Step 9. Enter the domain you created on Co.cc into the space provided.
Step 10. Fill in the Catcha code and click save.

Your domain has now been set and connected to your blog but you have a last setting to complete.

Step 11. Your new domain will probably already in the box but if not add it shown below and tick the redirect box.
Step 12. Once again enter the catcha code and save your settings.

Your done !

Your domain may take some time to connect with your blog although if you have followed the steps correctly it should not take anywhere near the 48 hours you are told.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Remember if you decide to change to another domain in the future or change to a .Com you can set that up and direct your Co.cc to that address.As you now know how the set up works you could buy a Domain from Co.cc and they will look after the rest.

If your still having trouble help is only a comment away.

Remove The 'Showing Posts With Label' Message From Your Blogger Results

2010-01-24T02:10:00.002Z

This post shows you an easy hack that has become quiet popular, i originally posted this as an answer to a query in the Blogger help forum.I spend as much time as i can helping bloggers in the Google Blogger help forum were i am a level 3 moderator.Although as i get busier online with this blog and other ventures and offline with the usual stuff i find it hard to get to the forum as much as i used to or would like to.

Most questions i answer in the forum are very specific to an individual blog or blogger, someone will have messed up their template or need some html help - something may not be working on their blog and a lot of the time its beginners coming in with very basic questions.The community of moderators in the forum are nothing short of amazing and go to extreme lenghts to help with the only return on their time being the joy we all get from helping others and the gratitude of the blogger who had the problem in the first place.

Popular Hack In The Help Forum

This post is based on a question i answered in the forum some time ago.Most questions i answer just fall into the archives but this particular hack was obviously very popular as to this day people still leave comments thanking me for showing how it's done.

What are we Changing ?

When you click on a label or do a search in a blog you get a list of posts using that label or search term.Above the list of posts you will see a small message and link similar to this :

"Showing posts with label XXX XXX. Show all posts" .

You can see a screenshot of the message circled in red below after i clicked the label 'Blogger Templates' on this blog :

A lot of people dont like the message and want to remove it.There is nothing stopping you from removing it if you want so here are the steps..

How To Remove the message

Step 1. In your dashboard click 'Layout' ► 'Edit Html' ► Tick the 'Expand Widget Templates' Box.

The next step requires replacing a section of code so do make sure you have your template backed up use the link at the top of the post to see how.

Step 2. Find the following Code in your blogs html :

Tip: Click CTRL and F for a search bar.Find the first line of the code.Once you have the first line you can find the rest below it.

<b:includable id='status-message'>
<b:if cond='data:navMessage'>
<div class='status-msg-wrap'>
<div class='status-msg-body'>
<data:navMessage/>
</div>
<div class='status-msg-border'>
<div class='status-msg-bg'>
<div class='status-msg-hidden'><data:navMessage/></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style='clear: both;'/>
</b:if>
</b:includable>

Step 3. Replace that code you found with the code below :

<b:includable id='status-message'>
<b:if cond='data:navMessage'>
<div>
</div>
<div style='clear: both;'/>
</b:if>
</b:includable>

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post.
If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Finishing Notes.

Once you have made the change the message should no longer appear when someone clicks a label or does a search within your blog.

This hack is one that some bloggers will like and some wont bother with, however i covered a trick recently that displays your posts as a list instead of displaying full posts when someone clicks a label or searches your blog.

I personally recommend that you implement that hack : Click Here To See The Post

Since we started this post talking about the forum here is a link to my profile page in the forum were you can access the main forum pages from Click Here

Let us know if you made the change and as always help is only a comment away !

New Blogger Settings - Easily Add Extra Pages And Menu Bars To Your Blog

2010-01-21T12:48:00.004Z

In previous posts i have covered adding extra pages like an About Me page, Contact me page and the required Privacy Policy page.Before we would always have to back-date those posts to not appear on your home page or recent posts.

New : I have just added a complete step by step guide to using Static Pages Click Here to check it out.

Today Blogger in Draft has announced the new 'Pages' feature that allows you to create 'Static Pages'.These static pages will be added to a menu bar on your blog.Remember you must be logged into blogger in draft to add Static Pages.To do this you need to log into blogger via Blogger in draft, here is th link : http://draft.blogger.com/.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

If you use a custom template you will have to make some code changes, how to this and all the info needed is in the Official Blogger In Draft Blog :
Blogger in Draft: Pages come to Blogger In Draft

If you have any questions you can post them in the comments section of blogger in draft or you can post them here and i will do my best to help you out.I think this is a great new feature from Blogger whats your opinion ?

