Now that I’ve established that Blogger doesn’t suck anymore, I thought it would be helpful to share a few quick and easy tips to help you get the most out of Blogger, Google’s free blogging software.
- Tweak the Navbar
The Blogger navigation bar at the top of every page doesn’t have to be a ‘loud’ blue and orange. While you can’t eliminate the navigation bar entirely, you can make it less obvious and tie it closer to the look and feel of your blog. To do so, simply log in to your Blogger account, then navigate to Dashboard > Layout, then click on "Edit" on the Navbar. In addition to the default blue colour scheme for the Navbar, you can also choose tan, black, or silver. - Finesse Your Photo
For the photo of you, the blogger, use a JPEG that is exactly 88×88 pixels in size. This size will look best both on your blog (where more people are likely to see it) and your User Profile page. To change your photo, navigate to Dashboard > Edit Profile. - Create Search Engine-Friendly Tags
Since page titles are very important to search engines, and since Blogger automatically incorporates tags into page titles, make sure you create tags that accurately reflect the content of your blog. This will help increase the traffic you get from search engines. - Use a Compelling Description
The description you use for your blog in the top header section will likely be used by search engines when they display your blog in search results. Make sure you craft your description to be compelling to readers (to motivate them to click) and search engines by including the most important keywords here. Go to Dashboard > Settings to add or modify your blog description. - Use Your Own Domain Name
Just because your blog’s URL is likely to be some variation of yourblog.blogspot.com this doesn’t mean you can’t have a snappier and more memorable URL for marketing purposes. Simply register a domain name like TheBestBlogEver.com (for $10 or less at registrars like GoDaddy) and forward this to your blogspot.com URL. (Blogger also now supports using a custom domain for serving your blog, however configuring this is not for the faint of heart.) - Protect Yourself From Spammers
If you want to provide your email address to your blog visitors but don’t want to get bombarded by spammers using email address harvesting software, modify the way you display your email on your blog as follows: billgates[at]sympatico[dot]ca or billgatesNOSPAM@NOSPAMsymptico.ca. - Measure Your Traffic
Blogger doesn’t offer any Website traffic statistics (yet), but that doesn’t mean you can’t measure your blog traffic. Use a free and basic service like Site Meter or, if you’re a data junkie, try Google Analytics.
time to take my blogs to the next level.
thanks for the tips, bill.
I’ve been doing lots of blogger optimization – I use it cause I’m stuck hosting my domain with tucows and netidentity (no php or databases for me!) – I much prefer wordpress but hey, when there’s a will there’s a way. So here are a few other things I have done which have made a major difference for me – more traffic, more money.
First off I agree with everything Bill has said above and do most of them.
8 – Use Haloscan.com for Trackbacks and Blogrolling.com to maintain blogrolls
9 – Use Feedburner to help people subscribe to a feed that fits their needs and to add your posts to del.icio.us, technorati and digg
10 – Standard archive links are not enough. Build links to your very best posts into your nav bar.
11 – Insert adsense ads directly in the body of your posts, probably after 2 paragraphs.
12- Regarding tags, you have to use them as standard categories that reflect how your blog is structured. Make sure you structure your tags properly from the start, and use them in your nav bar. They will generate additional pages of content on your blog, and more content = more traffic.