Blogger: How do I delete a blog?

To delete your entire blog, just go to Settings | Basic:

At this point, make absolutely sure that you are on the right blog and that you want to permanently remove it from your account. Then click Delete This Blog: and confirm by clicking OK

15 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic

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The blogosphere is a big and busy world with over 100 million blogs and growing. How do you attract visitors to your blog? Follow these simple tips to drive traffic to your blog.

1. Write Well and Write Often

Frequently updating your blog with useful content is the first step to building your blog's audience. The content you write is what will keep readers coming back for more. Make sure you have something meaningful to say to them and say it often to maintain their interest and keep them loyal.

Furthermore, post frequently to increase the number of chances you have for your blog's content to be noticed by search engines such as Google or Technorati.

2. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines

Get on the radar screen for the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! by submitting your blog's URL to them. Most search engines provide a 'Submit' link (or something similar) to notify the search engine of your new blog, so those search engines will crawl it and include your pages in their results.

It's important to understand that simply submitting your blog to search engines doesn't mean your pages will appear at the top of a Google search results screen, but at least your blog will be included and will have the chance of being picked up by a search engine.

3. Use and Update Your Blogroll

By adding links to sites you like in your blogroll, the owners of those blogs will find your blog and will be likely to add a reciprocal link in their blogrolls. It's an easy way to get the link to your blog in front of many readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog on the other blogs' blogrolls and find your content interesting and enjoyable turning them into loyal readers.

4. Harness the Power of Comments

Commenting is a simple and essential tool to increase your blog's traffic. First, respond to comments left on your blog to show your readers that you value their opinions and draw them into a two-way conversation. This will increase reader loyalty.

Second, leave comments on other blogs to drive new traffic. Make sure you leave your blog's URL in your comment, so you create a link back to your own blog. Many people will read the comments left on a blog post. If they read a particularly interesting comment, they are highly likely to click on the link to visit the commentor's website. It's important to make sure you leave meaningful comments that are likely to invite people to click on your link to read more.

5. Syndicate Your Blog's Content with an RSS Feed

Setting up an RSS feed button on your blog makes it easy for your loyal readers to not just read your blog but also know when you publish new content.

6. Use Links and Trackbacks

Links are one of the most powerful parts of your blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get you noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs.

You can take links to other blogs a step further by leaving a trackback on the other blog to let them know you've linked to them. Blogs that allow trackbacks will include a link back to your blog in the comments section of the post that you originally linked to. People do click on trackback links!

7. Tag Your Posts

It takes a few extra seconds to add tags to each of your blog posts, but it's worth the time in terms of the additional traffic tags can drive to your blog. Tags (like links) are easily noticed by search engines. They're also key to helping readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati.

8. Submit Your Posts to Social Bookmarking Sites

Taking the time to submit your best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit and more can be a simple way to quickly boost traffic to your blog.

9. Remember Search Engine Optimization

When you write your blog posts and pages, remember to optimize your pages for search engines to find them. Include relevant keywords and links but don't overload your posts with too many relevant keywords or completely irrelevant keywords. Doing so can be considered spamming and could have negative results such as your blog being removed from Google's search entirely.

10. Don't Forget Images

Images don't just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic.

Adsense Tips for Bloggers 3 - An Equation for Success

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There are many factors that impact the level of revenue generated from a blog using the Google Adsense program. Books have been written explaining expert strategies for Adsense - However for the purposes of this series we’ve boiled it all down into four elements that we believe impact your Adsense earning capacity the most. Speaking in general terms here is a simple equation that illustrates how the factors each contribute to Adsense Revenue.

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

Its not Rocket Science. Each of the above four elements contribute directly to the total revenue that your Adsense Ads will produce. Don’t just work on one of them though because if any one is weak it will hold your potential earnings back. Lets break each factor down….