You can check out how to create your Extra Pages Click Here.

New Blogger 'Keep Widgets' Setting When Changing Your Template

2010-01-20T06:35:00.006Z

Blogger has just added an exciting new option that makes it so much easier for people to change their template and use a custom template.Now instead of having to delete the widgets on your template when changing you have a "Keep Widgets" button.

One of the biggest turn offs for people who wanted to use a custom template on their blog was when they made the change they would lose most of the widgets and gadgets they had on their old template.There is ways to overcome this but for people with little Html knowledge it was a bridge too far.They often didn't make the change or allowed the widgets to be lost and had the frustrating job of having to find, edit and add them again.

But those dark days are Gone !

You now have the option to click the new "Keep Widgets" button and loose nothing.

Look at the screenshot below :

You are told

"Warning: Your template does not contain the following widgets:"
"Would you like to keep these widgets on your blog or delete them?
Deleting widgets cannot be undone."

Once you click "Keep Widgets" you new template will be uploaded and your Gadgets and Widgets will be kept.You can return to the layout section and move them around if required.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

I think this will lead to total overhaul of blogger and we will see more people who were maybe cautious of using custom templates making the change.

From some of the comments i get here and questions i answer in the Help Form this was a needed change by the Blogger team maybe next they will add an auto unzip option :D

You have no excuse now there are thousands of awesome templates out there go get creative, to get you started here are some of my favorites :

► The Top 10 Dark And Black Style Free Blogger Templates : Click Here

► My Top Ten Magazine Style Free Blogger Templates : Click Here

► My Top Ten Elegent Artistic Style Free Blogger Templates : Click Here

What do you think will this new option help you ?

The Top 5 Built In Blogger Features You Should Be Using

2010-01-19T20:15:00.005Z

I am always working hard to bring you the best new and fresh tips and tricks, hacks and templates, Traffic and S.E.O. advice.
But as this Blog has grown and built a great readership it has become apparent to me that, while you guys are awesome and even the complete newbies manage to go with the flow and are not afraid to jump into their templates and play with the code, some of the really useful default Blogger features and options are either not known to everyone or are not being used properly.

Over the last year alone Blogger has added some really helpful features.You can keep up to date with upcoming features by taking a look at the official Blogger In Draft blog.

This post is about 5 Great Built In Blogger Extras And Settings You should be using, OK you may have used some of these features but have you taken full advantage of them ?

Lets look at the list and how to get the most from each one.
(Don't be afraid to play around with each one if your unsure)

1. Post Template

Post template is a great time saver.

Is there something you use in all or most of your posts ?

Mabey you use some code or tables, images, text, banners etc..

You can use the post template feature to have them automatically added to your post editor.

What does this mean ?

In every post on this blog i include a message reminding you of the option to subscribe by Email, this is the message i use - regular readers will be familiar with it :

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

This message is made up of a Html Table with a grey background, here is the code used for the message :

<table bgcolor="#f5f5f5" border="0"><tbody><tr><td>Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a <strong>free service</strong> provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.</td></tr></tbody></table>

If i was to write this message in every post it would take a lot of time so i paste the code into the post template area and save.Now every time i start a new post the table is already in the post area i just move it into position.

How To access post template :

In your dashboard click 'Settings'►'Formatting'►Scroll to the bottom of the page you will see the option.

If there is something you use in every post, place it in the area provided and click save.Now every time you start a new post it will be already in the post editor.

2. Comment Form Message

The comment form message is a great way to encourage people to comment on your blog or set some rules for people commenting.

You have the option to add a small message above the comment form.

You can write something simple like 'Share your views' or you can use it like i do for a longer message this is a screen shot of my Comment Form Message, you can scroll to my comment area to see the full message :

Some html is also allowed in the form.

How To Access Comment Form Message :

In your dashboard click 'Settings' ► 'Comments' ► Scroll to the 'Comment Form message' option.
Write your message into the box provided and click save.

3. Post Feed Footer

The Comment Feed Footer should be used by all bloggers.It's a great way to add something extra for your subscribers.

What can you add ?

