Add a Pinterest Pin It Mouseover Button on Blogger Images

Images have always played a prominent role in attracting new visitors through search engines like Google and Bing. But when Pinterest decided to enter the social media mix, it upped the ante in a big way.

Pinterest lets blog owners use their service to add a 'pin' to photos or content images on the site. When visitors of that site see a photo they like, they can choose to click on the red Pinterest button for Blogger, and add it to their Pinterest account.

The person who pressed your Pinterest button for Blogger can now see your photo on their dashboard, and share it with friends or followers on the service. They can also come across this photo when users add keywords or category tags to the image. More importantly, that photo links to your site when clicked on and will contain a description title of your blog name or post.

Therefore, adding the Pinterest button for Blogger will help you to benefit from tons of new traffic coming from Pinterest and people who had found your photos and post links using the service. Here are some steps to add your very own Pinterest button.

1. Access your Blogger Template

The first thing to do is to edit the code of your template so that it knows when to display this Pinterest Button for Blogger with the content. You can do this by logging into your Blogger Dashboard and finding your way to "Template" > "Edit HTML".

blogger template html

When the editor opens up, it may look a bit foreign to you if you don't have much experience using HTML. Click anywhere inside the code area and search by pressing the CTRL + F keys for the </body> tag - hit Enter to find it:
</body>
The body tags makes up the general content in your webpage. Think of it like the settings panel of a website. If you were to delete everything in this section your site would turn into a blank white page.

