How To Embed Youtube Video in your Blog

This post explains, how to embed(insert) a youtube video in your blogger blog:
So,you want to embed a video(movie) onto your blog.The process is very simple,even a dummie can do it.If you want to embed your original video,then first sign up for an account in youtube and upload your video and get the embed code.
Otherwise,you can easily embed any public youtube video in your blog.Go to youtube.com and search for the video.For example,if you want to embed a britney spears video,search it and copy the embed code on to a windows notepad or anything else.
The following process is explained below with pictures for easy understanding.
1.Go to youtube.com and search for your required video

2.Copy the embeded code(ctrl+c) and paste(ctrl+v) it in windows notepad.

3.Sign in in to your blogger acoount and click the New Post button and next,select the option 'Edit html' as shown below and paste the html code as shown below.

4.Publish the post.That's it, as you can see now,the youtube video is embeded in your post properly.
NOTE:You can change the width and height of the video by replacing the values to your desirable ones.
If you have any doubts regarding to this post,feel free to ask it here via your comments.

Read more »

Posted in: blog,blogger,embed,video,youtube

Submit blog to blog directories and increase the traffic

This post explains how to increase your blog traffic by submitting your blog to different kinds of blog directories which rates,provide statistics about your blog and provide free traffic and maximum exposure to your blog.
Submitting your blog to these directories is a very good thing to do particularly if your blog is very new one with low traffic.
These blog directories have high pageranks than your blog(since your blog is a new one with pagerank Zero).So, if someone searches for a particular keyword,there is more possibility for the blog directory to appear in the results than yours.So,by adding your blog to these directories,the visitors enters these directories containing your articles(when they click the article,they enter your site) and also your blog posts will be indexed little faster.So,submitting your blog to these directories will gain you more traffic.
(If your blog is a new one,then put a visitors tracker button in your blog,sothat you will see how many visitors are coming from these directories,from search engines,visitors geolocation,etc).

Here are a few popular visitor tracker websites:

1.Histats(histats.com)
2.Sitemeter(sitemeter.com)
3.Statcounter(Statcounter.com)
So,let me come to the main topic...
Before submitting your blog to these blog directories,my personal suggestion is to create a new email address for this purpose so,your personal emails can't flooded with the emails from the blog directories administrators,etc.)Creating an email is free lol....creat one.

Many of these directories asks you to register before submitting blogs.
There are so many hundreds of blog directories,here is the list of very good popular directories which will send you maximum traffic.


LIST OF POPULAR BLOG DIRECTORIES:
Technorati:Technorati is the largest blog(weblog) directory currently tracking more than 112.8 million blogs.Join technorati and verify your authorship,then you will be provided with detailed statistics regarding your blog,how many blogs are linking to your blog,(they call it 'authority').It is one of the best blog directory and will send tons of triffic if your blog is regularly updated.



Topblogarea:This is another big blog directory which rates and rank the blogs interms of Unique visitors your blog gets.They start the counting from Zero every week, so that even newly submitted blog can have the chance to rank higher in the list.
Topblogging.com:This is another source of weblogs which also rank the blogs according to the unique hits they get.Nice blog resource,bring you lots of traffic to your blog.
Blogtoplist:Same here,they rank according to the unique hits you get.But,there is a little change, they will give you to place a voting button in your blog.If any visitor votes for your site from your blog,that is equal to 100 unique hits,but there is only one chance per visitor(one IP address) a day.

Fuelmyblog:This is a cool weblog resource which is different from the ones we discussed so far.You can vote to other blogs and others vote to you.They will keep the top six blogs(voted the most) on the homepage.You can join their forums, read other blogs content,joining in the compitetions and win prizes,etc.

MyBloggingarea:This is a very good weblog directory which ranks the blogs accoring to the unique visitors they get,brought me so much traffic to my celebrity blog than all the other blog directories.I recommend this.

BlogCatalog:It is another good blogging resource,you can promote your blog here for FREE,find other blogs related to yours,etc.They have a special formula to rank the blogs,the more visitors,hits,comments,neighbourhood you get the more your rank will be.Another recommended one.You can join their forums,discussion board,groups,etc with other bloggers and share your thoughts.

BloggingFusion:It is a new one and not a very big one(around 950 blogs) at this time.But,it is a good one and doing pretty well.You can increase your blog exposure, worth a link to it.

Bloghop:You can find blogs related to your blog topic here.Have a nice tracking button and currently having more than 29,000 blogs.