There is a limit on how many characters you can use but there is enough allowed to add simple things like a banner ad or a short personal message.

Some people use this to offer a free giveaway to there subscribers like an Ebook or a free download.

The message you put in your Blogs Feed footer area and will be placed under every post in the feed pages and will be under every post in the Emails you mail subscribers receive.

At the moment i have a Theme Forest banner but sometimes i add links to free templates or Bookmarking sets etc..You can see it in my feed Click Here
(You might as well subscribe while your there :D)

How to Access Post feed footer :

In your Dashboard Click 'Settings' ► 'Site Feed' ► Scroll to Post Feed Footer section.
Add the message or code you want to be below the posts and click save.

4. Scheduled Post Publishing

Scheduled Post publishing is a must have feature and before it was properly added to blogger it was a pain not having the option.

How does it work ?

There are two ways this can be used posting to a future date and backdating posts.

Back-Dating.

If you add a 'About Me' Or 'Contact Me' Or 'Privacy Policy' page or any page i would call 'Extra Pages' to your blog you don't want it to be on the front home page of your blog or in your recent posts, with scheduled Post publishing you can back-date those posts.

Scheduled Future Posting.

If you write more than one post a day it would be advised to leave a gap between the times you publish the posts.Also there have been studies on the best times to publish posts so you could set your posts to be published at a certain time.

If you were going away for a few days or taking a break you could write 3-4 posts before you go and set them to be published one every day.

How to access scheduled Post Publishing.

When you write a post click 'Post Options' at the bottom of the post editor and you will see tithe 'Post Date And Time' Options as Shown below :

Simply set the time and date accordingly, if you set the date and time for next Tuesday at 9PM then the post will automatically publish Next Tuesday at 9PM.

If you set the date back to January 1st 2009 then the post will be archived as if that was the date it was published.

5. Posts On Homepage And Read More.

I actually think a lot of people do know about both these features, for those who don't or for those who are aware of it but still don't take advantage of it we will cover the posts on main page and read more options here.

Most of the blogs i look at use lots of images and videos in the posts and this is great it really spices up the appearance of a blog.
However images, videos and gadgets slow down the loading time of your blog.

If you have 10 full posts on your blogs homepage it could take a minute or two for the page to load and in the Hyper Fast Internet community people want instant results.Basically they wont hang around for your blog to load.

Your home page should not have more than 4-5 full posts or you should use the 'Read More' Function.If you look at my homepage i have a specialized template that only shows a short summery and re sizes the main image, this way i can display 16 posts on the home page and it will still load quickly.

To see how to use the 'Read More' function Click Here

How to set the amount of posts displayed on your homepage

In your dashboard click 'Settings' ► 'Formatting' and the first option is Show X Posts on homepage.

There are lots more small features that could make the Blogging experience much easier for you so take some time to browse around your settings, and as always i will keep you updated with the latest news as it happens.

If you need more info or help on any of these features or if there is one you think i left out and would help the readers let us know.

The Top 10 Dark And Black Style Free Blogger Templates

2010-01-15T21:07:00.002Z

In this post i have 10 awesome Blogger Templates with dark and black themes.Once again picking just ten was almost imposable, i felt like a judge on a reality TV show having to choose a top ten.There was a time when outside of the default Blogger templates the options were limited, but the templates available for Blogger now are unbelievable as designers let their artistic side run wild.All these templates are free and are tested to work on all major browsers.

Note - We now have a sister blog bringing you the best blogger templates daily ! You can check it out here : Spice Up Your Blog Template Gallery

Most of these templates have extra Gadgets and Widgets built in like :

►Social bookmark buttons ►Re-tweet buttons
►Email subscriptions ►Search bars
►Read more functions ►Featured content sliders
►Menu bars and more..

How to get the template.

When on the Demo page for a template below you will see the 'Click here to download' option in the first post , follow that link for details on adding the template to your blog and information on how to edit the Gadgets and widgets.

So i managed to pick a top 10 but i have not put them in any particular order.

Heres the list :

1.Old Black Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

2.All Black Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

3.Fantastic Flowery Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

4.Like Coffee Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

5.Modern Magic Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

6.Artistic Sky Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

7.HPA Wood Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

8.Emo Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

9.Curtain Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

10.Fashion Press Template.

Live Demo And Download Details

To see my Top 10 Magazing Style Templates Click Here
To see My Top 10 Artistic Style Templates Click Here

Thats my top 10, Thanks go to Theme Craft and BloggerStyles.

