Spice Up Your Blog

Google Buzz - How To Add A Google 'Buzz This' Button To Your Blog

2010-02-13T18:45:00.009Z

Video Post - For Extra Help See The Video Tutorial Below The Post.

The new Google Buzz is the hot way to be social and share links, pictures and pretty much all the things you were already doing on Twitter Or Facebook but from your Google / Gmail account.Google have not yet released a Buzz This gadget like the Tweet This Or Digg This buttons that are so popular on blogs.However the Mashable blog have added their own Buzz This gadget and so can we.

Mashable have not shared the code for their button but just a small bit of work with the image used on Mashable and adding similar code as the Tweet this button means we can put the button on our Blogger blogs.As the Buzz button is new it could be a great way to get people sharing your posts and bring new visitors to your blog.

Preview :

Here is a working preview of the Google Buzz button - Try It Out :

Add the Google Buzz This Button To Your Blog

We will look at three places to add the button .

1. Go To Your Blogs Html - In your dashboard Click 'Layout' > 'Edit Html' > Tick the 'Expand Widget templates' box.

First this is how to add it to the right of your post title as i have on this blog at the time of writing :

Add Button Beside Post Titles

Step 1. Find the following code in your blogs html
(Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to find the code - Click here for more help with this)

<div class='post-header-line-1'>

If You Cant Find That Code Look For This Code :

<div class='post-header-line-1'/>

Step 2. Add the following code Directly Below/Under <div class='post-header-line-1'>

<a expr:href='"http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title + "&srcTitle=" + data:blog.title' target='_blank'><div style='text-align:right;margin-top:-42px;'><img border='0' alt='Buzz This' src='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rKG-ziTSNUQ/S3bpV5rrp6I/AAAAAAAAA-U/-HHFe26-2KE/s200/BUZZ+THIS.bmp'/></div></a>

Click Save And You Button Is Added.

Add the button to the top or bottom of your posts

You can add the button wrapped in text at the top or bottom of your posts.

Step 1. Find this code in your blogs html :

<data:post.body/>

Step 2. Copy the code below :

<div style='float:left; margin-right:10px;'>
<a expr:href='"http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title + "&srcTitle=" + data:blog.title' target='_blank'><img border='0' alt='Buzz This' src='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rKG-ziTSNUQ/S3bpV5rrp6I/AAAAAAAAA-U/-HHFe26-2KE/s200/BUZZ+THIS.bmp'/></a></div>

Top Of Posts : To place the button at the top of your posts put the code Above/Before <data:post.body/>

Bottom Of Posts : To place the button at the bottom of your posts place the code Below/Under <data:post.body/>

Google Buzz Button - Video Tutorial

More Video Tutorials | Spice Up Your Blog On YouTube

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 !

I'm sure Google will release some buttons and gadgets for Buzz but until they do this button is a great option.

Are you using Google Buzz ?

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

How To Check Your Blog Stats - How Much Is Your Blog Worth ?

2010-02-07T21:15:00.004Z

Have you ever thought "How much is my Blog worth?"

All Bloggers and Webmasters cant help themselves and have to keep an eye on there blog or website Page Rank, Alexa Rank, Number of Back links and of course the hit counters to see how many visitors they are getting.The slightest decrease in any stats can cause a panic in any site owner.Now to cause even more panic there is a number of websites that put all that information together and magically calculate the worth or value of your website or blog.

This is a fun post but is also a great way to be introduced to a number of statistics that are used in calculating the importance of your blog in the eyes of search engines and other ranking systems.If your blog is new don't worry about the stats but it's good to know what you can look for in the future.

What are the stats used to calculate the value of a Blog or Website ?

These are some of the stats used

Page Rank (PR) - Page Rank is a used by Google to determine the importance of a website.Page Rank goes from one to ten with ten being the highest ranking.I covered Page Rank in a post about Using Do-Follow blogs and it's quiet complected.

Alexa Rank - Alexa uses it's toolbar to rank sites although i have seen information suggesting they also use other sources.The Alexa rank and the format they use to generate their stats can be controversial with some people dismissing the accuracy of the results.

Backlinks - Back links are links from other sites on the web to your blog.We also looked into the value of back links in dept in the Do-Follow post.