Traffic Levels - The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them. As I examine the statistics provided by Adsense that report my daily earnings I notice that my earnings in the past 8 months have increased considerably as my total page impressions have increased. For example earlier in the week when Slashdot linked up to this post I had an influx of 50,000 visitors in 24 hours to my blog - it doesn’t take a genius to work out what this did to my Adsense earnings that day! Work on increasing your traffic levels and you should see an increase in your Adsense Revenue.

High Paying Ads - Once again I’m stating the obvious, but if the content you provide on your blog attracts high paying ads you’re going to do significantly better. For example it has been documented that the PVR Blog is doing pretty well when it comes to high Adsense earnings - the secret of its success is partly due to it being served with ads that are high paying. The topic of the PVR blog is, as you’d expect, PVR technology including TiVo, Replay TV etc. This is cutting edge technology and therefore advertisers are willing to pay top dollar to get their products and services out there! In comparison if a person was to start a blog on ‘toothpicks’ I suspect the ads are not likely to pay very much. It would take very high traffic levels to earn as much from a toothpick blog as it would the PVR blog.

Relevant Ads - A second reason the PVR Blog is successful is that it servers relevant ads. To put it simply people looking for information on PVR technology are confronted by Adsense ads for PVR technology. I recently visited a blog that was having trouble getting relevant ads - they had a blog on Tourist destinations in Australia - but unfortunately they were getting Adsense ads for remote control cars. You can guess what their revenue was like. Increase the relevancy of your Ads to your content and you are one step closer to increasing your Adsense revenue.

Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads - One of the coolest things about the Adsense program is that they give you freedom in choosing the best position and color scheme for your ads. Just like in the wider world of advertising - positioning is a key element to an ads success. A Billboard positioned on a road where no one drives is not likely to get the same results as one positioned on a busy intersection. The position and design of your Adsense Ads is critical - if they are out of site they’ll never get clicked on.

Bringing them Together - The above four elements are in many ways pretty obvious when spelt out like this - the challenge comes to improving each to optimize Adsense revenue.

Your revenue will only grow as high as the weakest one of these factors on your blog. For example if you have high paying, relevant, well designed and positioned ads but no traffic you’ll not do well. Likewise if you have high traffic, high paying and relevant ads but they are poorly designed an in a position where they’ll never be seen - you’ll waste all your other hard work. Its not enough to work on one element.

How do we improve each? In the next four posts we’ll examine each area in turn and suggest a number of ways that you might try tweaking them to increase your revenue.

How to install a xml blogger template

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Step 1.

Sign in to your Blogger dashboard then click on the layout link in the Manage section, next to your blog name

Step 2.

Select the “Edit HTML” tab at the top

Step 3.

Before installing the template, remember to backup your old template ! It is always the good practice, really!
First, download the current template using the “Download Full Template” option

Step 4.

Next, upload the downloaded template using the Browse button

Step 5.

Save the changes and you are DONE.

If you are asked “Please confirm that the following widgets should be deleted. All the widgets’ configuration data will be lost“, just Click on CONFIRM & SAVE button (as shown in the screenshot below)

That’s it! Now you have sucessfully installed the xml blogger template in your blog. Start blogging

How to Install a Blogger XML Template

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This article was written to provide a step-by-step guide on how to correctly apply a new xml Blogger template to your blog. This process can be tricky depending on several factors (quality of the code in the new template, your existing widgets, etc) so you need to be careful when changing your template. Don’t worry though, just follow our step-by-step instructions below and we’ll hopefully get you through it without much pain.

Many people make the same mistake when installing a new blogger template. Most problems when installing a new template are caused by the blogger widgets (Page Elements) that you’ve spent time setting up in your previous template. Almost all Blogger templates available for download on this site are in the new Blogger xml template format so if you’ve downloaded the template from us, it’s going to be much easier to follow our instructions.

