My Blogging 101- Blogger Page Elements

If you’re tired of how your blog looks, Blogger actually provides a way for the ordinary blogger to play around with the objects contained therein, without messing up the main template.

Adding links, slide shows, feeds, labels etc. is easier now with the Page Element aspect of Blogger.

On the Dashboard, click “Layout” and then “Add Page Element”.

A window opens with choices:

Just choose which element you’d like to add.

In managing your page elements, you can just drag and drop them like you would a character in the Word interface.

My Blogging 101-Background Image

For most of us ordinary denizens tweaking a blog can be painstakingly tedious. It will require countless browsing time and reading of message boards. Clicking link after link.

Sometimes you find what you’re looking for and sometimes these links can lead you to pornographic sites and viruses you don’t wanna deal with (it also will require countless of internet time in just finding the “cure”).

So, you have a blog and you’re stuck with generic templates. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a unique background? Wouldn’t it be nice to change the look of your blog at will?

After countless minutes of internet time, here are some of the few tricks I've encountered:

Blogger

This is pretty easy. Since acquiring Blogger, Google have constantly upgraded and provided updates for us not so tech-savvy (HTML codes are gibberish for me) people.

1. Makes sure you have a picture ready and save it at a free picture hosting site such as (imageshack, photobucket etc).

2. Open your blog and on the Dashboard click Layout>Edit HTML. Go to the code that says:

body {
background-image: url(http://img......jpg);

3. Insert your picture URL from the picture host and click preview. Do not save changes yet for it may not work the first time and you have to do it again. Just click “Clear Edits” to discard whatever changes you made and start again.

Blogdrive

It’s pretty much the same thing with Blogdrive. Go to your “Layout & Design” tab. On the lower part of the page click on “Main Template Edit”. Now if you’re not sure about this, copy and save the your existing Template code into a notepad for future reference in case you’ve deleted and saved something from within your main template.
Just paste the original code again into the main template.

Look for the code that looks like this:

body {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
background: url("http://img...gif") repeat-y;

Change the http://img...gif using the URL from the free picture host. And viola! You have a unique background you can call your own.

Tweaking the HTML code of your blog is not easy. It requires patience and diligence and always, always save a back up file in case everything goes crazy, if all else fail, there's always "Pick a New Template".

My Blogging 101

1. Finding a good blog hosting site. Begin by searching on the internet and read reviews by users.

You can try one of these sites –

a. Blogger.com. Sign up is free, just click “Create Account” and take it from there. Instructions are as easy as 1-2-3.

b.Blogdrive.

c.MSN Spaces.

d.Livejournal.com.

2. Article. For the first few months your articles should be tutorial type with lots of how tos and advices. Generally why people go online is to look for answers that help them in the real world. This way having a tutorial type post can sure generate traffic to your site. This if you want to monetize your blog and earn. If you want to maintain it to be personal, just between yourself, family and friends , then you can write whatever you like.

3. Fresh Updates. If you have just started, make sure to update at least daily. This way you make your target readers interested in going back to your site.

4. What to Call your blog. To generate traffic, make sure to have an easy to remember blog name. Normally the one of the major factors to generate readership is by word of mouth. How can people talk about how interesting your blog is if they cannot pronounce it.

5. Start browsing and commenting on other blogs across the net. It shows that you’re serious at what you do and interested in what other people think. That way they’ll return the favor and visit your site as well.

6. Start submitting your site to blog sites directory. This way you have a bigger chance of being in the system and you can easily be searched.