Daily Visitors - The amount of people that visit the site every day.You can keep track of the visitors to your blog with a 'Hit' or 'Stat' counter.I have 'Ten Free Hit Counters For Your Blog Here'.

Daily Page Views - The amount of page views generated by the visitors.If you get 100 visitors and they all look at 2 posts in your blog then you got 200 page views.This information would be available with the hit counters mentioned above.

The Other Stats

Daily Ad Revenue - Estimated money earned by the site every day.They look at the stats and figure out how much each site is earning.

How accurate are the results ?

I will give you the links to these websites and tell you the best site to use for checking your blogger blog below.

First to check how accurate they are i looked at the Value Of Google.com in three different sites and then checked the value of Spice Up Your Blog, here are the results :

1. My Website Worth

My Website Worth Value Google At : $46,040,000,000

2. u2ws

U2ws Value Google At : $1.99 Billion

3. Cubestat

Cubestat Value Google at : $2,190,000,000.00

The value seems to vary depending on the site you use.

Checking Blogger Sites

The best and most in dept site is 'Site Value Check' also they will generate a value for blogspot blogs.

How Much Is Spice Up Your Blog Worth ? :

I have used various domains for this blog and they are all still directed here.

The original Blogger domain : www.spiceyourblog.blogspot.com is worth : $1,390

I also use www.spiceyourblog.info and that's worth : $1,210

On Christmas eve 2009 (6 weeks ago) i connected the current Domain and the main address www.spiceupyourblog.com .

Lets see how that's going after 6 weeks :

Site Value Check

Site Value Check Value www.SpiceUpYourBlog.com At : $7,198

Not bad after a few weeks - How much is your blog worth ?

Here are the sites i used in this post - Some of these sites wont give a value for blogs still using the blogspot domain so i suggest using the top one 'Site value check' :

http://sitevaluecheck.com/

http://www.mywebsiteworth.com/

http://u2ws.com/

http://www.cubestat.com/

There are lots more sites but most want your Email so i did not include them you can find more with a search.

The Top Ten Websites By Value

According to My Website Worth This is the top ten websites online by value :

1. $ 46,040,000,000
google.com
2. $ 900,000,000
yahoo.com
3. $ 600,000,000
youtube.com
4. $ 450,000,000
facebook.com
5. $ 200,000,005
live.com
6. $ 166,666,671
msn.com
7. $ 142,857,146
wikipedia.org
8. $ 142,857,146
blogger.com
9. $ 111,111,114
baidu.com
10. $ 111,666,667
myspace.com

Google own 3 of the top ten !

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 !

All the websites in the top 10 were once only an idea and not worth a cent, and Blogger was once in serious financial trouble, a few years before Google Bought it.Who knows you could climb up that list.Check out some of these posts to Improve Your Blogs Rank.

Have you checked your blog or have you found a better site for checking value? Let us know

Use Google Docs To Make An Easy Slide Presentation For Your Blog

2010-01-22T22:07:00.001Z

Google Docs offers some awesome tools that can be used by Bloggers.Once you break down the Jargon and don't let yourself get intimated you can use docs to spice up your blog.I use the Google Docs Slide Presentation on another blog quiet a lot and it's an easy to use yet professional looking feature.

The slide presentation, not to be confused with a Slide show can be used in many ways and I'm sure you have seen it being used on some of your favorite blogs.

I am thinking of using a slide presentation as my about me page, i could add some video and images, i could use Google maps to show were i am, and much more...

Here is a quick slide presentation i made for this post.You can click Play to make the slides move every 3 seconds or click the next button to move through the slides manually.

Let It Slide.

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.

To be honest i would love to go deep into how it all works but it's one of those things were you just need to get clicking and try out all the options.

The editor for the slide presentation is very similar to the post editor in Blogger using a lot of the same icons for adding Images, videos and text styles or colors and links.If you do get stuck just let me know.

Adding the Slide Presentation To Your Blog.

Once you have created your presentation you will want to get the embed code to add it to your blog :

1. Click Share -> Publish - Embed (In the top right while in presentation editor of Google Docs Presentation).

2. Select the player size and then select time after which presentation shows the next slide. By default 3 seconds is selected.

3. Tick or check option “Start slideshow as soon as the player loads” for auto play of slideshow. You can also select option “Restart slideshow after the last slide”.

4. Copy the embed code and paste it were you want the presentation, if you want to add one to your sidebars or footer click 'Add a gadget' and choose 'Html/Javascript.