Step #1 - Backup Your Current Template

Backup your current Template just in case you make a mistake. This is very important so you can always go back (click on the screenshot to the left to see exactly how this is done). You’ll want to navigate to the “Template” => “Edit HTML” section of Blogger and then look for the “Before editing your template, you may want to save a copy of it. Download Full Template“. Click on the “Download Full Template” and save it somewhere easy to find later on your computer. We are not responsible for any mistakes you make in applying your new Blogger template. Once you have saved this .xml file onto your computer, move on to step #2.

Step #2 - Take a Screenshot of Your Page Elements

This next step isn’t necessary but I like to do it anyhow. Take a screenshot of your “Page Elements” page just so you know exactly what widgets (Page Elements) you had before applying the new template (an example of the exact page you should take a screenshot of is in the image to the left). If you blow away all your widgets and you don’t remember which ones you had, this screenshot will at least help you remember. If you’re unsure as to how to take a screenshot, then check out this quick tutorial (MS Windows).

Step #3 - Upload Your New Blogger Template

Now it’s time to upload the new Blogger template from your computer. You’ll want to navigate to the “Template” => “Edit HTML” section of Blogger and then look for the “Upload a template from a file on your hard drive:” text. To the right of that you’ll see two buttons. First, you’ll click on “Browse” and navigate to the new .xml Blogger template on your computer and click “Open”. Then you click on the “Upload” button and cross your fingers.

At this point Blogger is attempting to apply the new .xml Blogger template to your blog. After it’s done, you’ll get a message stating that the upload and new template was applied successfully (in that case you’re done!) or more likely in my case, you’ll get a red error message that states something like:

Widgets are about to be deleted

Please confirm that the following widgets should be deleted. All the widgets’ configuration data will be lost.

• Text1
• BloggerButton1
• Poll1
• Profile1

Now if you’re like me, you don’t want to lose all those widgets (Page Elements) you spent lots of time configuring and arranging on your blog. If you don’t care and really don’t have anything you’ll be upset losing, then go ahead and click on the “Confirm and Save” button that looks like this:

Just remember, that you’ll need to re-add any page elements that you had previously setup in your old template. If they were simple or just recently added then I’d recommend just re-adding them instead of having to follow the next steps. If you decide you want to keep your widgets (Page Elements) then write down (or take another screenshot) the list mentioned above that are going to be deleted. You’ll use this list later when we migrate over your widgets.

Step #4 - Transfer Widgets to New Blogger Template

This process is going to take some careful cut and pasting within the template code so if you’re not comfortable doing this, then I’d recommend just ending on the previous step. First things first, click on the blue cancel button (you should still be on the previous step) that looks like this:

This will cancel out of the new Blogger template you were just trying to upload. Next, we’re going to essentially make a temporary placeholder for your widgets (Page Elements) within your current template. You should still be in the “Template” => “Edit HTML” section of Blogger so if you’re not, go back to that section.

You’re going to actually edit this template code now so pay close attention. Look for the following piece of code which is all the way at the bottom.

Now you’re going to replace that code with the following bit of code:

Save your template and you’ll see this message (which is a good sign):

What did we just do? We created a brand new widget (Page Element) in your current Blogger template so we can move all your widgets over to keep them safe! Next navigate over to the “Template” => “Page Elements” section of Blogger and you’ll see a blank new footer section.

Drag all your widgets (Page Elements) that were going to be deleted (we wrote them down or took a screenshot in step #3). The order doesn’t really matter as long as you’ve moved them all down into the widget (top image on left). After you’re done, it should look something like this (bottom image on left):

Now click on the “Save” button and the temporary placeholder for our widgets will be saved. We’re not done quite yet but if you’ve gotten this far already you’ve done great! The hardest part is over. Now we’re going to copy the widgets we just protected over to your new template. Hold off on that bathroom break and let’s keep going.

