Also read ‘How to install xml blogger template‘
Free xml Blogger Template: ‘Girl and Sofa’, it is my first template for blogspot weblogs. From this time I’m starting creating free templates for different platforms.
Description: This template is kind of romantic one, it can be used for ‘Girl’ blog, lounge blog or whatever you want =)
It is 2-3 column template, optimized for Ads, like Adsense, Adbrite and other context links ads or banners.
DEMO
DOWNLOAD
If you have any problems with installation this template to your blogger account, post a comment in this post.
Also read ‘How to install xml blogger templates‘
Find all my Blogger Templates
update: my new xml blogger template - Black Rainbow
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Organizing online blogger contest is a good way to increase traffic to your blog or website. Also you will get a lot of backlinks and your search engine presence will grow. How do you think John Chow become so popular? Yes, because of Blogger Contests.
Overall, its one of the easiest and interesting method of Link Building.
What kind of Contest you can make?
It can be anything… for example:
Design contest (Who create coolest logo for your blog), Photoshop Contest, ‘pimp your blog’ contest, Best blogger girlfriend … etc. The stupidest idea - the better contest =)
What do I need, to make Contest?
1. Name of the Contest - try to find something interesting.
2. Rules of your Contest.
3. How long your Contest will go: a week or a month or…
4. List of competitors.
5. Terms and conditions.
6. Feedback with you.
7. What is the point of your contest.
8. Sponsors - you can be your own sponsor, but you can easily find someone.
9. You need to have a good prize for a winner, it can be money, link, banner, review of his blog etc.
10. You need to have a Voting’s for a winner.
There can be more staff, use your fantasy!
Where to promote my contest?
Here some links for you:
- Сontest Blogger
- ThePrizeBlog
- ContestHound
- DisregardMe
- ReviewWow
- MyBlogContest
- TheLinkBait
- ContestBeat
- Blog-Contests
- TheContestWinner
- MyBlogContests
- AboutBlogContest
- ContestBlogcat
- Contester
- SubmitYourContest
Tips:
Don’t worry about the prize. You are not a Google, you can’t make big prize for a winner. It can be 10, 20, 50 $ or link to the winner blog =)
Don’t make hard contests ! You will get more competitors, if your contest will be easy.
Don’t lie to competitors, if someone wins, just give him a prize. Don’ create a virtual winner, its not fair!
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You need to put Google AdSense to each post in your Blogger blog, if you want to earn money on your blog. Google AdSense is a perfect way to earn money. It is a banner with contextual links. You can add Google AdSense by using Blogger Widgets, but using them - you can add your banner just on your sidebar, before, after or between posts.
Do you know that the best place for Google AdSense ads is in the post and it must be wrapped around the text? Now you know. This tutorial will show you how to add Google AdSense to each post in your Blogger blog and make it wrapped around the text:
1. First of all you need to have Google AdSense account.
2. After registration go to your Blogger Dashboard, click on ‘Layouts’, after that, click on ‘Edit HTML’.
3. Backup your Template by clicking on ‘Download Full Template’.
4. Click on Expand Widget Templates checkbox.
5. Find the following line in the HTML code in the text box:
<data:post.body/>
6. Now put the following code BEFORE <data:post.body/>:
<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == "item"’>
<div id=’googleadsense’>
</div>
</b:if>
7. Now you need to put your parsed Google AdSense banner code between <div id=’googleadsense’> and </div>
( to make your Google Adsense banner code Parsed, you need to change all ‘<’ to < and ‘>’ to > it is easy to do with this tool - google adsense parser - just follow the instruction.)
8. Now you need to add new CSS style for your banner, search for
]]></b:skin> and put following code BEFORE it:
#googleadsense {
float:left; /* write ‘right’ , if you want to have ads from the right side*/
}
9. Save your template.
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How to start a blog in Blogger (video guide). I’m boring to tell you about how to start blog in Blogger, so I decide to show you this video guide:
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There are lot of Search Engine Optimization methods and its hard to do them all. This is a small list of things, what you need to do then starting new blog or web-site. Soon I will wright about every part of this list.
1. You must have robots.txt file.
2. You must submit your sitemap to search engines
3. Off-load functionality code (javascript, css, etc.)
4. Use SEO friendly page titles.
5. Use proper meta tags.
6. Do not use frames.
7. You must have a website (blog) map page.
8. You must have a 404 Error handling page.
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Blogger blogs not well optimized for search engines and you need to fix that. One of the things that is not optimized are Titles of your all posts in Blogger blogs.