So get over to Google Docs and get creative !

Let us know if you created your own and as always more help is only a comment away.

Getting Your Blog Ranked On Google With Google Employee Matt Cutts

2010-01-10T19:22:00.001Z

Some of the most popular posts on this blog are in the Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) category.I have tried to provide information i have picked up over the years to help you get indexed on Google.I have covered lots of Google tips and tricks and tried to make them easy for all users.

I came across a recent video from USA Today, it is a Jefferson Grahaman interview with Matt Cutts from Google and he asked Matt how do we get our sites onto Google ?

What was Matt's answer ?

He made 4 main points all of which i have told you and shown you on this blog :

Take a look at the video and see were i covered the points last year below :

1. Submit your blog to google, I showed you how to do this on the 16th of November 2009 in a post titled 'Getting New Visitors To Your Blog - 8 Ways To Get Started'

2. Add a meta description to your blog, I showed you how to do this on the 12th of November 2009 in a post titled 'How To Improve Your Blogs Google Rank With Meta Tags & Description'

3. Submit a sitemap to Google, i showed you how to this on the 26th of December 2009 in a post titled 'Get More Traffic To Your Blog By Submitting 2 Sitemaps To Google In 5 Minutes'

4.Improve your blogs title tags that appear in search results, I showed you how to do this on the 6th of October 2009 in a post titled 'How to improve Your Blogs Google rank.Change how search engines see you Blog'

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.

Yes Matt's tips are the same tips i gave you last year.I have been working with S.E.O. for a while over half the traffic to this blog is from Google, everything i tell you is genuine and the S.E.O. tips i have ready for future posts will help some more Click Here to see some more S.E.O. tips from the archive..

As always you have to keep posting to your blog and give the google crawlers something new to find, try to post new content to your blog once a day if you can.

It's not rocket science you can do it.

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

2010-01-05T21:35:00.011Z

Adsense T.O.S. Contain Privacy Policy Requirement

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 Add Your Recent Youtube Video List To Your Blog

2009-12-29T22:46:00.003Z

Lots of bloggers are dedicated You Tube users so this tip will allow you to add a gadget to your blog listing your latest YouTube videos or videos from any YouTube user you may like.

The gadget is very similar to a recent post gadget you may be using we just do a little trick to have it display recent videos titles.

This will help you connect your YouTube and blogger accounts as soon as you or the user you selected upload a new video to YouTube your list will update.

You can see a live demo using the ESPN recent videos click here.

Heres how its done lets spice up your blog :

1.Click 'Layout' ->'Add a Gadget' for your blog:

2.In the pop up menu scroll down to 'Feed' and click the + as shown below:

3.Once you click feed you will be requested to enter a feed URL you will enter the feed for your YouTube channel or the channel you want.

What is you channels feed URL?

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.

All users on YouTube have a feed here is how to get yours.
I am using ESPN as an example their feed URL is this :

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/espn/uploads

So all you need to do is replace ESPN in the URL with your Youtube username :

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/YOUR-USERNAME-HERE/uploads

So yours might be :

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/johndoe/uploads

Add this in the area provided and click 'Continue'

You will go to the preview page.

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.

You can make the following changes to the widgets appearance :

Title=Give the widget a title like 'My recent videos'
Show X items = How many recent videos to display.
Item Dates=Choose to show date of the video on widget.
Item source/authors=Show the video Author on widget.

Once your happy with the look of your widget click save.

Your recent YouTube list has been added to your blog.

Have you added this gadget to your blog ? Let us know.

How To Place Adsense Ads Inside Your Blogger Header Section

2009-12-29T06:40:00.005Z

The header section of a blog is one of the prime areas for AdSense and other ads so in this post i will show you an easy tip to place ads in your blogger header section.

This will help increase your earnings and hopefully help make you more money from your blog.

This image from Google displays the top positions for ads.

There are a number of ways to place AdSense ads in your header and i will cover other options in later posts.

In this post i will show you a nice clean and simple way to achieve this trick.

The ads will be placed differently to how i have them in my header to see a live demo of the ads in a header section click here

Here is how its done lets spice up your blog :

Getting your ad code ready.

Before you add AdSense code to your blog it must be parsed don't worry this is simple.

