I hated the blogger bar across the top of my Web site because it didn’t really go with my template and I already had a Google search bar integrated. So I went on a mission to remove it and de-bloggerify my blog. I searched far and wide and for some reason kept hitting a dead end. It turns out that the code used to change the old blogger templates no longer works! So after tracking down the CSS changes here is how I did it:
All you need to do is add the following CSS to your template under edit HTML. You need to put in anywhere in your template between the 3. Recent comments Use this script to achieve a WordPress-esque Recent Comments module for your side bar! Start some riots among your readers! Let them know what others have to say. This site provides a widget creator that I used to make my recent comments module. I found that after adding this, it actually encouraged people to comment more frequently. I don’t know if they like seeing their name up in lights or if they read what others wrote and want to kick in their two cents… But either way it has increased commenting by about 70%! 4. That’s a lot of comments!! Replace your commenting system with Intense Debate for more control over comments with a social flare. It is really easy to do, check out this information from their web site:
Interested in the comments your friends make? What if there was a way to follow your friends and be notified when, where, and also what they comment? Intense Debate provides this functionality through RSS feeds for each user. Subscribers will be notified in their RSS readers with a direct link to view the context surrounding the comment as well. Give it a try! Also, don’t waste anymore time checking back in on a blog to see if anyone responded to your comment. Now you can get email notifications of replies to your comments, letting you know when the conversation continues while you’re gone.
5. Adding inline ads
Want
to add advertisements into your posts for maximum exposure? By having
your ads out their in front of peoples face they just might click them
more often. I am not a big believer in ads. But maybe you are and by
following these instructions from MyDigitialLife
you can add adds in your post between post or even in the footer. It is
not hard to do and involves a little modification to your template. Due
to the fact that Blogger parses out some code and changes some
characters when you enter it manually in the html this will show you a
workaround for that.From their web site:
6. Use Feedburner
Feedburner lets you “burn
your feed” and add feed flare. Before they were a Google company they
were awesome but now that they are a part of the Google they are even
better. I use Feedburner for feed statistics, monitoring users
subscriptions, managing our daily email blast list and adding feed
flare enhancements to your feed. This is a MUST do for any blog. Almost
a no brainer. Blogger lets you specify your Feedburner information in
their ‘Site Feed’ tab inside your dashboard. Once there you will see a
place to plug in your Feeburners URL.
7. Add additional pages (Add links to older posts that you can customize like a contact page.)
This
is one thing I always hear people complaining about blogger. But I
can’t add a second page or even a page for contact information… Wahhh
Wahhh Wahhh. How about a little creativity? For this hack all I did was
create some posts labeled About Us Contact Us etc. And then made their
published dates way back when and linked to the posts from my template.
Result – pseudo additional pages!
8. Use a real domain name instead of blogger’s default naming conventions
In
the beginning before we knew any better we though using a free service
like Blogger meant being locked into certain things like the sub-domain
name off of Blogspot. Google lets you “Brand” your blog and link up a
real domain name to forward to your Blogspot address. But they did one
better and redirect their address’s to yours. So even if you type in http://askTheAdmin.blogspot.com you will wind up at http://www.askTheAdmin.com! Sweet.
9. Add Instant Messaging to your Blogger blog.
Want to chat with your users real time? I added Plugoo
to my site, linked it up with my AIM account and I am in constant
contact with users looking for help or just wanting to say what’s up.
This is not for everyone but I found it so cool I now turn my AOL IM
mobile when I am AFK and my IM’s hit me via Text message on my Smart
Phone.
10. Update you blog daily and have quality content. .
And
the last but certainly not least Blogger tip/hack is not a hack at all
but a piece of advice . Update your blog on a daily basis. Because that
is all the readers want now isn’t it? Would you read your own site – if
it wasn’t yours?? If your answer is no, then you got some serious
re-thinking to do!
Do you have any additional tips or tricks for blogger or other blog hosts? We would love to hear about it in the comments!
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