2. Add The Pinterest Pin it Script

Once you found the </body> tag, insert the following script just above it:
<script>
//<![CDATA[
var custom_pinit_button = "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlVNKapBRgQrRnrC4TahmOuOJAjg9pwSxvKtU2kLa1YiaeJ4NzKr-zJSOWknDfDg99d1uGzjndXhp_WDQWukPp6R2MmD5wesxI9cWJrXroB12KCg76DHpqkaI1rac2Ybs9TNG49yAlXwo/s1600/pinit-button.png";
var pinit_button_position = "center";
var pinit_button_before = "";
var pinit_button_after = "";
//]]>
</script>
<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
<script id='pinit-img-button' type='text/javascript'>
// Visit helplogger.blogspot.com for more widgets and tricks.
//<![CDATA[
eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,r){e=function(c){return(c<a?'':e(parseInt(c/a)))+((c=c%a)>35?String.fromCharCode(c+29):c.toString(36))};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--)r[e(c)]=k[c]||e(c);k=[function(e){return r[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--)if(k[c])p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c]);return p}('1i(1j).1k(r($){$(\'M\').1l(\'<6 p="4:D;" N="A" O="\'+13+\'" >\');$(\'#7-6-P\').1m();3 l;3 m;3 n;$(\'.A\').1n(r(){m=$(\'.A\').E(F);n=$(\'.A\').G(F);$(\'.A\').1o()});3 o=$(\'#7-6-P\').1p().1q("1r.1s.14");o!=-1&&15();r 15(){$(\'.s-16 6,.H-M 6,.s-17 6\').1t(\'.18,.18 6\').1u(r(){$(\'.7-4\').t("4","D");19(l);3 a=$(q);3 b=1a(a.t("Q-u"));3 c=1a(a.t("Q-v"));3 d;3 e;1v(1w){B\'1x\':d=a.9().u+a.G(F)/2-n/2;e=a.9().v+a.E(F)/2-m/2;C;B\'1y\':d=a.9().u+b+5;e=a.9().v+c+a.E()-m-5;C;B\'1z\':d=a.9().u+b+5;e=a.9().v+c+5;C;B\'1A\':d=a.9().u+b+a.G()-n-5;e=a.9().v+c+a.E()-m-5;C;B\'1B\':d=a.9().u+b+a.G()-n-5;e=a.9().v+c+5;C}3 f=a.1C(\'O\');3 g=a.1D(\'.H,.1E,.s\').R(\'.H-S,.s-S,.s-1F\');3 h=g.1G();w(T U===\'V\'){U=\'\'}w(T W===\'V\'){W=\'\'}w(g.R(\'a\').1H){X=g.R(\'a\').I(\'Y\').1b(/\\#.+\\b/1c,"")}Z{X=$(1I).I(\'Y\').1b(/\\#.+\\b/1c,"")}3 i=\'<1d N="7-4" p="1e:x;9: 1J;z-1K: 1L;" ><a Y="1M://1N.14/1O/1P/P/?1Q=\'+X+\'&1R=\'+f+\'&1S=\'+U+h+W+\'" p="1e:1T;1U:x;" 1V="1W"><6 N="1X" p="-1Y-J-K:x;-1Z-J-K:x;-o-J-K:x;J-K:x;10: 0.8;20:21;Q: 0;22: 0;23:0;" O="\'+13+\'" S="24 1f 25" ></a></1d>\';3 j=a.11().26(\'a\')?a.11():a;w(!j.y().27(\'7-4\')){j.28(i);w(T l===\'V\'){j.y(\'.7-4\').I("1g","q.p.10=1;q.p.4=\'12\'")}Z{j.y(\'.7-4\').I("1g","q.p.10=1;q.p.4=\'12\';19(29)")}}3 k=j.y(".7-4");k.t({"u":d,"v":e});k.t("4","12");k.L().1h(2a,1.0,r(){$(q).2b()})});$(\'.s-16 6,.H-M 6,.s-17 6\').1f(\'2c\',r(){w($.2d.2e){3 a=$(q).y(\'.7-4\');3 b=$(q).11(\'a\').y(\'.7-4\');l=2f(r(){a.L().t("4","D");b.L().t("4","D")},2g)}Z{$(\'.7-4\').L().1h(0,0.0)}})}});',62,141,'|||var|visibility||img|pinit||position||||||||||||||||style|this|function|entry|css|top|left|if|none|next||loadpinitbutton|case|break|hidden|outerWidth|true|outerHeight|post|attr|box|shadow|stop|body|class|src|button|margin|find|title|typeof|pinit_button_before|undefined|pinit_button_after|pinitURL|href|else|opacity|parent|visible|custom_pinit_button|com|hoverCheck|content|summary|nopin|clearTimeout|parseInt|replace|gi|div|display|on|onmouseover|fadeTo|jQuery|document|ready|append|hide|load|remove|html|indexOf|helplogger|blogspot|not|mouseenter|switch|pinit_button_position|center|topright|topleft|bottomright|bottomleft|prop|closest|hentry|header|text|length|location|absolute|index|9999|http|pinterest|pin|create|url|media|description|block|outline|target|_blank|pinimg|moz|webkit|background|transparent|padding|border|Pin|Pinterest|is|hasClass|after|pinitOnHover|300|show|mouseleave|browser|msie|setTimeout|3000'.split('|'),0,{}))
//]]>
</script>

adding pinterest script

3. Changing the Position of the Pin it! button

The cool thing about this code is that you have some freedom over where the Pinterest button for Blogger will go over the image. Take a look at the code that you just copied and pasted into the HTML for the word 'center'.
var pinit_button_position = "center";
To move the pin to a different area of the photo, replace center with one of these texts:
topleft
topright
bottomleft
bottomright
And to change the Pin it! button that appears on mouse over, replace the address in blue from above with your own:
var custom_pinit_button = "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlVNKapBRgQrRnrC4TahmOuOJAjg9pwSxvKtU2kLa1YiaeJ4NzKr-zJSOWknDfDg99d1uGzjndXhp_WDQWukPp6R2MmD5wesxI9cWJrXroB12KCg76DHpqkaI1rac2Ybs9TNG49yAlXwo/s1600/pinit-button.png";

pinit script

4. Save The Template

Make sure that you added everything correctly, then save the template and navigate to a recent post that you made that contain images. Hover your mouse over the image and you should now see a red Pinterest button for Blogger displayed on the image. Test it out and see it how it works.