The first thing to do is go to your AdSense account choose the ad unit you want to use and get the code.

You now have the code copied Click Here to go to my AdSense parser .
Paste your AdSense code in to the gadget and click 'convert' now copy your new parsed code.

If the add you are adding is a simple html banner ad you don't need to parse it you can skip that step.
Placing the code in your template.

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.

1.Click 'layout'-> 'Edit html' for your blog.
(Tick The 'Expand Widget Templates' Box)

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2.Find the following piece of code in your blogs html:
(Click 'Ctrl F' for a search box to find the code)

<data:description/>

3.Paste the code for your AdSense unit directly Below the code above.

Example:

<div class='descriptionwrapper'> <data:description/> <-----YOUR ADSENSE CODE GOES HERE-----> </div> </b:includable>

Once you have added the code click save.

The ad has now been added to your blogs header,Remember it can take up to 10 minutes for AdSense ads to show on your blog.

Have you implemented this trick and do you think it will increase your AdSense earnings? Let us know..

Get More Traffic To Your Blog By Submitting 2 Sitemaps To Google In 5 Minutes

2009-12-26T01:40:00.006Z

If you want to get more hits to your Blog making your blog 'search engine friendly' is an absolute must.Sitemaps basically show Google search bots you recent activity quicker and without the bells and wistles than can cause crawl errors (Dirthy words to a blogger).

Im always trying to provide better tips and improve the tutorials when possable and this post has been updated from the original to include a second sitemap.Why? The first sitemap only contains your 26 most recent posts ! If you have more than 26 posts they are not indexed.You should still add both sitemaps, the more the better.

In earlier posts i posted tips on changing the default title tags of your blog and adding a meta title and description both great tricks in their own right.

There is a number of ways to generate a sitemap for blogs and websites, here on blogger generating a sitemap and submitting it to Google can be done in 5 minutes and can be achieved by even the least experienced Blogger.

What Is A Site map ?

"Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found. This is especially important if a site uses a dynamic access to content such as Adobe Flash or JavaScript menus that do not include HTML links.

They also act as a navigation aid by providing an overview of a site's content at a single glance.

Most search engines will only follow a finite number of links from a page, so if the number of links is very large, the site map may be required so that search engines and visitors can access all content on the site"
(source :Wikipedia)

We have 3 sections to complete this tip

Getting your sitemap address

Submitting your blog to Google webmaster tools

Submitting your Sitemap to Google webmaster tools

So lets see how its done :

Sitemap 1.
I will show you how this is done for future referance.

Getting the sitemap address

Step 1.
Go to your blog and look at your blogs address in the browser at the top of the page it will be :
http://www.YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/
or if you have a custom domain :
http://www.YOURBLOGNAME.com/
Mine is http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/

Step 2.
Add the following to the end of your blogs URL :
robots.txt
So now you have :
http://www.YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/robots.txt
http://www.YOURBLOGNAME.com/robots.txt
Mine is http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/robots.txt
Click enter or go to go to the address

Step 3.
Now once you go to this page it will look like this :

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search

Sitemap: http://www.YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

Mine looks like this :

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search

Sitemap: http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

Above as i have highlighted in red is your site map address - that's it as far as getting the site map.
Keep this you will need it later.

Sitemap 2.
I will just give you the default 'atom 500' address :

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

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Now you can Submit your site map to Google.

Submitting your blog to Google webmaster tools

Step 1.
If you do not already have a webmaster tools account to do this you go to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ you can log in to webmaster tools with your Google account the same details you log into blogger with.

Webmaster tools is a Great source of information to see exactly how Google sees your blog but that's another days work..

Step 2.
On the homepage if you have not already submitted your site to webmaster tools click 'Submit A Site' .
You can submit your blog URL.Note: just submit your URL here http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com we enter the site map address later.

You will have to verify that you own the blog this is straight forward follow the steps provided by Google.

For mor help adding your site click here

Once you are verified as the owner of the blog we can carry on.

You are now ready to submit your sitemap.

Step 1.

Submitting your Sitemap to Google webmaster tools

Click on your blog address in your webmasters dashboard you will arrive on this page.In the left sidebar click 'site configuration' as shown below ::

Now in the drop down click 'sitemaps' as below :

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 leaving a comment will also help your blogs Google rank.

