Happy 10,000 visitors and Tips for the newer blogger

This post was inspired by a post FoxyJ wrote a little bit ago. I thought it was genius.

I am by no means an excellent blogger. I am not a professional; I am not a computer programmer; there is A LOT I don't know. I'm writing this because I know many of you are starting right where I started 2 years ago. These are a few tips and tricks I found out (usually the hard way) along the way. Since I'm not a professional, if there is a better way of explaining these things (or if I'm wrong), just tell me. Or if you still don't understand, tell me and I'll try and clarify.

Oh, I just noticed that my blog counter just clocked my 10,000th visitor. Yay! My husband says that's totally small time, and it is, but I remember when it was in single digits and I was concerned about being too boring for people to read.

On with my tips I guess.

Embedded links. Notice how up above, the word FoxyJ is a different color? When you hover your mouse over it, it is underlined and you will get a hand. If you click on it, it will take you to another web address. That is called an embedded link. When I started blogging I didn't realize that blogger had a super easy method of creating links, so I had my husband teach me how to do it with html code. It was a couple months before I discovered the little link button. Talk about easy. Here's what you do:

• First of all, you need to be in "compose" mode. There are a lot more html cheat buttons in this mode.
  
• The hyperlink button is located to the right of the text color button.
• In a different tab or window, go to the site you want linked.
  
• Copy the web address.
• In your blog composition drag your mouse over the word you want to be linked (FoxyJ in my original example). With it highlighted, click the link button. Now paste the URL of the site you want linked into the box that popped up.
• Click OK and there you have an embedded link.

RSS feed. When I started blogging over 2 years ago most of my family and friends didn't blog. I only followed a few blogs so it wasn't difficult to check every blog every day. In the last few months it seems like an explosion of people figured out the blogging thing. It has been great fun to find old friends and keep up with everyone I care about. However, there are just too many people to check all the time manually. RSS feed to the rescue.

• There are multiple readers to choose from. Just do a search for RSS feed readers. I use the Google Reader because it's easy.
• Google Reader (and other readers) is a one stop place to check every blog you want to keep up with.
• Sign up for it using your regular email address. You don't need a gmail account or anything.
• Once you've signed up for it, there's a link that says "add subscription". Click on that and paste in the URL for the blog(s) you want to keep up with.
• OR if you use Firefox to browse (which I highly recommend), when you are on a page you want to subscribe to, just go up to bookmarks and click "subscribe to this page". Internet Explorer doesn't have this option that I'm aware of.
• When you check the reader it will tell you if there are any new or unread items for any blog your are subscribed to. Depending on their setting you can read all or part of the post.
• CONCERNING PRIVATE BLOGS: even if you are "allowed" to view a private blog, it will not show up on your reader. Therefore you must continually check that blog "old school" fashion.
  

Blog as a journal. If you blog to keep a journal of sorts, remember to periodically print out your posts in a hard copy. That way your posterity will be able to read it even if blogger disappears with all your posts one day.

• There are companies that actually create a hardbound book with your posts.
  
• Or you can save it into a word document and print it out at your local print shop.
  
• I have mine saved according to the year in a word doc. At the end of the year (or really, the beginning of the next year) I save it to my traveldrive and print it out and bind it at Office Depot. That way I have a "real" journal.
  

Pictures. Have you ever wondered why you are able to enlarge some of your pictures by clicking on them and others you can't? It has to do with the html code and how you move your pictures around. If you move your pictures in the compose mode, it will often break your code and not let you click to enlarge. If you move pictures in the Html mode, it preserves the code and lets you enlarge. Also, the smaller the picture file, the quicker it will load. If you have photoshop or hp image zone or other software like that, reduce the size of your picture. They are gigantic directly from your camera.

Visitors vs. Comments. As a general rule, you will get more visitors than comments. If you really want to know if people are visiting your site, get a blog counter. There are different sites that will give you code to put in your blogger template. They can keep track of a lot of (useless and helpful) data.

Why Word Verification. If you've noticed, I don't use word verification on my comments. That is because I am lazy. I hate blogger's WV because half the time I can't tell if they want a U or a V or two VV or a W, etc. However, word verification helps keep out spam comments. You know how you get a ton of junk email? It's the same type of thing. Someone has an automatic spam comment generator that often sounds like "Hi. Your blog is pretty. I think you like mine. I happy to find you. Please visit me often." They're probably selling something. I'll start using it again when/if I start getting those spam comments.

Private or Public. I know there is a lot of debate about public and private blogs. I doubt I'll ever go private because I really like the fact that old friends can find me on a public blog. However, if old friends can find you, so can anyone else. So it's a toss up I guess. Some people are totally paranoid about having real names showing, pictures of kids, etc. There are legitimate weirdos out there that you probably don't want to have that info., but for now it's not all that concerning to me. I've always been horrible at using blognyms for me and my family, but I try to respect your decision for anonymity and call you by your blognym if you prefer.

Basic Html. Blogger makes blogging extremely easy, and you don't have to know anything about html to do a lot of cool things. However, in my opinion, it is helpful to have a very basic understanding of html code and tags. I use a template with a layout I like and then change the things I don't like about it. For instance, the size of the font, the size of the margins, the color of the background, etc. can all be changed in the code. I didn't change my template recently. I kept the same template and just switched out the picture I use as the banner. I created that banner in photoshop (that's how I can customize it to say what I want), uploaded it to photobucket, and then used the code they gave me there to embed the image in my blog template. There are a ton of different html tutorials, just do a search. Just be aware that your blog is viewed differently in different browsers. Not everyone sees what you see on your screen. For instance, the border around my banner is cream colored in firefox and black in internet explorer. And the top margin is different too. Don't know why, but it is.

Blog templates: Blogger has only a select few templates available through them, however you can find free blogger templates elsewhere. Once again, just do a web search. Here is a site that has quite a few fun templates. It will display the html code. All you have to do is copy the code from their site and paste it into your blog html section under template.

BIG CAUTION ABOUT CHANGING TEMPLATES:

• Your sidebar links won't automatically be saved onto your new template.
  
• Copy and paste your current code into a word document so if anything goes wrong, you have a back up.
• ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS use the preview function. Don't ever save template changes without viewing it first. You never really know how it will look or function. There are a lot of templates that I think will look good, but don't once I get my info. onto it.
  

Browsers.I've noticed on my blog counter that the majority of my readers still use Internet Explorer to browse. I didn't really even know there was a choice in the matter. Matt switched me over to Mozilla Firefox and it was so much more convenient and better laid out! If you're interested in switching over, go here and it will walk you through the download. One of my favorite features is the spell check. It performs spell check automatically (like in word with the squiggly red line) on almost everything you do online. I LOVE it. I never have to run spell check on my blog posts anymore because of it.