Blogarama:Cool weblog directory currently having more than 69,000 blogs.It will list the blogs in terms of the score your blog have.The score depends on so many things like incoming traffic,outgoing traffic,user ratings,etc. and if you send more traffic to they,they will list your blog in the top 100 blogs.

Topbloglists:Another blog directory which will rank your blog according to the unique hits your blog will get.

Myblogdirectory:This doesn't list blogs interms of any visitors,etc. All blogs are listed randomly so,every blog get the same exposure.If you sent more traffic from your blog to them,your blog will be choosen as a BLOG OF THE DAY which will be placed on the homepage and your blog will recieve the whole traffic their site gets on that day.





Blogroll.net:Another blog resouce which rank accorking to the votes and unique hits your blog get.

Read more »

Posted in: add blog,blog directories,blog resources,how to,increase traffic

how to submit blogger sitemap to google-useful tip for new bloggers

This tip explains how to generate and submit blogger sitemap to google webmaster tools:Before doing this,let me say what are sitemaps and how they will help us.The reason we use them is,they will help google bot to crawl,index pages of your site and tell you if there are any problems when they try to index it.It also helps you to know,how many pages exactly are indexed,and what people searched in the search engine to visit your site.
Let me explain the detailed procedure on how to submit your blogger sitemap to google.
1.First,go to google webmaster tools and sign in with your gmail account.
2.After you logged in, you will see this asking you to add a site.

Add your blog url(ex:kranthitips.blogspot.com).Don't add with http or www.

3.Next,it asks you to verify your site.It is just to confirm whether you are the owner or not.

CLICK on the 'verify your site' link.





Next,




4.There are two ways to verify your ownership but, there is only one way for the blogger users to add a metatag.


5.Copy the metatag.
Now,sign into your blogger account>click the layout button>Edit html and paste the metatag just after the head tag and save the changes.


and click the verify button in the google webmaster tools and there will be a confirmation message saying that you have sucessfully verified.




Now,you have to submit a sitemap for google to crawl your site.Go back to the google webmaster dashboard or (home) and click the 'Add' link which is next to your blog name and in the Sitemaps column.Then,you see this,



Choose 'Add general web sitemap' from the dropdown menu and type rss.xml or atom.xml next to your blog address as shown below


or
and click the 'Add General Web Sitemap' button.

6.That's it.Now your sitemap is successfully submitted to google.Check 2 or 3 days after and you will see the detailed statistics of your blog(indexed pages,any errors,etc.)
If you have any questions regarding this,you can ask here via your comments

Read more »

Posted in: add sitemap,blogger,google,how to,tips and tricks

Top 5 Free IMAGE HOSTS For Your BLOGS

Want to share photos,avatars,signatures,family pictures,animated icons,etc to your friends,family members,message boards,for auctions,forums,for your blogs,etc Here is the list of Top 5 Image hosting services which host your photos for FREE.
Some want to sign up before you upload your photos,and some don't.
But onething is common.After uploading,they will give direct links to your photos or some html codes if you want to share if forums,etc.

Photobucket.com:This is the No1 image hosting service to host your photos,currently hosting billions of images.You can upload your photos,videos directly from your pc and they provide the essential codes for different purposes like,for layouts....direct links,for posting in forums......html code,etc.

Limitations:
Max image sige:1024 x 768
Monthly bandwidth:25 GB (unlimited if you upgraded to pro)
Max file size:1 MB
YOU CAN UPLOAD 20 PHOTOS AT A TIME

Negatives:Can't upload flash(*swf) files for Free.You have to upgrade to Pro if you want to do so.

ImageShack.us: It is another free, easy to use image,media hosting service.You can also upload flash(*swf) files.You can upload unlimited number of images as long as they adheres to their TOS.Hotlinking is allowed.You can upload multiple files at a time with the toolbar they provide.

Limitations:
Max image size:1.5 mb.However,you can upload more than that as they automatically resize it for internet use.
Cant' upload more than 1.5 mb for FLASH(*swf) files
No restrictions for video files.

Negatives:You don't have to change the linking codes they provide.

Tinypic.com:This is another one of the free and very good image hosting services.Larger images will be resized automatically.
Limitations:
Max video size:100 Mb and your video duration will not be more than 5 minutes.

Negatives:You can not upload your photos for private purpose.All images uploaded to Tinypic are Public.