Click 'Submit Sitemap' as circled in red below and enter the site map you generated earlier:

feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

As you can see circled in blue below your URL is already there so just type or paste in : feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

Click submit.

Now enter the second sitemap :

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

Click submit.

Your sitemaps have been added and the Google bots are heading your way.Why not now Submit A Sitemap To Yahoo.

This is one of the many ways we can help our blogs get ranked higher in search results to see some of the other posts on this S.E.O. Blog Tips.

Dont worry if you struggle first time just take your time and let me know how you get on or if you have some trouble.

How well does your blog rank in Google? Have you any tips that you found successful?

How To Put Adsense Ads Inside Your Blog Posts

2009-12-01T17:00:00.009Z

In this post i will show you an AdSense trick which will allow you to place AdSense ads inside your blog posts not only that but in any part of your posts.Once Added you can place the ads anywhere in the post like after the first line of text, before the last line, in the middle..... and you can have the ads in different areas in every post.

Using AdSense inside blog posts can have a very positive effect on your earnings but try to make the ad units blend in with the rest of the content when your picking the colors.I have more posts on how to add your Adsense Directly Below the Title of your posts as well as placing AdSense in your header section, i will have a link to those posts at the bottom of this one.

There is a bit of extra work in this tutorial but if you follow step by step you should have no problems also make sure to Back up your template.

Here's the steps - lets go :

First you must get the code for the AdSense ad

1. Go to your AdSense account and Choose what type of ad you want inside your blog posts.

2. Follow the steps and Grab the code for the AdSense unit.

3. The AdSense code must be place in your blog templates html to do this we must use an adsense praser.

4. I just added a Html Praser to my blog so you don't have to leave this blog to prase the code.
Click here to prase your adsense code.

Paste the code in the box provided click 'prase it' and copy the new parsed code.

Your AdSense code is now ready.

Now we will add the code to your template

1.Click 'layout'--> 'Edit HTML' for your blog
(Tick The 'Expand widget templates' box)

2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs html:
(Click 'CTRL F' on your keyboard for a search box to find the code)

<data:post.body/>

3. Now REPLACE <data:post.body/> with the code below :

<div expr:id='"aim1" + data:post.id'></div> <div style="clear:both; margin:10px 0"> PUT YOUR PARSED ADSENSE CODE HERE </div> <div expr:id='"aim2" + data:post.id'> <data:post.body/> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> var obj0=document.getElementById("aim1<data:post.id/>"); var obj1=document.getElementById("aim2<data:post.id/>"); var s=obj1.innerHTML; var r=s.search(/\x3C!-- adsense --\x3E/igm); if(r>0) {obj0.innerHTML=s.substr(0,r);obj1.innerHTML=s.substr(r+16);} </script>

4. Now include your Adsense code above were you see:
PUT YOUR PARSED ADSENSE CODE HERE

5. Save your template - Were not finished....

Now as promised you can make the Adsense Ad appear in any part of your blog post :

When you writing your post - Simply place the following piece of code in your post in the exact place you want the Ad to appear:

So if you place the  tag at the top of your post the ad will appear there ...half way down ...near the bottom ...at the bottom...werever you want it !

We Are Nearly Finished - First A Quick Reminder:
If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion Please leave a comment Below.It also really helps me to get feedback.
This is a Do-Follow Blog so leaving a comment will also help Your blogs Google rank.
OK Back to business....

Tip:Add the  code to your 'post template'
Click 'settings' -->'Formatting' -->Scroll to bottom of page for this option.
(Google help-Whats post template?)

For more AdSense tips and tutorials for adding Adsense to your blog Header section And under the posts title Click Here.

I know this was a bit harder than most tutorials but just take you time I'm sure you will get it right if you need more help just leave a comment below i will be glad to help.

How To Improve Your Blogs Google Rank With Meta Tags & Description

2009-11-12T08:26:00.005Z

In this post i will show you how to add Meta Tags And Meta Description to your blog.

Improving your search engine rank is key to the success of your blog.This is known as S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization).
Large companies spend a fortune on S.E.O. ,That's great if you have a fortune to spend !

Search engines use automated spiders and crawlers, to collect information from your blog.They collect URL'S ,Titles,etc...
They also collect keywords from the early parts of your blog posts.