If you want to hide the pinit button from a specific image, when you create a post, switch to the HTML tab of your post editor and type class="nopin" right before the closing slash and angle bracket of your image element, like this:

nopin pinterest

The only downside of this button is that it doesn't take the information from your custom image titles. It's automatically set to take the title of the blog post where the image is located. So, you'll need to pay closer attention to the title of the posts so that it fits closely with the images being shown.

Remember that when you have this code activated, you have to label your titles so that they are relevant to the photos you are posting. This might sound obvious, but sometimes you create a post with an image as a joke that won't make sense in the context of viewing it on Pinterest.

If you use Google Analytics, you can start to see traffic flooding into your site from Pinterest. You should also create your own Pinterest account so that you can manage the content and track how it's being shared. That's it. Enjoy and happy blogging!

The Basics of Google Analytics for Beginners

If you're a business owner or a member of a marketing team, you probably know that businesses depend upon data. Tracking trends and patterns is what allows you to get ahead of the dips in the market, and make informed decisions on the direction of your company.

Those same rules that apply to business apply to owning a website. In order to deliver the best possible experience and ensure that customers from around the world are able to access your site, you need to understand from where traffic is coming from and how to leverage that information to your benefit.

Setting Your Site Up With A Tracking ID

Google analytics won't start collecting data from your website until you've implemented a tracking code into your website's files. The tracking code is basically a block of JavaScript code that will collect data about the html that visitor used to get to your site, any cookies that the visitors has collected during their browsing history, and information about what type of browser the person is using.

The importance of this information provides you with information on how to conform your web-site to the target audience, especially in terms of design. If customers are visiting your website from an eCommerce directory, you may want to modify those links so that the customers arrive at a landing page instead of a home page. If more customers are using smartphones and tablets instead of laptop browsers, you may have to redesign the site so that it is responsive and can be easily read from a small screen.

google analytics tracking code

In order to track each individual page on the website, you will need to add a tracking code before the </head> code of your template. If you are using a site like WordPress or Joomla! that depends on templates, you may just have to add the tracking code on the main HTML index file. Keep in mind that it can take upwards of 24-hours for Google to begin collecting information and importing that data to your dashboard, so don't expect to see measurable results right away.

Tutorial: How to Add Google Analytics to Blogger

Researching the Data

Once you insert the code into your site, it will begin tracking data from anyone who visits your site. This data is then sent back to the Google servers and stored in your Google Analytics profile. From there, you can determine what type of information that you want to look at.

The two features of Google Analytics that are often most useful to new users is the ability to track where customers are coming from, and the ability to see keywords that have been effective in drawing in audiences.

google analytics overview

Traffic Origins

Open up your Google Analytics dashboard and click on 'Acquisition'. You should see a few options, but you want to pull 'All Referrals' so that you can the entire list of visitors.

Next to the referral path will show a few links with a number of how many people visited your site from that link. From here you can click on the link and find out the reason for the traffic. Maybe someone has written a review on the service, you can check to see if the advertisement campaign you are operating is producing results.

google analytics all referrals

Keywords

Within the same 'Acquisition' directory is another option called 'Search Engine Optimization'. Click on this link and then click on 'Queries' to look up a list of keywords being used to describe your site. The dashboard will display an overview of up to 1,000 words or phrases used on Google that brought new visitors to your site. You can use this information to modify your posts and producing content to increase the results of certain key phrases that you feel would benefit your customer outreach.

search engine optimization, ga queries

Demographics

Underneath the audience tab, you can also track demographics. This little option will allow you to view the age, gender, and interests of individual users and segments of your visiting population. Say for example you run a senior care facility for the retired and want to put together a A/B split test to determine which advertising campaign works best. After adding the campaign to a landing page or section of your site, you can look back and find out if retired citizens are the ones responding to your ads, or if you are just bringing in traffic from younger generations who may not be interested in your services.

google analytics, georgraphical summary

Custom Campaign Tagging

Custom campaign tagging is more of an advanced feature, but once you get used to the Google Analytics interface, you can use this to separate your campaigns and easily filter through data. Maybe you just want to find out who is coming to your site from your email newsletters, and not from the general site. Google Analytics will allow you to post special links to your content on those channels of communication and then view these results under the acquisition tab and then campaigns.