ImageVenue.com:This is another Large image hosting service designed to share your photos to your friends,message boards,forums,blogs,etc.
Hotlinking of images is allowed.You can upload Unlimited number of photos for Free.Unlike Tinypic,your photos will not be public.You can share them only to the members you want.
Limitations:Max file size:1.5 Mb
Files will be deleted if they are not accessed for more than 1 year.
Image formats allowed:Jpeg,jpg


ImgSpot: Another completely Free Image hosting service currently hosting more than 4 millions of images and growing daily.No Bandwidth limit and hotlinking is allowed.No expiration for your images.

Limitations:
Max file size: 650 kb
File types allowed:Jpeg,jpg,gif,png

Know another great image hosting service? You can submit it here via your comments.

Read more »

Posted in: blog,blogger,free,image hosting,services

Adding meta tags to blogger(blogspot) blogs websites SEO

If you don't know what meta tags are, and what is the importance of adding meta tags, here is the detailed description on how to add them to your blogger(blogspot) blogs or any website.

Do you know adding meta tags is so important if you want to get more traffic from search engines like google,yahoo,msn,etc,especially the meta description is the most important one.

If you don't know what meta tags are,Meta tags are the tags which describes your site and tells the search engines what your site is all about.Adding meta tags is an important factor in SEO.(Search Engine Optimisation).Meta tags allows search engines to index your web pages more accurately. In other words,Meta tags communicate with the search engines and tells more information about your site and make it index correctly and accurately.
Here is an example.This is what I got when I typed 'Infotech.WS' in the Google Search Engine.

As you can observe.'Tips and tricks............' is the meta tags description which I added to my site.
We have to add two meta tags to the head section of the template.One is the Meta description which describes your site and another one is Meta Keywords which tells about your site keywords(what your site is all about)
Here is how to add meta tags to your blogger(blogspot) blog:
1.Sign in to your blogger dashboard>click the 'layout' button[see the screenshot below]

2.Click on the 'Edit html' tab






Here is the code you have to add

<meta content='DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='AUTHOR NAME HERE' name='author'/>


DESCRIPTION HERE:Write your blog description
KEYWORDS:Write the keywords of your blog
AUTHOR NAME:Write the author's name(Your name)


3.Add the above code just after this [Look at the below screenshot]
<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>


Don't forget to add description and keywords.
and save the changes.


IMPORTANT:
Several people were filling with just the keywords in the description.DON'T DO THAT.Google and other search engines will ban your site from the search engines list if you did so.And also,don't repeat the keyword more than 3 times.
That's it!You have sucessfully added the metatags to your blogger(blogpsot) blog.If you want to check whether you added the meta tags correctly or not,just type 'meta tags analyzer tool' in the google and you will find so many sites which can check whether you have added the tags correctly or not.

Read more »

Posted in: add meta tags to blogger,blogger,how to

Submit blogger sitemap to yahoo to index your web pages

This post explains how to submit your blogger sitemap to Yahoo.By submitting your sitemap to yahoo, they will index your web pages in yahoo search engine and provide you with detailed information related to your blog like which pages are linking to yours,popular pages in your site and you can submit and track feeds for your sites.
Also,you have the choice to delete any urls of your blog if you won't want to index certain pages of your site.
Submitting your site to yahoo is easy and give your web pages more exposure.
All you need is a YAHOO ACCOUNT(ID).However,you don't need an yahoo ID to know the information like how many pages are indexed,etc.But,if your blog is a new one or no pages in your blog are indexed(type your blog url in yahoo search and see to check whether your web pages are indexed or not), then you want Yahoo id to submit your sites,feeds,etc.
Let't see how to make yahoo index your webpages by submitting your blog sitemap.
1.Go to Yahoo Site Explorer


2.Click on the 'Sign in' link which is at the top of the page,see the screenshot below(If you don't have a Yahoo id, you can get one here) and sign into your accoutnt.


3.Type your blog url in the box provided as shown in the below screenshot.Don't forget to replace the 'yourblogurl' with the original url of your blog and click on the 'Add My Site'
4.After adding your site,you need to Authenticate(Verify your ownership).
There are two ways to verify your ownership.One is to upload a file to the root directory of your site which can't be possible in blogger.
Another one is to 'adding a metatag' which is possible and the only way to verify ownership for bloggers.First,copy the metatag..
Next,sign in to your blogger account>Edit html and paste the metatag below the head tag and SAVE THE CHANGES,look at the screenshot below.
Next,you will get a message saying that 'Your site is pending authentication'
Note:Don't remove the metatag,they will revalidate your ownership by checking your ownership regularly.
5.Next,go back to the 'Site explorer home', and check the box next to your blog url and click on the Manage button.