However you don't know which words are taken as keywords connected to your blog, It's likely the keywords been taken are not relevent to your blog at all. In this case your blog won't be indexed properly in search engines.
Theres also a chance your highly relevant keywords might not even be used to index your blog.This will result in your blog being ranked behind Thousands of others in searches !

But you can take control !

You can add Meta Tags and Description to your blog.

Now YOUR telling the search engine spiders and crawlers the key words and description YOU want your blog to be indexed under.

So lets do it !

First you must copy the code below and add a meta description and meta keywords (as shown in bold) as follows:

<meta content='text/html; charset=utf-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/> <meta content='PUT BLOG DISCRIPTION HERE.' name='description'/> <meta content='PUT, KEYWORDS, HERE, SEPERATED, BY, COMMA,' name='keywords'/>

Heres an example of how the code might look for this blog:
(Just a quick example not my actual meta content)

<meta content='text/html; charset=utf-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/> <meta content='SPICE UP YOUR BLOG BLOG TIPS TRICKS' name='description'/> <meta content='blog, tips, tricks,' name='keywords'/>

Notes on Description:'PUT BLOG DISCRIPTION HERE'.-TRY KEEP IT LESS THAN 150 CHARACTERS

This explains its self,Keeping it under 150 characters is search engine friendly,you don't have to use 150 characters it can be as short or long as you wish once its relevant to your blog.

Notes on Keywords :'PUT, KEYWORDS, HERE, SEPERATED, BY, COMMA,'-YOU CAN ADD AS MANY AS YOU LIKE - SEPARATE BY COMMAS - DON'T USE THE SAME WORD MORE THAN 5 TIMES

Think which words or phrases best describe your blog.Repeating a word more than 5 times can be seen as spam by search engines.

Adding The Code To Your Blog :

We Are Nearly FinishedIf you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion Please leave a comment Below.It also really helps me to get feedback..

1.Click 'Layout'-->'Edit Html' For your blog.

2.Find the following piece of code in your blogs html:
(Its very close to the top)

<head>

3.Add the meta content code Directly Below <head>

4.Click save and your finished.

In a previous blog i covered Improving S.E.O. by Changing the way Google sees your blog this is also important: Click Here To See That Post

For a list of S.E.O. tips on this blog Click Here

Five Types Of Google Translate Widgets For Your Blog

2009-11-11T10:13:00.004Z

In this post i will show you five different types of Google translate widgets and how to add them to your blog.

The blogosphere is a Global phenomenon so its important to make your blog available in all languages.

Below i will cover how to Add the translate widget code to your blog.

First here's the five types of Translate widgets with the code needed:

1.Small Drop Down Menu:

Small Drop Down Menu Code:

2.Single Column With Flags:

Single Column Code:

<div style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 3px 3px 10px;text-align:center;background-color:#FFFFFF;">  <div align="left">  Google Translate™ <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Czh-CN&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-Chinese (Simplified) BETA"> Chinese</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cfr&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to French "> French</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cde&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to German"> German</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Italian"> Italian</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cja&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Japanese BETA"> Japanese</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cko&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Korean BETA"> Korean</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cru&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Russian BETA "> Russian</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Ces&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Spanish "> Spanish</a>  </div> Powered by <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com" target="_blank">↑</a> <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/google-translate-mini-flags-widget" target="_blank">Grab this Widget</a> </div>

Single Column code With Transparent Background :

<div style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 3px 3px 10px;text-align:center;background-color:none;margin:7px 0 7px 0;">  <div align="left">  <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Czh-CN&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-Chinese (Simplified) BETA"> Chinese</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cfr&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to French "> French</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cde&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to German"> German</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Italian"> Italian</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cja&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Japanese BETA"> Japanese</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cko&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Korean BETA"> Korean</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cru&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Russian BETA "> Russian</a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Ces&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Spanish "> Spanish</a>  </div> Powered by Google™ Translate <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com" target="_blank">↑</a> <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/google-translate-mini-flags-widget" target="_blank">Grab this Widget</a> </div>

Single Row With Flags

Single Row Code:

<div style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 3px 0px;text-align:center;background-color:#FFFFFF;min-width:235px; margin: 5px 0 5px 0;">  <div align="center" style="width:auto;">  <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Czh-CN&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-Chinese (Simplified) BETA"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cfr&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to French "></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cde&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to German"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Italian"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cja&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Japanese BETA"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cko&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Korean BETA"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cru&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Russian BETA "></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Ces&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Spanish "></a>  </div> Powered by <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com" target="_blank">↑</a> <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/google-translate-mini-flags-widget" target="_blank">Grab this Widget</a> </div>

