Simple Things to Make Your Blog Better

1. Turn off comment registration
Are you asking people to sign-up to comment? If so, then you’re loosing out on comments. Putting a hurdle in the conversation between you and your readers may be enough for them to tune out.

2. Update subscribe terminology
How are you trying to attract subscribers? Is it just with an orange feed button? Maybe your link says ‘RSS’ or ‘Subscribe.’ It’d be a good idea to look at it from a non-technical perspective and update it to be more meaningful. Something like ‘Subscribe to new posts’ or ‘Subscribe to Updates.’ Not everyone knows what RSS is so we may need to be more specific.

3. Add email subscription options
I’m pretty sure that there are tons of people out there that don’t get RSS, but they do get email. So making sure that they understand that they can get updates via email may increase subscribers faster than just giving out the feed.

4. Update ‘no comments’ to ‘comments’
Why does everyone advertise that they have no comments on their posts? Getting comments is hard, but we don’t need to let everyone know that there aren’t any either. Simply changing the terminology from ‘no comments’ to ‘comments’ takes the negative out of the equation and now it’s just a link to the comments form.

5. Unhide sharing links
I like to share good posts, and so do many others, so you should make it easy. Services like ShareThis or AddThis have a tendency to hide the social buttons until someone rolls over them. I say bring them out, at least for Twitter & Facebook, so people can see them and click them without having to search for them.

6. Create a translation button
Not everyone speaks English so why not add a translate button for other languages? It’s quick and easy and can open up your content to a whole new world of people.

7. Cleanup the ads
I get ads, I really do. Blog owners want to make money off their ads and pay for their hosting or iPads. But ads can distract from the content if they are placed front and center. Think about integrating ads in a way that doesn’t kill usability.

8. Organize sidebar
How many widgets are in your sidebar? Are there ads and counters and social plugins and everything else? The sidebar should not be your junk drawer, clean it out and simplify.

9. Check your theme
How does your theme look? Is it a sad knock-off of the default WordPress theme? Is it 5 years old and showing its age? The WordPress theme directory has thousands of themes that can give a quick facelift. Better yet, create your own and be original.

10. Write better content
Blogs are all about content. It’s about what you write and how valuable it is to your target audience. If you’ve been writing safe, mediocre posts, then now’s the time to step it up. A better blog post may take more time to write, but it’s worth it.


Facebook Like/Fan Box For Blogger
This tutorial is for everyone who has already created a Facebook Fan Page. If have not created one, try making one. A Fan Box or Like Box allows your Blog visitors to like your facebook fan page, without leaving your blog. It can also display faces of the “likers” on your blog.

To add the fanbox to blogger, follow these steps:

1.Find out your Facebook Fan Page URL. To do that, just visit your Facebook Fan Page, and copy the url in the address bar.

In my case it is http://www.facebook.com/bloggerplugins (The url which you see in the address bar when you visit your fanpage.) .Copy this url from your address bar.
2. Visit This page http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box
You have already copied the facebook fan page url. Paste this into the Facebook Page URL field

Select the choices appropriately and you can see a live preview of the Like/Fan box.

3.Once you are satisfied with the looks of the Like Box, Click on the “Get Code” button

4.Copy the iframe code which gets generated.

Google Talk Widget For Blogger / BlogSpot
1. Login with your Google Account at Google Talk Badges
2.Copy the HTML Code generated by Google
3.Now login to your Blogger Account and Navigate to Layout > Page Elements Page
4.Click the Add Gadget Link and Opt to add an HTML/JavaScript Gadget
5.Paste the HTML code(that we copied) into the Gadget and Save it.
6.Now you should see the Google Chat Back Widget on your Blog’s sidebar.
Here is a Screenshot of what the Google Chat Back Widget will look like

2. Google Talk Gadget – This Gadget is just like the Google Talk Interface within your Gmail. This will allow your  blog visitors to login to Google Talk. It is better to say that, once you add this gadget, your blog can serve as a Google Talk IM Client. This Widget wont allow the visitors to chat with you. If the visitor logs into his Google Talk account(via this Google Talk Gadget), he will be able to chat with his Google Talk Buddies and not with you(the blog owner)unless you were already on his buddy list :)
You can add this Widget easily using this One Click Installer. It will Add the Widget to your Blog’s Sidebar.


You Tube Gadget
http://widgetsforfree.blogspot.com/2008/06/search-youtube-widget.html


TwitterRemote
http://widgetsforfree.blogspot.com/2009/08/20-twitter-widget-tools-buttons-and.html
http://twittercounter.com/pages/twitter-widget
http://www.go2web20.net/twitterFollowBadge/
http://www.twittersticker.com/picksticker.php
http://randaclay.com/freebies/free-twitter-graphics/

FaceBook Fan Page
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/


Orkut Profile widget for blogs (blogger and others)
http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2007/12/orkut-profile-widget-for-blogs-blogger.html


Yahoo Search Widget Blogger / Blogspot
http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2008/07/yahoo-search-widget-blogger-blogspot.html

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