6.Type rss.xml or atom.xml in the box provided.It helps yahoo to discover more of your site content via your rss or atom feeds and to index your blog pages quickly whenever your blog is updated.Next,click on the add feed button.


That's it.Now,you have sucessfully submitted your blog sitemap to yahoo.Check your account after a couple of days and you will see your blog indexed in yahoo search engine.
Meanwhile,if you didn't submitted your blog sitemap to google,please read this about How to Submit your blog sitemap to Google

Read more »

Posted in: how to,submit sitemap to yahoo,yahoo search engine

Ways to increase your blog traffic

Everyone want's traffic.You set up a blog with great content but,no one is visiting your blog,so what's the use of it.So, you need atleast a decent amount of traffic and what's great than getting that traffic for FREE?
So,here is the good list of 6 Free ways to get traffic to your blog.

1.SEARCH ENGINE:Yea! it brings lots of traffic to your blog.There are millions of people search in the search engines like Google,Yahoo,msn everyday.So,if your blog has so many good posts and is well indexed by google,etc..you will get a good amount of traffic via search engines.There are a few steps to look at if you want a decent amount of traffic from the search engines like "submitting your blog sitemap to google",yahoo to index you blog pages very quickly.And the other important one is adding meta tags to your blog.If you follow these two simple steps,then you will get a decent traffic(massive traffic if your content is good).

2.Submitting your blog to Blog Directories:You may know this before,submitting your blog to blog directories will bring you a good traffic.
Here is a good list of blog directories(there are so many directories,but the below one's will bring you a good traffic).Most of these blog directories ask you to register before you submit your blog.My suggestion is,create a new email address solely for this purpose so,your personal emails are not flooded with the emails sent by the blog administrators,etc.
You can find the Blog directories list here.

3.Participate in forums,groups,etc:Just go to google and enter your [major keyword + fourm] or [keyword+groups] and search.Suppose,your blog is about blogging,then search 'Blogging forum'.You will find some forums,groups related to your site.Register in the forums and post articles,etc with a link back to your blog(as a signature).Answer questions,clarify doubts and provide a link to your blog.But,Dont' SPAM.

4.Social Bookmarking:Social Bookmarking is another way to build good traffic to your website/blog.If you don't know what Social Bookmarking is
"Social Bookmarking is a practise of saving Bookmarks,tagging the posts with keywords in a website".Bookmarking means saving a specific website url(address) in your browser that you wish to visit later.There are so many Social Bookmarking sites like del.icio.us,digg,furl,technorati.
One good thing about these Social bookmarking sites is,you will get instant traffic.Just register with them,store your bookmarks,tags,.. and you are done,See your site meter blasting with traffic.

5.Submit Articles to Article Directories:Submitting articles to article directories is another effective way to build more traffic.By submitting to them,your articles get massive exposure and gain you more traffic.
Some of the popular article directories are goarticles.com,ezinearticles.com,articlecity.com,etc.
There are hundreds of article directories,just google it.

6.Leaving Comments on other blogs:Leaving comments with a link back to your blog is another good thing to do.Leaving comments in the related blogs is more useful and it also increases your pagerank.Always leave good comments and don't Spam(by placing links like'click here' like that).

Read more »

Posted in: increase traffic,make money online,tips and tricks

How to Make your Blogger Blog ready for Mobile Phones

As you know, millions of people use their mobile phones to access internet. The mobile internet speed is also very fast these days with 3G's , mobile apps,etc.

From this, we can say many of your readers are coming to your blog through mobile phones..But, if you don't make your blog mobile friendly, .you may lose all your mobile readers because in a mobile phone, a normal blog takes lot of time to load and there are other issues that your site not fitting properly in the mobile screen.

So, here is how to make your Blogger (blogspot) blog mobile internet friendly..

Sign into your Blogger account > Design > Edit html

Find this line..

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Paste this code below that line...



<meta content='IE=EmulateIE7' http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'/>

<b:if cond='data:blog.isMobile'>

<meta content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=0' name='viewport'/>

<b:else/>

<meta content='width=1100' name='viewport'/>

</b:if>


Save the Changes!

That's it! Now, your visitors can access your blogger blog through mobile phones with blazing speed...

Read more »

Posted in: Blogger Mobiles,how to

Numbered Page Nagivation hack for Blogger

This post explains how to add numbered page navigation widget to blogger (blogspot) blogs:

What is Numbered Page Navigation ?

In blogger, by default, you see Older posts, Newer Posts links near the bottom of the page which is useful to your blog visitors to navigate to other posts of your blog. But, the problem is.. people hardly notice those newer and older posts links.. which means.. less pageviews to your blog.

