Friday, April 30, 2010

How to change Fonts and Colors for your Blogger blog

In the Advanced tab from Design | Template Designer, you can easily edit and customize the fonts and colors of your blog without any knowledge of HTML or CSS.


How to edit the colors in your blog?

First choose the element you would like to change the color of. Then choose the color you would like that element to be. You can either click on the color you want or enter your own color hex code. There are two other options for your better choice by choosing "Colors from this template" and "Suggested colors" provided by Blogger.

When you change your blog colors, you can view your changes in the blog preview beneath the Advanced panel. Click on "Expand preview" to open it higher. Make sure you save your changes after you have finished selecting the colors for your blog by licking APPLY TO BLOG button in the right corner above your screen. If you don't like your changes, you can revert back to your default colors by clicking "Clear advanced changes to..."

How to edit the fonts in your blog?

First choose the element you would like to change the font of. Then choose the font you would like that element to be by clicking the radio button next to your font of choice. You can also change the font style to bold and/or italic by checking the box next to the style you want and you can make the font size larger or smaller by choosing a size from the font size box.

When you change your blog's fonts, you can view your changes in the blog preview at the bottom half of the screen. Make sure you save your changes after you have finished selecting the fonts for your blog by licking APPLY TO BLOG.

Monday, April 26, 2010

How do I add a poll to your blog?

Do you ever wonder about your visitors' opinions? Maybe you'd like to find out what your readers think about controversial subjects, or perhaps you just want a vote on whether your should change your blog's font to Verdana. Either way, it's simple to do by adding a poll to your blog.

You'll start by going to the Design | Page Elements tab for your blog:

Click the "Add a Page Element" link that appears in the sidebar for your layout. You'll get a popup window with all the different types of page elements you can add to your blog. Look for the one called "Poll" and click on "Add to Blog."

The poll settings let you enter the question you want to ask, and the possible answers you want to allow. You can enter as few or as many possible answers as you like; if you need more than are shown, just click the "add another answer" link.


By default, polls are set to run for a week before they stop accepting new votes, but you can change this time frame by entering a new date in the settings. You can also check the option to allow people to vote for multiple answers, if appropriate.

Once you've saved your poll, it will appear on your blog. The "Vote" button will cast a vote for whatever option is selected, and will display the current tally of all votes. You can also click "Show Results" to see what votes have already been cast without making a vote of your own.



Saturday, April 3, 2010

Analytics with Blogger

In order to place the Analytics code on all of the pages in your Blogspot domain, simply insert the code before the closing tag in the template. Analytics will then be able to track both the post pages for your blog and your homepage. To begin using Analytics to track visitors to your blog, follow these steps:

1. Create a Google Analytics account
  • Visit http://www.google.com/analytics.
  • Enter your Google Account email and password and click Sign In. If you don't have a Google Account, click Sign up now to create one.
  • Click Sign Up.
  • Enter your Blogger's URL. Enter a nickname for this account in the Account Name field, then click Continue.
  • Enter your contact information and click Continue.
  • Read the Google Analytics Terms of Service. If you agree to these terms, select the Yes checkbox and click Create New Account to continue.
The Tracking Instructions page that appears contains the tracking code that you'll need to paste into your Blogger blog. Google Analytics only tracks pages that contain the Google Analytics tracking code.

Otherwise, click Continue on the Tracking Instructions page to access your new account.

2. Go to your Blogger Dashboard

For Layouts users:
  • Sign in to your Blogger account.
  • Select the blog you'd like to track, then navigate to the Design | Page Elements tab.
  • Click Add a Gadget to open the gadget directory
  • Choose the HTML/Javascript gadget, and paste in your Analytics tracking code
  • Save your changes.
Paste your code like this
For Classic Templates users
  • Sign in to your Blogger account.
  • Navigate to the Template | Edit HTML tab and scroll to the bottom of the code in the HTML field
  • Find the '</body>' tag, which usually appears towards the end of the code in the template.
  • Paste the Analytics tracking code just above the </body>> tag.
  • Click 'Save Template.'
  • Click 'Republish' to update your live site.
3. Done

Now you can track your blog by Sign in to your Google Analytics account.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

How to move a Blogger blog between accounts

The short answer is that you can do this by making the blog in question a team blog, with two members, then removing the original team member.

In detail, the process goes like this:
  1. Sign in to Blogger with Account 1, which we'll assume is the account containing the blog. Go to the Settings | Permissions tab.

  2. Click the Add Authors button and send an invitation to the owner of Account 2, the account to which you'd like to move the blog.
  3. Wait for the owner of Account 2 to accept the invitation. If you're sharing a computer, you'll need to sign out of Account 1 first, or each use a different browser.
  4. Once Account 2 has joined the blog, Account 1 can log in again and go back to the Settings | Permissions tab.
  5. Click the grand admin privileges link next to Account 2.

  6. Click the remove link next to Account 1.
Notes:
  • You'll still see any posts made on the blog by Account 1 with Account 1's display name. Account 2 can delete and repost these posts if they'd like to change the display name.
  • Account 1 cannot be removed until Account 2 has admin rights, since every blog must have at least one admin member at all times.
  • Photos uploaded with Account 1 will break if that account is deleted. If you want your old photos to display after adding Account 2, you'll have to leave Account 1 active.