Archive for the ‘blogger’ Category

The latest podcast show comparing blog formats from Blogger and WordPress was launched today with advice for small business owners. If you’re undecided about the benefits of blogging, or which format to select, the show gives comparisons of format, ease of use, and other features on these top blog formats.

The show features a review of a new custom matching blog done in WordPress for one of my personal sites, and features bonus tips for advanced plug-in options and themes or templates for WordPress. An integrated blog custom design to match your main site is one of the best search engine optimization techniques I can recommend. Contact me at any time for no obligation free advice about blogging for small business.

One day, perhaps, website developers will be able to create the perfect template to display blog pages that comply to W3C standards with perfect XHTML in Blogger blogs. The goal is currently impossible because of how the blog “engine” generates blog posts at the instant you publish.

Content generated external to the template and css that web developers design for blogs is the reason. This content includes hidden code that identifies the blog as shown below in this snippet of results from the W3C XHTML validation service for just one post on my blog:

g?blogID=38647469&postID;=5457517960262

The highlighted and underlined content above is the culprit. The ampersand symbol is a special reserved character in XHTML, and to display properly without creating a code error it must have it’s full ASCII 5-character code and not just the single character as typed from your keyboard. The highlighted text of &postID; should read &postID to be correct per W3C.

Unfortunately, this small problem generates multiple instances and errors on each post, and it is completely out of the control of you or your blog designer. The only solution will happen when the technical team and programmers at Blogger choose to modify their system to insert the ampersand with the full ASCII 5-character code. Don’t hold your breath. It’s like pushing a glacier.

Does this really matter? From a technical point, no. From a practical point, yes, because the solution is easy. Your blog will look fine with 250 code errors, yet if browser companies and web developers are driven to comply with standards for zero code errors, it would be nice to have Blogger get on board, too.

Finally, if you follow a permalink to any individual post on this blog, and then validate per W3C, there are 28 code errors. Unlike my main site which displays the Valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS2 badges with zero code errors, the blog is doomed for now to being nice, not perfect.

The blog issue and other external factors used to create multimedia content use deprecated code, so my goal of perfect code has been revised to accept the reality of designing with near zero errors.

Additional small business blogs integrated with matching graphics to the client’s main website were launched recently and available to view. JB Owens, Public Insurance Adjusters, provide commercial and residential clients support analyzing property loss due to disaster to maximize insurance benefits. Roll Screen Solutions LLC specializes in retractable screens and awnings for your Florida home or business with custom design motorized or manual products.

Each client blog matches the main site with familiar graphics for a consistent marketing message and corporate identity.

Visit the James B. Owens blog here and the Roll Screen Solutions blog here.

Custom blogs with graphics to match your website provide an easy way to quickly add fresh content to your small business website. Pricing starts at $200 and includes 8 features for your custom template with every order. Visit the custom new blogger template page for more examples of client websites with integrated matching blogs.

Get the most out of your small business blog with this advice to overcome writer’s block and come up with new subjects for your blog posts. This post includes excerpts from the full article I wrote and published online which is linked below.

Write short paragraphs and cover one aspect of what you present in each. Visitors want information quickly; so long paragraphs should be avoided. Short posts of 1-2 paragraphs are fine, too. Most website content is quickly scanned, so headlines and the first few words of each paragraph may be all that most visitors view before deciding to read details, or exit.

Include key words relative to your subject, and place some near the beginning of sentences for each paragraph, so your visitors get the general feel as they scan your post. Search engines will visit and index your blog content, too, so key words are important for attracting the search engine crawlers. Always check spelling and grammar before you post.

Google Alerts and blog labels are two techniques to help you generate new blog post ideas. Each will be presented in the report Blog Your Way to Fresh Content from my series of free PDF SEO Reports about do-it-yourself small business website promotion that I began to release early in 2007. Some of my clients could not wait, so here’s a preview of how to use these two techniques to come up with post ideas for your blog:

1. Google Alerts is a free service that delivers links to content by email. Once set up, you automatically receive a collection of current news stories or related content by email with summaries and links to the information. Visit the Google Alerts page to get started, or find details in my full article Small Business Blog Writing Tips.