So, to increase your blog pageviews you can use this cool looking, advanced numbered page navigation to your blog.

So, how to add this to your Blogger blog ?
(first backup your blog template before editing anything)

1. Sign into your Blogger account » Settings » Formatting
Choose the number of posts you want to display on homepage

2. Go to Design » Edit html » tick the expand widget templates

Scroll down to the bottom of the template code and find this


</body>

PASTE this code above that line


<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "static_page"'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var pageCount=5;
var displayPageNum=5;
var upPageWord ='Previous';
var downPageWord ='Next';
</script>

<script type='text/javascript'>

//<![CDATA[

function showpageCount(json){var thisUrl=home_page_url;var htmlMap=new Array();var thisNum=1;var postNum=1;var itemCount=0;var fFlag=0;var eFlag=0;var html='';var upPageHtml='';var downPageHtml='';for(var i=0,post;post=json.feed.entry[i];i++){var timestamp1=post.published.$t.substring(0,19)+post.published.$t.substring(23,29);timestamp=encodeURIComponent(timestamp1);var title=post.title.$t;if(title!=''){if(itemCount==0||(itemCount%pageCount==(pageCount-1))){if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1){thisNum=postNum}if(title!='')postNum++;htmlMap[htmlMap.length]='/search?updated-max='+timestamp+'&max-results='+pageCount}}itemCount++}for(var p=0;p<htmlMap.length;p++){if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1)&&p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){if(fFlag==0&&p==thisNum-2){if(thisNum==2){upPageHtml='<span class="showpage"><a href="/">'+upPageWord+'</a></span>'}else{upPageHtml='<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+upPageWord+'</a></span>'}fFlag++}if(p==(thisNum-1)){html+='<span class="showpagePoint">'+thisNum+'</span>'}else{if(p==0){html+='<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/">1</a></span>'}else{html+='<span class="showpageNum"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+(p+1)+'</a></span>'}}if(eFlag==0&&p==thisNum){downPageHtml='<span class="showpage"> <a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+downPageWord+'</a></span>';eFlag++}}}if(thisNum>1){html=''+upPageHtml+' '+html+' '}html='<div class="showpageArea" style="padding:10px 10px 10px 10px;"><span style="COLOR: #000;" class="showpageOf"> Pages ('+(postNum-1)+')</span>'+html;if(thisNum<(postNum-1)){html+=downPageHtml}if(postNum==1)postNum++;html+='</div>';var pageArea=document.getElementsByName("pageArea");var blogPager=document.getElementById("blog-pager");if(postNum<=2){html=''}for(var p=0;p<pageArea.length;p++){pageArea[p].innerHTML=html}if(pageArea&&pageArea.length>0){html=''}if(blogPager){blogPager.innerHTML=html}}function showpageCount2(json){var thisUrl=home_page_url;var htmlMap=new Array();var isLablePage=thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")!=-1;var thisLable=isLablePage?thisUrl.substr(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.length):"";thisLable=thisLable.indexOf("?")!=-1?thisLable.substr(0,thisLable.indexOf("?")):thisLable;var thisNum=1;var postNum=1;var itemCount=0;var fFlag=0;var eFlag=0;var html='';var upPageHtml='';var downPageHtml='';var labelHtml='<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/search/label/'+thisLable+'?&max-results='+pageCount+'">';var thisUrl=home_page_url;for(var i=0,post;post=json.feed.entry[i];i++){var timestamp1=post.published.$t.substring(0,19)+post.published.$t.substring(23,29);timestamp=encodeURIComponent(timestamp1);var title=post.title.$t;if(title!=''){if(itemCount==0||(itemCount%pageCount==(pageCount-1))){if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1){thisNum=postNum}if(title!='')postNum++;htmlMap[htmlMap.length]='/search/label/'+thisLable+'?updated-max='+timestamp+'&max-results='+pageCount}}itemCount++}for(var p=0;p<htmlMap.length;p++){if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1)&&p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){if(fFlag==0&&p==thisNum-2){if(thisNum==2){upPageHtml=labelHtml+upPageWord+'</a></span>'}else{upPageHtml='<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+upPageWord+'</a></span>'}fFlag++}if(p==(thisNum-1)){html+='<span class="showpagePoint">'+thisNum+'</span>'}else{if(p==0){html=labelHtml+'1</a></span>'}else{html+='<span class="showpageNum"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+(p+1)+'</a></span>'}}if(eFlag==0&&p==thisNum){downPageHtml='<span class="showpage"> <a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+downPageWord+'</a></span>';eFlag++}}}if(thisNum>1){if(!isLablePage){html=''+upPageHtml+' '+html+' '}else{html=''+upPageHtml+' '+html+' '}}html='<div class="showpageArea"><span style="COLOR: #000;" class="showpageOf"> Pages ('+(postNum-1)+')</span>'+html;if(thisNum<(postNum-1)){html+=downPageHtml}if(postNum==1)postNum++;html+='</div>';var pageArea=document.getElementsByName("pageArea");var blogPager=document.getElementById("blog-pager");if(postNum<=2){html=''}for(var p=0;p<pageArea.length;p++){pageArea[p].innerHTML=html}if(pageArea&&pageArea.length>0){html=''}if(blogPager){blogPager.innerHTML=html}}var home_page_url=location.href;var thisUrl=home_page_url;if(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")!=-1){if(thisUrl.indexOf("?updated-max")!=-1){var lblname1=thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.indexOf("?updated-max"))}else{var lblname1=thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.indexOf("?&max"))}}var home_page="/";if(thisUrl.indexOf("?q=")==-1){if(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")==-1){document.write('<script src="'+home_page+'feeds/posts/summary?alt=json-in-script&callback=showpageCount&max-results=99999" ><\/script>')}else{document.write('<script src="'+home_page+'feeds/posts/full/-/'+lblname1+'?alt=json-in-script&callback=showpageCount2&max-results=99999" ><\/script>')}}