Usually title looks like this : Title of your blog : Title of post
It is wrong! For better SEO you need to have: Title of post : Title of your blog
Lets fix that:
1. Go to blogger dashboard, click ‘Layout‘ and ‘Edit HTML’
2. Find this line: <title><data:blog.pageTitle/><title>
3. Replace that line to this one :
<!– newtitle –>
<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == “item”‘>
<b:section id=’titleTag’>
<b:widget id=’Blog2′ locked=’false’ title=’Blog Posts’ type=’Blog’>
<b:includable id=’nextprev’/>
<b:includable id=’backlinks’ var=’post’/>
<b:includable id=’post’ var=’post’><data:post.title/></b:includable>
<b:includable id=’commentDeleteIcon’ var=’comment’/>
<b:includable id=’status-message’/>
<b:includable id=’feedLinks’/>
<b:includable id=’backlinkDeleteIcon’ var=’backlink’/>
<b:includable id=’feedLinksBody’ var=’links’/>
<b:includable id=’postQuickEdit’ var=’post’/>
<b:includable id=’comments’ var=’post’/>
<b:includable id=’main’ var=’top’><title><b:loop values=’data:posts’ var=’post’><b:include data=’post’ name=’post’/></b:loop> | <data:blog.title/></title></b:includable>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>
<!– end newtitle –>
4. Save your changes.
Done, now you have better optimized title of your blog posts. Cheers
This method is not workind anymore, read how to fix that: Swap blog title and post title on blogger
PS:
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Favicon is one small part of your blog design, usually blogger blogs have Blogger logotype as favicon, but you can easily change it to your favicon.
It can be your blog logotype or some funny small picture, for example ’smileicon’.
Ok, take your logotype (if you have it) or some picture or draw your own logo in Photoshop (or other graphic editing software).
Creating Favicon
After creating you logo you need to change size of it to 16×16 pixel. After that, save your logo in ‘.ico’ format ( for example: my_favicon.ico ).
Installing Favicon
Now you need to install your favicon to Internet. You can use one of the free image hosting provider or Google Page Creator. Just upload your .ico file to your Google pages directory, like on the picture.
Installing Favicon to Blogger
Now you need to go to your Blogger account.
1. Click on ‘Layout’.
2. Click on ‘Edit HTML’, Backup your template!.
3. Now, if you using google pages, you need to add the following codes right after the <head> code:
<link href=’http://myname.googlepages.com/my_favicon.ico’ rel=’shortcut icon’/>
<link href=’http://myname.googlepages.com/my_favicon.ico’ rel=’icon’/>
*Change ‘myname.googlepages.com’ to your account address, change ‘my_favicon.ico’ to your favicon name.
4. Save your changes.
* This changes will not appear immediately, just refresh it once and it should appear.
Cheers
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This template has a woodsy nature feel to it yet it’s quite inviting for any sort of blog. Natural Essence is a 2 columns new Blogger template submitted by “Oz” and enhanced by eBlog Templates.
It’s got a nice floral brown header image and a clean simple template body. There is also a cool footer module […]
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I think you know that links to your blog is one of the best methods to make your blog popular. Backlinks will give you some traffic of new visitors to your blog, your blog will be crawled faster by search engines, PageRank of your blog will be bigger (this will increase traffic from search engines, because your blog will be on better position).
Yes, any link is good for your blog, but better to have good links. Link must be from the main page (home page) and it must have good PageRank. More links with good PR you have, bigger PR of your blog you will get.
So, where to get good backlinks? You can buy it, you can make link exchange with friendly blogs, or you can get them for free =)
Where to get free links? From social bookmarks =) Do you know Digg.com? Yes, you know it. How to get good PR link from Digg? Read next tip:
There are few ways to get good links from Digg:
1. You can create good post or article on your blog and post it on Digg. If you are lucky, your post will get to main page of Digg (page with popular articles). Main page of Digg have PR8! You will get lot of extra visitors, some backlinks, some money from banner Ads. But this is not for long, your link will be there just few hours.
2. How to get life time link from Digg for free? From you profile on Digg =) But you profile don’t have PR at all, so you need to make it bigger. How? Easy =)
You can create good PR profile on Digg in 1-2 months. I’ve did it in 1 month (I have PR5 digg profile). All you need is to make posts on Digg, make comment and dugg stories. I don’t know exactly how many this staff you need but I can tell you how many I had.