2. Your blog labels are the filing system for your blog that cross references your posts by subject category, so visitors may click a label and view all posts about that subject on one page. Use the list of labels to brainstorm ideas for posts. Again, more details are in the full article.

A large percentage around 25% of new blogs go offline in less than 90 days. One reason is the lack of new and fresh content. Find details in the full article with tips for creating posts for your small business blog and then keep each short and to the point, utilize Google Alerts, and do a review of your blog labels to easily come up with new ideas for posts.

After investing 100 plus hours creating and tweaking a new blogger template for my commercial site, custom blogger template design services are now available. The goal was matching the graphics and color scheme so visitors moving from my blog to the main site and back would see very little difference in the overall look. Here’s another good example with the Mannion Custom Painting blog.

Small business customers who have read the first two free PDFs in my series of search engine optimization reports pressured me to get blog information documented sooner than “later this year”. I selectively chose a few clients to create custom new blogger templates with matching graphics before this announcement making the service available for all.

Here’s some of what you get:

1. a custom new blogger template with matching graphics
2. a 15 page personalized blogger tutorial in PDF format
3. registration, installation and testing of your blog
4. registration and account setup with promotional services
5. promotional tools and advice for blog and ping
6. social bookmarking code, registration, and graphics
7. preprogrammed labels to sort posts by categories
8. a list of copy and paste tags for creating new posts

Please note that my free SEO report series including Google Page One in Just 9 Months are based on my experience from May 2006 to February 2007. The custom blogger templates are only available for the new Blogger or old because those are the only ones I’ve used. Other brands such as WordPress or TypePad may be considered for custom matching graphics. Just ask.

A custom blogger template was created for Commercial Door and Access, Inc. of Palm Bay Florida, and this addition to their main website was launched earlier today. The advantage of custom matching graphics for the header and footer, plus similar navigation, is integration of the blog with the main site for a familiar look.

The above snapshot is smaller than actual size and shows the first post at Commercial Door and Access who provide sales and installation of commercial doors and hardware, plus handicap and automatic doors and gates.

Add social bookmark chicklets to individual posts easily with this tutorial for the new blogger by Google, formerly beta. I’ve included a tutorial for old blogger template customization, also, plus all the necessary graphics and code.

Download the free tutorials to add social bookmarks to old or new blogger Google accounts here (zip file, 15Kb, right-click and “save target as” to download). Social bookmarking became very popular since 2006, and it is a method that allows people to tag their favorite websites to a free social bookmarking service.

Is social bookmarking unfamiliar or new to you? View the string of cute social bookmark graphics at the bottom of my posts. Each is a link to a social bookmarking website where you may store and share links to your favorite websites or blogs. The key advantage is you may access your favorites from any computer, anywhere, so they’re always available even when you travel. Learn more about social bookmarking at Wikipedia.

Icons, the code, and full instructions for my top 12 social bookmarks are included in the zip file, plus advice for adding more. The tutorial covers BlinkList, Blogmarks, Del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Google, Reddit, Simpy, Spurl, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and Yahoo. The code is in the same order as those on this blog, but you may rearrange them as desired.

One frustration of publishing a blog is adding widgets to enhance the experience for your visitors. I was particularly stumped because this blog for my commercial site was created with an old blogger template, and my personal blog “Growin’ Up in Maine” was done with the new blogger template. The old version is straight XHTML which was easy. New blogger templates are XML based with limited documentation since released out of BETA by Google early in 2007.

The solution took long hours of research and debugging. When I started to hand code HTML for website design back in the mid 1990′s, I learned early on that a single typo error can ruin the look of any site. Unravelling the mystery for the old blogger and new blogger was equally challenging. To help novice bloggers save time, the code is written to easily customize your blog using copy and replace instead of cut and paste. Add these icons to your blog so visitors can quickly find you later.