//]]>

</script>
</b:if>
</b:if>



In that above code, Edit the part that I highlighted in red color according to Step 1. It determines the number of posts that to be displayed per page. (Make sure, the number you set is same like the one in Step 1)


3. Control + F and search for all the occurrences of this code

'data:label.url'

and replace it with this


'data:label.url + "?&max-results=5"'

Again, the number in the above line depends on the number you set in the STEP 1.

4. Now, the styling part.. I've made x styles.. you can choose the one you wish..


(i) Default



Code


.showpageArea a {
text-decoration:underline;
background: #ffffff;
padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;

}
.showpageNum a {
text-decoration:none;
border: 1px solid #cccccc;
border-top: 1px solid #cccccc;
margin:0 3px;
padding:3px;
}
.showpageNum a:hover {
border: 1px solid #cccccc;
background-color:#cccccc;
}
.showpagePoint {
color:#333;
text-decoration:none;
border: 1px solid #cccccc;
background: #cccccc;
margin:0 3px;
padding:3px;
}
.showpageOf {
text-decoration:none;
padding:3px;
margin: 0 3px 0 0;
}
.showpage a {
text-decoration:none;
border: 1px solid #cccccc;
padding:3px;
}
.showpage a:hover {
text-decoration:none;
}
.showpageNum a:link,.showpage a:link {
text-decoration:none;
color:#333333;
}


Copy the above code. Find this line and paste that code ABOVE IT.


]]></b:skin>


Save the changes.

I've made a few more navigation styles.. I'll post them in a few min.. look for it.

Credits: Blogger Plugins

Read more »

Posted in: how to,numbered page navigation

503 Service Unavailable in Blogger

Are you getting this error message on your blog dashboard, or while you are trying to access your blog?

What does 503 mean?
503 “Service Unavailable” is a “response code” like 404 “Page not found”. The 503 response code is a bit more complicated as it is not a page that is missing it is a server problem. Usually this happens when a server cannot cope or deliver its hosted content to web users, in other words blogger servers have been overloaded.

Background
Back in March Google engineers introduced Auto Pagination which basically reduces and summarizes the amount of posts that a blog displays on the home page, this only affects blogs that show all or most of their full posts on the home page.
This approach to the problem by Blogger has proved ineffective, and Blogger are now having problems in the delivery of certain blogs worldwide.

Who is affected by this 503 “Service Unavailable”
This problem affects all blogs worldwide. One of the ways to find out if you have been affected is to login in Google analytics and check your traffic sources, select search engines and select the keyword that brings most of the traffic to your blog, compare the data with previous months. A notable change in your bounce rate or average time will be a good indicator that your blog had been affected by this 503 response code. The logic behind this is simple, a user trying to view your blog has opened the 503 page and assumed the site down and gone to another site. Due to this you will receive a 100% Bounce rate for that keyword as well as a low time average.