Next, go back to the “Template” => “Edit HTML” section of Blogger and scroll down in the template code and look for the line of code you added before:

There should now be a bunch more code in between it which will look something like this:

This is a list of all your widgets (Page Elements) that we just moved into the footer. You want to select all this code and copy it. We’re going to paste it into our new Blogger template code which will complete the transfer safely.

Now open your new Blogger template xml file in a text editor (you can use Notepad, just right click -> Open With -> Choose Notepad). Once you have it open, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the code and look for the following code:

You’re going to replace this code with the new code you just copied above. Make sure you only replace that one bit of code otherwise you might run into some problems. Save your new Blogger template and you’ve finished transferring your widgets (Page Elements) into the new Blogger template!

Now after all that work just to save your precious widgets, let’s hope the new template works ok in Blogger. Go back to step #3 above and upload your new template like you attempted to do before. If all goes well, your new template will properly save and your blog will be updated!

Step #5 - Move Your Widgets Back To Their Original Spots

I’m assuming your new template installed without and problems and you’re ready to move your widgets (Page Elements) back to their original spots. This is just the reverse process of what we did before by going to the “Template” => “Page Elements” section of Blogger and moving them out of the footer and back into the sidebar (or wherever you originally had them in your old template).

After you arrange them to your liking, make sure to save and view your blog. If all went well then your blog should be looking the way it did before the new template was applied (well, except for the new beautiful design which is the main reason for this hassle in the first place right?).

Summary

Congratulations on adding a new custom Blogger xml template to your blog! The whole process should have taken anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour depending on your experience and comfort with blog template code, the code quality of the new template, and the number of widgets your blog currently has. Blog designs shouldn’t have to change very often so hopefully this is a one-time process for you. If not, I recommend you bookmark or add this page to your favorites so it’s easy to find the next time you decide to change Blogger templates.

3,000 over Free Blogger Templates and Wordpress Themes

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While many bloggers around the world have yet to realised, its time you give your blog a change in it's design. Close to 60% of Blogger are still using the original template and 30% falls under wordpress users. Blogger is seen to be meant for beginners but since it was meant for beginners, changing a template is as easy as load and go! Yaro Starak had done a video log on blog design and giving a change in your design can improve the number of visitors to your site as well.

A list of 10 blogs for each blog platform that offers templates and themes which you can download from. Sad to say the best design still goes to wordpress but blogger users you have no worries, there are upcoming designers who have duplicated the exact wordpress themes, so we will have more collection of such well designed templates.

Blogger Classic & XML Templates

1. Arcsin -A collection of blogger templates that the designer had put in effort to develop.
   
   
2. Blogger Templates - You have a wide selection of bloggers(XML) template from 2 column to 3 column, most of which have a beautiful background so if you are looking for templates that have a nice and attraction look, this would be the place to get your templates.
   
   
3. Blog Connection - A collection of Classic and XML templates for you to download.
   
   
4. BlogCrowd - Without doubt Blog crowd designed a range of templates that were web 2.0 style and many are simple and look stylish to use.
   
   
5. JackBook - One of the best Blogger around who could change a wordpress template upon request, check out his new template created for blogger.
   
   
6. Final Sense - It has a range of category to choose from, you can have your 3 column template or even a theme template like animals or general template. Choose from the list and find what' suitable.
   
   
7. Gecko and Fly - Large collection in both Classic and XML blogger templates close to 50 over templates.
   
   
8. Pannasmontata - As the name is weird and long, they have a list of templates that could be hidden treasures templates which are not found by many bloggers.
   
   
9. Pyzam - A huge collection of Blogger template a total of 900 over blogger templates for you to choose.
   
   
10. 99 Computers - They tell you much of computers, but they do have some designs that are good for your blogs.
    

Wordpress Themes

1. Arcsin - There are close to 21 well designed wordpress themes.
   
   
2. Blogging Themes - Great list of Wordpress themes close to 30 for you to choose.
   
   
3. DoshDosh - Offers 18 Made for adsense Optimize Themes.
   
   
4. HongKiat - 49 of the most downloaded wordpress themes.
   
   
5. kaushalsheth - A collection of elegant wordpress themes.
   