All the tip's and gadgets in this blog will work great on these templates you could start by adding four columns to the footer Click Here to see how or add the Flower falling effect Click Here to see that post.

Please remember to back up your old template before changing just in case you want to change back.The templates you download have to be unzipped.

I will add more Great lists of templates for you in the future, if you need more help let me know.

Have you a favorite or did i leave out a great dark style template ?

Add Four Columns To The Footer Section At The Bottom Of Your Blog

2010-01-09T23:59:00.007Z

Almost all the new blogger templates have three or four columns in the footer section.It's a great place to add more content to your blog.You can see in my footer section i have made full use of the 3 sections i use.You can add things like your hit counters, about me, links, ads whatever you like.

To see what are we changing take a look at my demo's blog for an example using the minima template : Click Here and scroll to the bottom of the page.You will see the footer has changed from one column to four column and i have put some random widgets in place.

Once you make the change your layout will also change so you can easily add and remove gadgets like in the images below :

Take a look at the before and after images below :

Before :

After :

Lets add 4 columns to your blog

Step 1. In your dashboard click ►►'Layou't ►►'Edit Html'

Find the following piece of code in your template :

(Click CTRL and F for a search bar to find code)

<b:section class='footer' id='footer'/>

Step 2. Replace the code you found with this code :

<div id='footer-column-container'>
<div id='footer1' style='width: 225px; float: left; margin:0; '>
<b:section class='footer-column' id='footer-column-1' preferred='yes' style='float:left;'>
<b:widget id='Text1' locked='false' title='Spice Up Your Blog 4 COLUMN' type='Text'/>

</b:section>
</div>
<div id='footer2' style='width: 225px; float: left; margin:0; '>
<b:section class='footer-column' id='footer-column-2' preferred='yes' style='float:left;'>
<b:widget id='Text4' locked='false' title='Spice Up Your Blog 4 COLUMN' type='Text'/>
</b:section>
</div>

<div id='footer3' style='width: 225px; float: right; margin:0; '>
<b:section class='footer-column' id='footer-column-3' preferred='yes' style='float:right;'>
<b:widget id='Text3' locked='false' title='Spice Up Your Blog 4 COLUMN' type='Text'/>
</b:section>
</div>

<div id='footer4' style='width: 225px; float: right; margin:0; '>
<b:section class='footer-column' id='footer-column-4' preferred='yes' style='float:right;'>
<b:widget id='Text2' locked='false' title='Spice Up Your Blog 4 COLUMN' type='Text'/>
</b:section>
</div>
<div style='clear:both;'/>
</div>

Step 3. Find this piece of code in your template :

]]></b:skin>

Step 4. Add this code Directly above or before ]]></b:skin>

#footer-column-container { border: .3px dotted #cccccc;}

.footer-column { margin: 0 10px 0 10px; padding:5px;
color: #666666; line-height: 1.5em; font-size:12px;}

.footer-column h2 {
padding-bottom:.15em; text-align:center;
font:"normal normal 80% 'Comic Sans MS','Lucida Sans Unicode','Trebuchet MS',Sans-serif";
color:#333333;
line-height:1em; letter-spacing:.1em;
border-bottom: 1px solid #cccccc;}

.footer-column ul { list-style:none; margin:0 0 0; padding:0 0 0;}

.footer-column ul li {
background: url(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rKG-ziTSNUQ/S0lIvwTxXfI/AAAAAAAAAnA/0--Nk6Q6v4g/s320/bullet-1.gif) no-repeat;
margin:0 0 0; padding-left: 16px;
padding-bottom: 0.5em; line-height:1.2em;}

.footer-column .widget {margin:0 0 .5em; padding:0 0 1em;}

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

Now save your template.

The four columns are added to your blog.When you go to your layout you will see four gadgets are already added with the title 'Spice Up Your Blog 4 COLUMN' you just remove them and add the gadgets you want.

Now you have all that extra room you could add a link to Spice Up Your Blog in your footer if you want, just use this link, thanks :

<a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com" target="_blank">I Spiced Up My Blog.</a>

OK what else can you add to your new footer section ?

Here is a list of gadgets and widgets on this blog that you could add : Click Here

Have you changed your footer ? let us know, and if you need more help as always just leave a comment.