- 130 posted stories
- 50 comments
- 300 duggs
Better to have good stories, with diggs, and better to have popular stories, they will give you bigger traffic and bigger chances to make your profile popular.
3. If you have friends on Digg, they also can add link to your blog in their profiles.
Tips: Better to submit stories from your blog, each submitted story is a link to your blog.
You can have lot of profiles on Digg =)
Digg is not only social bookmark service =) You can use Reddit, Propeller and others.
Cheers
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Change width of blog in Blogger, one of the question what my readers often ask me. Well, changing blog width is not so hard. Width is one of the main part of your blog design. You must to choose correct width for your blog first. Standard width of your blog in Blogger is - 660 px.
If you want to change it, just follow my small tutorial:
1. Go to your Blogger Dashboard and click ‘Layout’.
2. Click ‘Edit HTML’.
3. Now Backup your template by clicking ‘Download full Template’.
4. Now you need to find CSS Style for your blog body. Just find this line :
#outer-wrapper {
5. There mast be Width: 660px parameter under that line. Just change it to your width. (#outer-wrapper is default CSS name of blog body parameters, but if you are using template what was designed by someone, this parameter can have different name. Usually its situated after #body parameter, the name can be: #page, #blog, #blogbody or something like that).
6. After changing , preview your blog by clicking ‘Preview’ button. If everything is OK - click ‘Save Template’.
That’s all! Is it so hard? I think - no. You can also read :
How to change sidebar width in Blogger blog
How to Change Header Width in Blogger
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After you have found xml Blogger Template, you need to install it to your blog. Follow this steps to do it:
1. Go to your blog account
2. Click ‘Layout’ and ‘Edit HTML’
3. Backup your Template !
4. Now you need to download the Template you like to your hard drive (the template must be in xml format)
5. Click ‘Browse’ , chouse your template and upload it .
Done, Cheers
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So, how to ping your blog and what is ping service? Ping services - services that informs search engines that your blog has new publications. After ping, search engine robots quickly crawl your new articles to index them.
If your blog on Wordpress, go to: Options - Writing - Update Services - in the end you will find a list with ping services for pinging your blog.
I want to share with you my list of 100 ping services. Some of them are blog-catalogs pinging services, so first you need to add your blog to that catalogs. To ping your blog, just follow the links.
100 Ping Services List:
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogoole.com/ping
http://blogoon.net/ping
http://blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://blogsnow.com/ping
http://blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://weblogues.com/RPC
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://catapings.com/ping.php
http://effbot.org/rpc/ping.cgi
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/pingRPC2
http://rpc.newsgator.com
http://newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://mod-pubsub.org/ping.php
http://pingqueue.com/rpc
http://rpc.britblog.com
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping
http://wasalive.com/ping
http://blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://blogsearch.google.com/pingRPC2nd
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rpc2
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/xmlrpc
http://pingoat.com/goat/rpc2
http://rcs.datashed.net/rpc2
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/rpc2
http://newsisfree.com/rpccloud
http://queerfilter.com/ping
http://weblogues.com/rpc
http://api.mw.net.tw/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/ping
http://blogsdominicanos.com/ping
http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/pingRPC2
http://blogsearch.google.us/pingRPC2
http://feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://fgiasson.com/pings/ping.php
http://focuslook.com/ping.php
http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping
http://imblogs.net/ping
http://ping.blogg.de
http://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://ping.wordblog.de
http://pinger.onejavastreet.com
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
http://rssfeeds.com/suggest_wizzard.php
http://rssfwd.com/xmlrpc/api
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://weblogalot.com/ping
http://xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php
http://focuslook.com/ping
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In this tutorial I will show you “how to integrate “digg this” button to your blogger blog and how to wrap “digg this” button around and inline beside Blogger post content. This will be good part of your blog design.
I think you know Digg, Why you need to install Digg button to your blog? This is the quote from the Digg:
The Digg This button is for website and blog publishers that want to encourage their audience to submit or digg their content on Digg. Join thousands of sites that have already added Digg This and seen their content exposed to the Digg community.
We’ve given our latest Digg This button a brain - it’s smart enough to:
- Encourage users to submit new content from your site to Digg. We’ll detect if the content exists already and provide either a Submit or Digging interface
- Display the real-time Digg count for content already on Digg
- Support News, Video, or Podcast content.
- Be backward compatible with the last version of our Digg This button
So, you can get some (or , maybe, big) traffic from Digg.