Double Row With Flags

Double Row Code:

<div style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 3px 0px;text-align:center;background-color:#FFFFFF;min-width:180px; margin: 5px 0 5px 0;">  <div align="center" style="width:auto;">  <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Czh-CN&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-Chinese (Simplified) BETA"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cfr&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to French "></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cde&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to German"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Italian"></a> <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cja&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Japanese BETA"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cko&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Korean BETA"></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Cru&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Russian BETA "></a>   <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.open('http://www.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&langpair=en%7Ces&hl=en&ie=UTF8'); return false;" title="Google-Translate-English to Spanish "></a>  </div> Powered by <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com" target="_blank">↑</a> <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/google-translate-mini-flags-widget" target="_blank">Grab this widget</a> </div>

How To Add the code to your blog

1.Choose a widget above and copy the code

2.Click 'Layout'-->'Add a gadget' for your blog

3.Choose html/javascript in the pop up window

4.Paste the code into the area provided

5.Click save.

Your Google Tanslate widget has been added.

Getting New Visitors To Your Blog - 8 Ways To Get Started

2009-10-16T14:31:00.005+01:00

I suppose there is no point in spicing up your blog if you get no visitors.Getting your blog noticed is not an easy task but there are steps you can take to give your blog a push in the right direction.

Remember you need to keep posting to your blog, this is one of the most used phrases but 'content is king'.Try to publish a post once a day or at least five time a week if you are posting more than once a day try leave a gap between the posting times.

Here is the list of Eight ways to get started :

Submit your blog to search engines

Click here to add your blog to Google

Click here to add your blog to Bing

Get a feedburner for your blog :

Click here to see how

Join and submit you blog to Blog Directories :

20 Essential Blog Directories to Submit Your Blog To

Leave your link :

Traffic Exchange

(Don't use traffic exchanges if your blog has AdSense it is against their T.O.S. and could get you banned)

Press Release

Click Here

Here's a list of free press release Distribution Sites

Tell your friends online on offline !

Feedburner Connect

Twitterfeed Connect

Leave your blog link at the foot of all your Emails.

These are just a short list of ideas and suggestions try to cover as many as you can.
I have are more tips to help get visitors to your blog Click here to see them.

And keep posting make sure there is content there for people to see and remember only good content will bring them back.

How many of the eight are you going to try ? Have you any suggestions to bring people to your blog ?

How to improve Your Blogs Google rank.Change how search engines see you Blog.

2009-10-06T16:00:00.008+01:00

In this post i will show you how to get more visitors to your blog from search engines by changing how you blog is seen.

Improving your blog and working on getting more traffic from search engines is called 'Search Engine Optimization' (S.E.O.)
This is a very easy yet extremely effective way to improve your blogs search engine ranking and move you towards the top of search results.

To change how search engines see your blog you must change the default setting in your blog template.

What we are doing here is making your Post Titles be ranked up ahead of your blog title,Believe me every top blogger has made this change.

I am constsntly looking for ways to improve your title tags for improved S.E.O. and this is the forth edit i have made to this code :Latest Change:05 DECEMBER 2009

We do this in four simple steps.

1.Click the layout and then edit html options for the blog you wish to change.

If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion,
Please leave a comment Below.

2.Near the top of your blogs html you will find this piece of code :

<title><data:blog.pagetitle/></title>

3.Replace that piece of code with the following piece of code :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title> </b:if>

4.Click save template and your finished !

You have now changed Blogger's default title tag to help focus relevant keywords to your blog which improve the search engine ranking of your blog.

How To Have A Private Or Invitation Only Blog On Blogger

2009-09-30T23:12:00.003+01:00

When you set up your blog on Blogger the default setting is to display your blog to the world and be displayed in search engine results and most people are looking to build a following so they leave the settings as they are.

But a blog can be a great tool for community's, groups and family to stay connected online and these are blogs you may not want shared with the entire Internet.

Not a problem a few quick changes in the settings can block search engines from crawling your Blog and stop anyone you have not personally invited by Email from seeing your blog.