Add The Numbered Next And Previous Page Navigation Gadget Under Your Blog Posts

2010-01-07T23:11:00.002Z

Once again we are trying to make it easy for people to navigate your blog.The easier it is for people to Navigate you blog the more likely it is they will stay and become return visitors.I'm sure you have seen this script used on lots of blogs and thought 'I would like that on my blog'.You probably thought adding it to your blog would be hard but once again i have a nice easy piece of code you can add to achieve the effect.

So what exactly is the page navigation widget.

Basically when someone reaches the end of a post they have the option to go to the next page, previous page or click a number to skip to that post, Its something we see on millions of web pages even the Google search page.

Here is how it looks on my blog :

You can see it starting from the first page with just the next option, in the image at the top of the post you how it looks with next and previous.

You can try it out at the bottom of this post, However the template i am using is a specialized template using a specialized read more function that shows posts in a preview box not only on the home page but on all pages so it will work much better on your blog than mine.On your blog it will skip to the the full page of your next post.

Adding it to your blog

Step 1. Click 'Layout' > 'Add a gadget' for your blog

Step 2. Choose Html/Javascript

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

Step 3. Copy the code below and paste it into the Html/Javascript area provided :
(There is a lot of code so be careful to get it all)

<script type="text/javascript">

var home_page_url = location.href;

var pageCount=1;
var displayPageNum=3;
var upPageWord ='Previous';
var downPageWord ='Next';

function showpageCount(json) {
var thisUrl = home_page_url;
var htmlMap = new Array();
var thisNum = 1;
var postNum=1;
var itemCount = 0;
var fFlag = 0;
var eFlag = 0;
var html= '';
var upPageHtml ='';
var downPageHtml ='';

for(var i=0, post; post = json.feed.entry[i]; i++) {

var timestamp1 = post.published.$t.substring(0,19)+post.published.$t.substring(23,29);
timestamp = encodeURIComponent(timestamp1);

var title = post.title.$t;

if(title!=''){
if(itemCount==0 || (itemCount % pageCount ==(pageCount-1))){
if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1 ){
thisNum = postNum;
}

if(title!='') postNum++;
htmlMap[htmlMap.length] = '/search?updated-max='+timestamp+'&max-results='+pageCount;
}
}
itemCount++;

}

for(var p =0;p< htmlMap.length;p++){
if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1) && p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){
if(fFlag ==0 && p == thisNum-2){
if(thisNum==2){
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="/">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}else{
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}

fFlag++;
}

if(p==(thisNum-1)){
html += '<span class="showpagePoint">'+thisNum+'</span>';
}else{
if(p==0){
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/">1</a></span>';

}else{
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ (p+1) +'</a></span>';
}
}

if(eFlag ==0 && p == thisNum){
downPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"> <a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ downPageWord +'</a></span>';
eFlag++;
}
}
}

if(thisNum>1){
html = ''+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}

html = '<div class="showpageArea"><span class="showpageOf"> Pages ('+(postNum-1)+')</span>'+html;

if(thisNum<(postNum-1)){
html += downPageHtml;
}

if(postNum==1) postNum++;
html += '</div>';

var pageArea = document.getElementsByName("pageArea");
var blogPager = document.getElementById("blog-pager");

if(postNum <= 2){
html ='';
}

for(var p =0;p< pageArea.length;p++){
pageArea[p].innerHTML = html;
}

if(pageArea&&pageArea.length>0){
html ='';
}

if(blogPager){
blogPager.innerHTML = html;
}

}

function showpageCount2(json) {

var thisUrl = home_page_url;
var htmlMap = new Array();
var isLablePage = thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")!=-1;
var thisLable = isLablePage ? thisUrl.substr(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.length) : "";
thisLable = thisLable.indexOf("?")!=-1 ? thisLable.substr(0,thisLable.indexOf("?")) : thisLable;
var thisNum = 1;
var postNum=1;
var itemCount = 0;
var fFlag = 0;
var eFlag = 0;
var html= '';
var upPageHtml ='';
var downPageHtml ='';

var labelHtml = '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/search/label/'+thisLable+'?&max-results='+pageCount+'">';
var thisUrl = home_page_url;

for(var i=0, post; post = json.feed.entry[i]; i++) {

var timestamp1 = post.published.$t.substring(0,19)+post.published.$t.substring(23,29);
timestamp = encodeURIComponent(timestamp1);

var title = post.title.$t;

if(title!=''){
if(itemCount==0 || (itemCount % pageCount ==(pageCount-1))){
if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1 ){
thisNum = postNum;
}

if(title!='') postNum++;
htmlMap[htmlMap.length] = '/search/label/'+thisLable+'?updated-max='+timestamp+'&max-results='+pageCount;