   
6. Mashable - Shows you 20 4 column Wordpress themes worth downloading
   
   
7. Smashing Magazines - They may not be the creator of the theme but a huge 83 themes that you have not seen before lights up in front of you.
   
   
8. SilentBits - A list of smacking cool 30 wordpress themes.
   
   
9. Teknobites - Offers 10 Great Wordpress Themes.
   
   
10. WriterSpace - This chap listed 100 Favourite Wordpress themes available for download.
    
    

If you have found another blog or designer who have a good collection of templates or themes you are welcome to contact me and i will update this page for everybody's conviences.

How do I add Google ads to my Blogger site?

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If you're using Blogger's Layouts template, simply follow the step-by-step instructions available in the Blogger Help Center. You may also find it helpful to view our Activation Demo (English only). This demo will walk you through three common methods for using a web editor, including Blogger, to implement the ad code.

However, if you are using a classic Blogger template, please follow these alternative steps.

How to Add 3-Column Footer to a Blogger(blogspot) Blog

You might have observed that most of the Blogger Templates have only one column footer. It may restrict you adding more widgets to the footer section. With the 3-column Footer, you can add more widgets like Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives, Labels and even some Ads. It's very simple to add a three column footer section to a blogger(blogspot) blog.


You might have observed that most of the Blogger Templates have only one column footer. It may restrict you adding more widgets to the footer section. With the 3-column Footer, you can add more widgets like Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives, Labels and even some Ads. It's very simple to add a three column footer section to a blogger(blogspot) blog.

Do the following steps:

Please Move all your widgets from the Current Footer Section to sidebar or any other section

1. Go to Edit HTML page in the Blogger Layout Window

2. Find the following Code:

<div id='footer-wrapper'><br /><b:section class='footer' id='footer'/><br /></div>

# (Note:In some templates, instead of footer-wrapper you may find footer or footer-section)

3. Replace the entire code from starting

to

with the Following Code:

<div id='footer'><br /><div id='footer2' style='width: 30%; float: left; margin:0; text-align: left;'><br /><b:section class='footer-column' id='col1' preferred='yes' style='float:left;'/><br /></div><br /><div id='footer3' style='width: 40%; float: left; margin:0; text-align: left;'><br /><b:section class='footer-column' id='col2' preferred='yes' style='float:left;'/><br /></div><br /><div id='footer4' style='width: 30%; float: right; margin:0; text-align: left;'><br /><b:section class='footer-column' id='col3' preferred='yes' style='float:right;'/><br /></div><br /><div style='clear:both;'/><br /></div><br /><p><br /><hr align='center' color='#5d5d54' width='90%'/></p><br /><div id='footer-bottom' style='text-align: center; padding: 10px;'><br /><b:section class='footer' id='col-bottom' preferred='yes'><br /></b:section><br /></div><br /><div style='clear:both;'/><br /></div></div>

4. Then Save the Template.
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Removing The Blogger Bar

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I hated the blogger bar across the top of my Web site because it didn’t really go with my template and I already had a Google search bar integrated. So I went on a mission to remove it and de-bloggerify my blog. I searched far and wide and for some reason kept hitting a dead end. It turns out that the code used to change the old blogger templates no longer works! So after tracking down the CSS changes here is how I did it:

All you need to do is add the following CSS to your template under edit HTML. You need to put in anywhere in your template between the <style> tags.

#navbar-iframe { height:0px; visibility:hidden; display:none; }

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Expand Post With Read More Or Continue Reading In Blogger

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With little bit of modifications to your Blogger Beta template you can easily implement expandable post summaries in your blog main page. Expandable posts gives very professional and elegant look to your blog. You can hide most of the detailed content from main page and display them when the page of the post is opened.