Understanding the problem and its consequences
The consequences of this problem are that you can start to lose traffic and your ranking in search engines. You need to understand that this is not a problem of resources, this cannot be fixed by getting a new server for blogger (if it was I would not be here talking about it).
This is a problem of how we blog and what we do with our blogs.

How to solve the 503 “Server unavailable” on Blogger
Here are a few steps you could take in order to help Blogger to solve the issue.

Basic level (no skills required)
- Summarize your posts.
- Show only the most relevant post on your home page.

If you show full posts on your home page you have a greater chance of encountering the “503” problem, as your blog is using more resources from Blogger to deliver or load your blog. Secondly an excessive number of posts on the home page (even summarized posts) may result in a 503 as there is a delay with Blogger loading your blog. You can opt to show your latest post or more relevant posts, and include a widget with some links to your previous posts. This is SEO friendly and will reduce the amount of problems you will have with your blog.

Medium Level (some skills and knowledge are required)
- Use a light weight template and avoid using the “template designer” from Blogger
- Use Light images

If you are using a template made from the “template designer” tab, there is a simple test that you can do to reveal how efficient your template is: Clean the cookies of your browser and open your blog (not blogger dashboard) by typing the url in the address bar of the browser. Take note of the time that it takes for your blog to load completely, now go to blogger and change your template for any free template and repeat the same steps, clean your cookies and open your blog again and compare the time. Some of the templates made with the “Template Designer” have a poorer performance, especially those that have some java scripts and/or have a background image.

Images play an important part in saving some bites, you can use PNG format or GIF as these are lightweight formats, you can also use JPG but you must always compare them to find out which is the lightest one. PNG is not always the best. If you don’t know how to change the file formats of the images you can search on Google for GIPM; an open source software with features like Paint Shop Pro; easy to use especially to change image formats.

High level (Skills and Knowledge are required)
- Speed test using Firebug for Firefox

The best way to analyze and get a full report on the performance of your blog is by using “Firebug” for Firefox. Firebug will report a series of problems that your blog may have in order to reduce the loading time of your blog which is one of the determining factors of the 503 “Service Unavailable” error.
You will get specific reports on how your CSS is performing, where you can reduce the size of your CSS, where to put your Javascript files, and much more. Most importantly it will create a compressed version of your CSS (best performance) for you to use as well as a copy of all images in a different format, for instance if you have some JPG images, Firebug will compare the same image to other formats and will give to you the same image but under a different format saving you time in editing those images.

Overall there are alot of things that you will find out about your blog after running a test on Firebug that you may not know how to solve, if that is the case you can jump into the forum and ask questions about it.

Why should you bother with all of this?
You may be thinking why do I need to bother with all of this, why not just wait for somebody from Blogger and Google to solve the problem?. Well the answer to that is easy: this is not just Blogger’s problem this is a blog problem, and in this case, blogs worldwide. This is not solved by buying an extra server or hiring somebody to solve the problem, this can in part be solved by us bloggers and the way we do things. Blogger is the only blog platform that offers you the best of both worlds: the benefits of a self hosted blog for free. You just have to ask yourself would I like if Blogger changed the rules and started to charge it’s users for their free service?

This may or may not happen, but for now this is just an appeal to all bloggers to change the way they do things for the best, at the end of the day it will help your blog as well as the user experience that you offer to your blog users.

Resources

Firefox: Download Firefox Official Site
Firebug: Download Firebug Official Site
GIMP image editor: Download GIMP Official Site

(These links open on a new window and will open the Official sites where you can find more info before downloading each software. All software is Open Source and free of charge)

Read more »

Posted in: 503 Service Unavailable in Blogger

My Site Bandwidth Blasted!!

Today morning, I got an email from my hosting company that my account was temporarily suspended due to excessive usage of Bandwidth.
Daily thousands of people are downloading our template copies.So, it's understandable. I got my account back and I can't afford to get it suspended again.
I edited each template again and changed the image links (presently, images hosted in 5 Photobucket accounts).

I'm providing the template image files in the download file.So, if you really like a template, please feel free to spend 10 minutes on uploading the image files to your account and change the image links in the template.. so, the problem will never repeat again.

How to do that?? (Tutorial)

QUICK METHOD:

1.Download a Fresh Copy of the template and replace your template code from

<head>

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

<b:skin><![CDATA[/*

to


]]></b:skin>

</head>

Read more »

Posted in: site issues

How to Host your Template Images in Blogger (Unlimited Bandwitdh) ?