This is how it will look like:
It is hard to install this button to your blog and make it wrap around and inline beside post content, so, I will tell you how to do it:
1. Go to Blogger Dashboard.
2. Go to Layouts and click on Edit Html subtab of Template tab.
3.Backup your template to PC.
4. Then put a check in Expand Widgets Template box at top of Edit Template text box and scroll down to the blog posts widget body to this line :
<p><data:post.body/></p> or <data:post.body/>
5. Append the following lines of code into the template BEFORE the line of <data:post.body/> located above:
<div id=’digg’><script type=’text/javascript’>
digg_url = '<data:post.url/>';
digg_title = '<data:post.title/>';
digg_window = 'new';
</script>
<script src=’http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js’ type=’text/javascript’/></div>
6. Now you need to create CSS style for Digg this button. Find this line:
]]></b:skin>
7. If you want to have digg button on the left side of post, append the following lines of code into the template BEFORE the line of ]]></b:skin> located above:
#digg {
float: left;
margin-right: 5px;
}
If you want to have digg button on the right side of post, append the following lines of code into the template BEFORE the line of ]]></b:skin> located above:
#digg {
float: right;
margin-left: 5px;
}
8. Save your template.
That’s all =) Cheers
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How to add your blogger blog sitemap to your Google Webmaster tools ? - my blog readers often ask me this question. Unfortunately, Blogger blogs don’t have real sitemap and you can’t create it. But do you know that your RSS or Atom feed are some kind of sitemap?
‘Why do I need to add sitemap to Google?’ - Well, the short answer is : it will help Google to crawl your blog pages better and faster.
You can add your RSS feed to Google Webmaster Tools and Google will use it like sitemap of your blog.
How to add sitemap (RSS) to Google Webmaster Tools
1. Go to your Webmaster Tools
2. Your blog mast be added to Google webmaster tools, if not - read How to add Blogger blog to Google
3. Welcome back! ok, now choose your blog in webmaster tools dashboard (click on the link)
4. Go to ‘Sitemaps’ , and click ‘Add a Sitemap’. Choose type: ‘Add General Web Sitemap’ and in the field put ‘rss.xml’ () . Click ‘Add General Web Sitemap’.
5. Done, Cheers…
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You know How to Integrate ‘Digg this’ button to blogger blog, but what to do with other bookmarks, Reddit, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Propeller …?
I will show you how to add them all by adding one button. This button calls AddThis.
1. Firs of all you need to register on AddThis
2. After registration you need to log in to AddThis and click ‘GET THE ADDTHIS BUTTON’
3. To create your button, simply select the options that best fit your needs below.
All buttons are free for everyone (individuals, businesses, and organizations).
As we are talking about Blogger blogs, I will show you how to do it for Blogger:
Which kind of button? - Sharing and Bookmarking
Which look? - chouse your button look, I like this one:
Where? Where do you want to put the button? - on a Blog
Blogging Platform: - Blogger
It mast look like this:
4. Click: ‘Get Your Free Button’
5. You will get a code. I like drop-down menu, so I chouse that one.
Integrating Button to Blogger post
1. Go to your Blogger account.
2. Click ‘Layout’ –> Edit ‘HTML’
3. Backup your template!
4. Check Expand Widget Templates
5. Copy-and-paste the code of your AddThis Button into the contents of your template, right after the <div class=’post-footer’> tag.
6. Save your template.
Cheers
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Add your Blogger blog to Google Webmaster Tools - This is the first thing that you need to do after creating your Blogger blog. After that you will be able to add Google sitemap for Blogger blog. It will help Google to crawl your blog or website better and faster.
This ‘How to’ is for any kind of websites (Blogger blogs, Wordpress and others).
1. Go to your Google Webmaster Tools
2. Enter your blog address and click ‘Add Site’
3. Now you need to Verify your blog, click ‘Verify your Site’ . Next choose your verification method: Add a meta tag . Google will show you your meta tag, you need to copy the meta tag and paste it in your site’s home page in the first <head> section of the page, before the first <body> section.
4. Adding meta tag to Blogger blog: Go to your Blogger dashboard, click ‘Layout‘ and ‘Edit HTML’.
5. Now just find <head> and paste your meta tag after <head> . Save your changes.
6. Now go back to your Google Webmaster Tools and click ‘Verify’
7. Done, now you can add Google sitemap for your Blogger blog
Cheers
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- April 2008 (36)