}
}
itemCount++;
}

for(var p =0;p< htmlMap.length;p++){
if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1) && p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){
if(fFlag ==0 && p == thisNum-2){
if(thisNum==2){
upPageHtml = labelHtml + upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}else{
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}

fFlag++;
}

if(p==(thisNum-1)){
html += '<span class="showpagePoint">'+thisNum+'</span>';
}else{
if(p==0){
html = labelHtml+'1</a></span>';
}else{
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ (p+1) +'</a></span>';
}
}

if(eFlag ==0 && p == thisNum){
downPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"> <a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ downPageWord +'</a></span>';
eFlag++;
}
}
}

if(thisNum>1){
if(!isLablePage){
html = ''+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}else{
html = ''+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}
}

html = '<div class="showpageArea"><span class="showpageOf"> Pages ('+(postNum-1)+')</span>'+html;

if(thisNum<(postNum-1)){
html += downPageHtml;
}

if(postNum==1) postNum++;
html += '</div>';

var pageArea = document.getElementsByName("pageArea");
var blogPager = document.getElementById("blog-pager");

if(postNum <= 2){
html ='';
}

for(var p =0;p< pageArea.length;p++){
pageArea[p].innerHTML = html;
}

if(pageArea&&pageArea.length>0){
html ='';
}

if(blogPager){
blogPager.innerHTML = html;
}

}

</script>
<script type="text/javascript">

var thisUrl = home_page_url;
if (thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")!=-1){
if (thisUrl.indexOf("?updated-max")!=-1){
var lblname1 = thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.indexOf("?updated-max"));
}else{
var lblname1 = thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.indexOf("?&max"));
}
}

var home_page = "/";
if (thisUrl.indexOf("?q=")==-1){
if (thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")==-1){
document.write('<script src="'+home_page+'feeds/posts/summary?alt=json-in-script&callback=showpageCount&max-results=99999"><\/script>')
}else{document.write('<script src="'+home_page+'feeds/posts/full/-/'+lblname1+'?alt=json-in-script&callback=showpageCount2&max-results=99999"><\/script>')
}
}
</script>

Once you paste in the code click save.

Putting the gadget in place.

Before we finish : If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion Please leave a comment Below.This is a Do-Follow blog.

You will now want to place the gadget under your posts.
Click on the gadgat and 'Drag and Drop it' below the post area as shown below :

Once you have the gadget under your posts click the save button in the top Right of the layout page.

If you want there are some changes you can make to the appearance of the gadget.I wont add them here as it will only confuse people.If you have some knowledge of code and script you can edit the code yourself or you can drop a comment and i will try help you out.

I think this is a great gadget and a 'Must Have' gadget what do you think ?

Adsense Can Ban You For Not Having A Privacy Policy-How To Get One In 2 Clicks

2010-01-05T21:35:00.012Z

Did you know that AdSense require you to have a privacy policy on your Blog or website if you display their ads? Failure to have a privacy policy could see you account being closed and all earnings forfeited.

To be honest i didn't know this until recently and have just added a privacy policy to my own blogs.Here is a quote from the AdSense T.O.S. :

"We've also added some specific requirements that make it necessary for publishers to post and abide by a transparent privacy policy that users see. According to this policy, publishers must notify their users of the use of cookies and/or web beacons to collect data in the ad serving process. This change relates to advertisers' use of innovative products and features like Gadget Ads and other offerings in the future."

As ever this was something i knew my readers needed to be informed of and as most people wouldn't know were to start when writing a privacy policy i looked for and easy form you could copy and add to your blog.I actually found something much better.

While browsing around i found a 'Privacy Policy Generator' all you need to do is add your blog address and your email one click and you privacy policy is ready to be added to your blog or website.

I will show you how to generate a privacy policy and how to add it to your blog.I will also show you how to Back-Date the post so it wont be on your home page or in your recent posts.

Generate your privacy policy.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

Click Here you can see the Privacy Policy Generated for me.