If you are a regular reader of Blogger Tricks, you probably know that previously I had many problems hosting my template images. A year back, I used photobucket to host my template images.. but, the problem with photobucket and many other free image hosts is their bandwidth limitations. Once, you exceed a specific amount of bandwidth, your images won't show, instead.. an irritating ' bandwidth exceeded' image shows. Next, after that I tried to create.. like a new photobucket account per each template.. but, that also exceeded in a matter a couple of weeks.

Not only me, my other blogger template designers are also struggling to find a reliable, free image host with unmetered bandwidth.

I tried to upload the images to blogger and copy the image url from the status bar and use it in templates.. but it didn't worked. But, recently I came to know that we can actually host the images( large) in blogger and hotlink,use them in templates, forums,etc.

Here is the trick..

As usual, create a new post in blogger and upload your template images to that post... but don't publish it... keep it as a draft.
Once you completed uploading all the images, Open each image in a new window.




Once, the image is loaded in the new window, what I previously did was to copy the image location from the status bar and paste/hotlink it in templates. But, it didn't worked!



Now, the trick is, many people don't know that the url which we copy from the status bar is not exactly the direct link to that image file... that's why we can't hotlink to that image.

So, what we have to do to hotlink to that image is Right Click on the image and ' Copy Image location'. (for firefox users). For Internet explorer users, Right click on the image and go to Properties and then copy the image url from there.



Example:
For the above picture, status bar shows...

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Tpqb97DkvIP0TuWa_3-GyFP7yb3D7OHJWXe300yXdKYPm66MmIRpPmg3-1iyTWP7wNVhOP69cPhQ9Xwtdos_OKVW-W2QAbW6yibLpgt_IQyIg5F9JRVIy-Szgqi0yx2-AUwOqWlpGGhK/-h/2008-05-28_124414.jpg

which don't work.

And the Real image url we get after right clicking and copying image location is..


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Tpqb97DkvIP0TuWa_3-GyFP7yb3D7OHJWXe300yXdKYPm66MmIRpPmg3-1iyTWP7wNVhOP69cPhQ9Xwtdos_OKVW-W2QAbW6yibLpgt_IQyIg5F9JRVIy-Szgqi0yx2-AUwOqWlpGGhK/s1600/2008-05-28_124414.jpg

Which works and we can do whatever we want.. with unlimited bandwidth :D
Hope this trick will be useful to many people who are searching for unlimited bandwidth image hosts.

Read more »

Posted in: image hosting,unlimited image hosting

How to track your blog visitors?

As a new blogger(webmaster),it is always interesting to know how many people are visiting your blog/site,pageviews,where they are coming from,which sites are referring,how many are coming via Search Engines(google,yahoo,etc) and what they are typing in the search engines to visit your site.
These stastistics are very handy interms of improving your blog and it is for FREE

If you search the google,you will find hundreds of sites which will track the visitors of your blog/site.But,some sites will provide more information about your visitors than the others.
So,how to do this?
Here are the best tracking sources interms of the feautures they provide.

Note:One thing is common for all the tracking sites.First you need to register,and provide the necessary information about your blog/website.Next,they will give you a html code and you have to embed it in your blog.
How to do that in blogger?
1.Sign in to your blogger dashboard.
2.Click on the 'layout' link next to your blog name.
3.Click on the "Add a Page element"
4.Select "html/javascript" and past the code they provide and SAVE THE CHANGES.

From then,your blog will be tracked and you can check your blog stats from time to time after logging in to your registrate's website.

So,here are the good ones:-


Sitemeter.com:This one is one of the Most Popular tracking source.This is as simple as 123. Just create an account,copy the code from your account and paste it in your blog as suggested above.
You have also the option to keep your blog stats PRIVATE.
They will give you the stats on how many pageviews(hits) per day,unique visitors,geolocation of the visitors,how many users online,and much more...As it is simple(not much animation),you site will load as fast as it is before.Stats are updated hourly.
You can setup a Free Account here


Histats.com:Unlike the Sitemeter which is very simple, this site will have very cool and animated counters.

Tracking is updated every 5 minutes.I personally using this site for my blogs.Like Sitemeter,
this is also have the option to keep your site stats PRIVATE.
They will provide Animated graphs about your site visitors and fully animative.
You can register with them here


Statcounter.com:Same here!As in the name,it is a stats counter.It is fast,free,and quick loading.
Invisible tracking is available and no ads on your site.All the stats are in real time and super fast.It is not much animated as histats.com.They will provide pageviews,unique vistors,visitors activity,search engine wars,keyword analysis,and many more..
Register a free counter for your blog here

Read more »

Posted in: blog,blogger,counter,how to,stats,track,visitors