If you observer my blog, voting widgets are displayed on my post links and not in my main page. Also, most of the images in my posts are shown only in the actual post links only. Moving bandwidth intensive content to posts’ pages loads your main page very fast.

Let us see the steps to be followed for modifying the template to implement this

1. Log in to your blogger account select Layout of the blog which you want to modify
2. Navigate through Template –> Edit HTML
3. Take backup of your template by clicking Download Full Template. This backup will help you if you want to revert to old template
4. Search for ]]> in your template HTML and paste the following piece of code in between ]]> and

<!-- Style to implement "Read more on this Article" link in all the posts (Start) --><br /><style><br /> <b:if cond="'data:blog.pageType"><br /> span.fullpost {display:inline;}<br /> <b:else/><br /> span.fullpost {display:none;}<br /> </b:if><br /></style><br /><!-- Style to implement "Read more on this Article" link in all the posts (End) -->

• Save your template and click on select Expand Widget Templates Search for in the template HTML and paste the following piece of code after

<!-- Code to show "Read more ..." Link (Begin) --><br /> <b:if cond="'data:blog.pageType"><br /> <span><br /><a href="'data:post.url'" style="'color:#0000FF;">Read more ...</a><br /> </span><br /> </b:if><br /> <!-- Code to show "Read more..." Link (End) -->

You can change the red text with any Text like “Continue reading..” “Read rest of this entry” “Read more” etc as per yours blogs content.
Post Modifications - The final piece that we need is a little bit of code in your actual post. Each post that you want to use this feature on will need this code

<span class="fullpost"><br /></span>

This part can actually go in the post template, if you don’t want to have to type it for each post. You’ll enter the summary text outside the span tags and the remainder inside, like so:

Beginning of post.<span class="fullpost"> here is the rest of it.</span>

Now, when a reader visits your blog, this post will appear like below:

Adding Or Embedding Comment Box Below Blogger Post

Blogger In Draft have now Option to embedded comment form below or at the bottom blogger post .This is a most awating feature and many blogspot blogger are waiting for this feature .If you are Interestd in activating this feature in yours blogs simply follow below Guidelines.



Blogger In Draft have now Option to embedded comment form below or at the bottom blogger post .This is a most awating feature and many blogspot blogger are waiting for this feature .If you are Interestd in activating this feature in yours blogs simply follow below Guidelines.

* To turn on the embedded comment form, log in to http://draft.blogger.com/
* Go to Settings > Comments for your blog. You’ll see that the “Show comments in a popup window” setting has been replaced with the new “Comment Form Placement” setting. Just click “Embedded below post” save your settings,

* Check out a post to see your new comment form below Yours Blogger Post.

Unfortunately This feature is not enabled for customized or third party template, To make this trick enable in customize template you will need to make a small change to your template code for displaying comment below blogger post as suggested by bloggerbuster.

* Go to Layout>Edit HTML in your blog’s dashboard and check the “Expand widget templates” box. Then search for below code in yours templates :

<p class="'comment-footer'"><br /><b:if cond="'data:post.allowComments'"><br /><a href="'data:post.addCommentUrl'" onclick="'data:post.addCommentOnclick'"><br /><data:postcommentmsg/></a><br /></b:if><br /></p>

* Now after finding above code replace entire above code with below code .

<p class="'comment-footer'"><br /><b:if cond="'data:post.embedCommentForm'"><br /><b:include data="'post'" name="'comment-form'/"> <b:else/><br /><b:if cond="'data:post.allowComments'"><br /><a href="'data:post.addCommentUrl'" onclick="'data:post.addCommentOnclick'"><br /><data:postcommentmsg/></a><br /></b:if> </b:if><br /></p>

* Save yours Template and you are done

Now whenever you visit yours post page in your blog, you will see the new comment form displayed in below yours post remember this feature is only work when you log in your blogger Via http://draft.blogger.com/.If you still face any problem then feel free to comment us yours problem or visit Amanda Blog.