Making Your Blog Private

Step 1. When in your blogger dashboard click the "settings" option for the blog you wish to make private.

Step 2. Now Click Permissions.

You have two options here :

1. You can choose who you want allow to view your blog by clicking "only people i choose"
Then just add the email addresses of who you permit, no one else will be able to view the blog.

2.You also have the option to allow others to write posts in your blog, just add the emails as above and they can log in and write to your blog.

Once you invite an author and they accept you can also grant them 'Admin Privelages' by following the 'Settings' > 'Permissions' route - The invite must be accepted before you grant Admin Privileges.

Now that author can also invite people to your blog, this is a great way to make your blog a community.

Block Search Engines And Blog Lists

In your basic settings you have the option to stop search engines crawling your blog and stop Blogger from adding your blog to their listings - just click settings and scroll to :

'Add your blog to our listings ? ' Select No
'Let search engines find your blog ?' Select No

Make sure to scroll to the foot of the page and save your settings.

Your blog is now completely private, if you have any questions help is only a comment away.

How to add a small search box to your blog

2009-09-28T01:42:00.005+01:00

Its easy to add a search box for your readers to search your blog.
On blogger we have the option to add a google search to our blog.
I think the google search box is too big and un-editable so i added my own small search box.

This search is just as effective and very easy to add to your blog and you can make it appear to suit your blogs style and colors.

This is the search box:

To place this on your blog you just gotta copy the code below and replace by URL with yours and you have the option to make some changes to its appearance.

Below is the exact code that makes up my search box:

<form id="searchthis" action=" http://www.spiceyourblog.info/search" style="display:inline;" method="get"> Search Spice your blog <input id="b-query" maxlength="255" value=" Type and search..." name="q" size="20" type="text"> <input id="b-searchbtn" src=" http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu40/paulcrowe/searchbuttonsbx.jpg" type="image" align="top"> </form>

Only one part of this code must be edited before adding it to your blog that is the URL :

1.The URL : http://spiceyourblog.info/search - change this to your blogs address : http://www.yourblogaddress.com/search

Your search box is now ready and will search Your blog OR you have the option to make three more changes to personalise your search box .

We Are Nearly Finished
If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion,
Please leave a comment Below.

2.The text : Search Spice Your Blog- is the text that appears above your search box you can change it to anything you like or leave blank to have no text.

3.The text : Type and search... - is the text that appears inside the search box and can be changed or left blank for no text inside the box.

4.The URL : http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu40/paulcrowe/searchbuttonsbx.jpg - is the URL of the image that appears below the search box.This can be changed (check Photobucket.com for some small search icons) or it can be removed to have no image.

So theres your small search box enjoy.

How to start your free blog on Blogger.com

2009-09-22T22:15:00.005+01:00

Since this blog is all about helping you make the most of your blogger blog why not give a step by step tutorial on how to get your first blog up and running.

So in a few easy steps you can have your first post to your new blog posted.

I will keep this short as it is really easy to get started on blogger.

I also have a video at the bottom of the post showing Short demo on starting your blog.

1.Go to www.Blogger.com and create an account.

If you already have a google account (used for : Gmail,Youtube,Picasa etc..) you can use those account details to log in.

2.Once your logged in click "create a blog"

3.Give you blog a name

This will be the name of your blog that appears in your blog header like 'Spice Up Your Blog' appears at the top of this page.
You can change the name of your blog at any time so don't worry about getting it right first time.

4.Choose an address for your blog
Your blog address is the url that leads to your blog
Your blog address will be a sub domain of blogspot.com so if you choose 'funnycatpictures'
your address will be
www.funnycatpictures.blogspot.com

We Are Nearly Finished - First A Quick Remunder:
If you need more help or have an opinion or suggestion,
Please leave a comment Below,I reply to all comments.
It also really helps me to edit posts and with future posts if you let me know if a tip has worked on your blog.
This is a Do-Follow Blog so leaving a comment will also help Your blogs Google rank.
Ok Back to buissness....

5.Choose a template for you blog

Your blog template sets the style and appearance of your blog
You template can be changed at any time so don't worry too much about getting it right first time.
As well as the templates provided by blogger you can get templates from other websites to use rather like you would get a new layout for a Myspace profile.

6.Success your new blog has been created

Your now ready to publish your first blog post !

Blogger Video :

Short demo on starting your blog.