How to get your Privacy Policy.

Click Here to go to the Serprank Generator Page.

You will be asked to provide 3 sections of information as shown in the image below :

Part 1 : Self explanatory add your Email and URL

Part 2 use of cookies : I clicked yes for this because although this blog does not collect cookies directly gadgets like hit counters and stat analyzers do.This shouldn't count but to be honest it makes no difference if you click yes or no.If you say you don't collect cookie info but you actually do it could spell trouble, If you say you do but you don't it means nothing.

Part 3 Advertiser Information : Just tick the boxes of the advertisers you use.If your reading this post i will presume you use AdSense.I added Amazon because i use them somtimes and i also use Clickbank.I also clicked Chitika, although i don't use their ads at the moment i intend to in the near future.So click the ones you use you can always go back if you sign up to another one.

Once this is filled up we click 'Create My Privacy Policy' and you will get your complete policy, copy the whole lot and you are ready to add it to your blog.

Adding it to your blog.

Create a new post for your blog and paste in the copied policy, title the post 'Privacy Policy'.

Back-Date the post.

You don't want the post showing up on your home page or in your recent posts so you can back-date the post.

To do this you click 'Post Options' under the post editor as seen below, here you can change the date.

You can set the date back a few months (I checked the date of my first ever post and set it to the day before so its the first post on the blog).

In the image you can see the date is 1/5/10 you could just change it to 1/5/09.

Once you have changed the date publish the post and your privacy policy is in place.

Please spread the word of this as i don't think many people know it's required an visitors to your blog will thank you for the information.

You can Re-tweet this post to your twitter with the button at the top of the post or share it on Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupn and others with the buttons below the post.

Here is a link you can copy and add to your blog it leads directly back to this post :

<a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/2010/01/google-adsense-can-ban-you-for-not.html" target="_blank">Get A Privacy Policy Page</a>

If you want to copy this Entire post and publish it on your blog you have my permission.
(Please link back here.)

That's it i would like to know if you were aware of this AdSense requirement let me know in the comments.If you need more help you can also leave a comment i'm always glad to help.

How To Get A Free Domain Name For Your Blog

2009-12-30T04:00:00.008Z

A top tip to promote your blog and grow your readership is using a custom domain.Basically instead of using the blogger sub domain www.Yourblogname.blogspot.com you use www.Yourblogname.com.

When i created this blog i started with the domain www.spiceyourblog.blogspot.com
but shortly after changed to
www.spiceupyourblog.com.

The reason everyone doesn't make the change is simple domains cost money.But you can get a domain for free.

(This Post Contains affiliate links)

OK it wont be www.yourblog.com it will be www.yourblog.co.cc but i still think its a valid option that's deserves consideration.

Using a .co.cc domain will separate your blog you blog from the now millions of .blogspot.com blogs and the URL is shorter and more unique.

Even though you are using a new domain your readers wont get left behind as the blogspot address will divert to your new domain.

www.spiceyourblog.blogspot.com will still bring you to this blog even though i changed.

To be honest finding an available .com address is near imposable as most are being used.You will have noticed more and more blogs and websites using others like .net and .info

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its quick easy and of course a free service provided by Google just fill in the form below the post.

So can you find a good free .co.cc address ?

There is a good chance that if your blog address is lets say www.JohnsCarBlog.blogspot.com you will be able to get JohnsCarBlog.co.cc.

Of course if your blog grows you can still make the change in the future and buy a .com or .net domain your .co.cc will still work as well.

To make it easy for you you can check if your preferred address is available right now from this blog.

Type in the domain you would like and see if its available :

If you would like to go to the .co.cc website and check out how it works and get more info Click Here

Whats the catch ?
There genuinely is no catch they dont look for anything and the domain will work the same as a domain you buy.I guess they hope that if in the future you do decide to buy a domain you will buy it from them.

New : As the free domains have become so popular i have added a post showing exactly how to connect your new domain with your Blogger blog.The posts uses full screen shots to show you how to connect in 5 minutes with 12 quick steps.Once you have picked your new domain Click Here to see that post.

Before we finish : If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion Please leave a comment Below.
To help you this is a Do-Follow Blog leaving a comment will also help your blogs Google rank.

If you do need more help let me know.

Do you use a custom domain for your blog or still use the blogspot sub domain ? Let us know.

My Top Ten Magazine Style Free Blogger Templates

2009-12-23T23:01:00.006Z

In this post i will share my top 10 Magazine Blogger Templates.Magazine templates are the most common amongst the top bloggers.They have a professional look and set up nicely for displaying ads or Adsense ready.I have Full size previews below and all the widgets, gadgets and extras you see in the previews and live demos are built in to the template.The template i am currently using is a Magazine template called Bemagazine and is in the list below.

Note - We Now Have A Sister Blog With New Blogger Templates Added Daily ! You Can Check It Out Here : The Spice Up Your Blog Template Gallery

Most of these templates have cool built in extras like :

*Social bookmark buttons *Re-tweet buttons * Email subscriptions *Search bars *Read more functions *Featured content sliders *Menu bars and more..

Some of these extras will need to be edited you will see instructions on the download page.

Here is the list

1.Silverline Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

2.White Clean Magazine.

Live Demo

Download And Details

3.Dark Orange Magazine.

Live Demo

Download And Details

4.Woodmag Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

5.Mahusay Magazine Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

6.BeMagazine Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

7.Rebel Magazine Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

8.Zinmag Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

9.Revolution church Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

10.Brownline Template.

Live Demo

Download And Details

So that's the list to be honest i could have added 50 more cool magazine templates.

Thanks go to Btemplates and Ipietoon.

Please remember to back up your old template before changing just in case you want to change back.

I will add more Great templates for you in the future.

Which one is your favorite or have i left out your favorite magazine template?
Also if you do use one of these let us know so we can have a look !

Allow Visitors Change The Text Size And Font Of Your Blog Posts

2009-12-20T20:30:00.011Z

In this post i will help you add a gadget to your blog that will allow the visitors to your blog choose the text / font style and size they view your blog in.This tip will let you give the visitors to your blog control over how they want to view it.In this blog i strive to improve the appearance and performance of your blog and optimize it for the people that count ... your visitors.

The reason i looked to add a gadget like this to my blog was when i looked at reviews of differant blogs on Blog catalog a re-occurring complaint was people not able to easily read the text.

Your page wont refersh or change in any other way just the text.

How does it work ?

Click Here To See A Live Example / Demo

How easy was that !

Heres how to add it to your blog :

Step 1.Click 'Layout' > 'Add A Gadget' for your blog.

Step 2.Select 'HTML/JAVESCRIPT' in the pop up menu.

Step 3.Copy and paste the code below into the area provided :

<script> function go1(){ if (document.selecter2.select2.options [document.selecter2.select2.selectedIndex].value != "none") { document.getElementById('main').style.fontSize =document.selecter2.select2.options [document.selecter2.select2.selectedIndex].value } } function go2(){ if (document.selecter2.select3.options [document.selecter2.select3.selectedIndex].value != "none") { document.getElementById('main').style.fontFamily =document.selecter2.select3.options [document.selecter2.select3.selectedIndex].value } } </script> <form id="forma" name="selecter2" method="POST"> <select onchange="go2()" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:8pt" name="select3" size="1"> <option value="Times New Roman"/>Times New Roman <option value="Arial"/>Arial <option selected value="Book Antiqua"/>Book Antiqua <option value="Bookman Old Style"/>Bookman Old Style <option value="Century Gothic"/>Century Gothic <option value="Comic Sans Ms"/>Comic Sans Ms <option value="Tahoma"/>Tahoma <option selected value="Trebuchet Ms"//>Trebuchet Ms <option value="Verdana"/>Verdana </select> <select onchange="go1()" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:8pt" name="select2" size="1"> <option value="8px"/>8 <option value="9px"/>9 <option value="10px"/>10 <option value="11px"/>11 <option selected value="12px"/>12 <option value="14px"/>14 <option value="16px"/>16 <option value="18px"/>18 </select></form><a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/2009/12/allow-visitors-change-text-size-and.html" target="_blank"><font size="1">Get This</font></a>

Before we finish : If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion Please leave a comment Below.
To help you this is a Do-Follow Blog leaving a comment will also help your blogs Google rank.
OK Back to business ....

Once you put the code in click save and the gadget has been added to your blog.

Your visitors can now view your blog as the wish.

If you dont understand any of the steps in this post click 'The Basics' in the top menu for help or comment below.

Have you added it to your blog ? Let us know..