Determining What Works, and What Doesn't

Using the tools that Google Analytics provides at your disposal allows you to really determine what type of experience you want to provide your customers. Within the first month of use, if start to see trends or patterns in data that you feel you feel you can improve upon, you can use this information as a guide to edit your sites design and layout.

Getting used to the program might seem overwhelming at first, but once you jump right in and start playing around all the features, you'll get the hang of it in no time. Google Analytics really is an important tool that every website owner should have.

How to Center the Blogger Header Image

The header of a website is what distinguishes your blog; it's your identity or digital fingerprint. Whenever a visitor accesses your blog for the first time, the header is one major aspect that is used to determine who you are and the type of content that they can expect to read. Therefore, it's important to develop a header that is both prominently placed and telling of your brand name.

What would seem to be counterintuitive to that idea is the default Blogger settings for header positioning. Whenever you upload a header to the site, it will automatically be aligned to the left of the page. Some Blogger users may be okay with this setting, especially if they are using a header design that doesn't contain a background. Others may find that their background headers appear cut off, incomplete, or indistinguishable from the rest of their content.

If you find yourself in the second category of users, there is a way to adjust the positioning of your header so that it is displayed as a center Blogger header. By centering your site header, you have greater flexibility over the overall design, and it allows you to really shine light on this content. It's hard to miss a header that is placed smack dab in the middle of the screen on every page that someone navigates to.

Center Header Image with Blogger Template Designer

center blogger header

Making the change is relatively easy. You'll be able to make these adjustments on every page of your Blogger blog without having to change them individually. All you need to do is to modify the CSS of your blog that can be found directly through your Blogger dashboard. Even if you have little to no experience in web design or coding, you can center Blogger header by following these next few steps.

Step 1. Log in your blogger account and select your blog, then go to "Template" and click the "Customize" button on the right side.

center blogger header

Step 2. Navigate to "Advanced" > "Add CSS" tab and paste the code in the empty box:
#header-inner {
background-position: center !important;
width: 100% !important;
text-align: center;
}
#header-inner img {
margin: auto;
}
If you have a small image and you want it to become full width, add this CSS instead:
#header-inner {
 background-size: cover;
 width: 100% !important;
 text-align: center;
 }
 #header-inner img {
 width: 100%;
 height: 100%;
 }

Step 3. Hit the ENTER key after you paste the code snippet, then click the "Apply to Blog" button.

blogger header centered

Here are some other aligning options for your headers:

Align Blogger Header Banner and Text Side by Side

Image on the right and title on the left

#header-inner {
background-position: right !important;
width: 100% !important;
}
.titlewrapper, .descriptionwrapper {
float: left;
clear: both;
margin-left: 20px;
}

Image on the left and title on the right

#header-inner {
background-position: left !important;
width: 100% !important;
}
.titlewrapper, .descriptionwrapper {
float: right;
clear: both;
margin-right: 20px;
}
Note: for larger images, you may need to resize them in order to make them appear side by side with the text.

That's it!

After making the changes to the CSS and saving your modifications, you may navigate back to your homepage. Refresh the page and you'll notice that the header is now centered, instead of on the left. Click on a few of your page links and make sure that this modification has been made to every page or post on the blog.

If by chance you don't see the changes to the header, go back through the code that you modified and make sure that you have copied and pasted the information into the file exactly as instructed. Even minor modifications in the code, or a missing semicolon may fail to make the changes you are trying to achieve, or come away with different results than what's expected.

The great thing about CSS is that it is your site's central hub for all things design. From the CSS file, you can modify just about any appearance on your site to give the blog a custom look and feel. Once you're comfortable performing minor adjustments to the appearance of your site, you can start to get creative and come up with your very own modifications.

Make Blogger Header, Navigation and Footer Full Width

Blogger is a user-friendly service that provides a lot of really attractive looking default templates for those just starting out. Default templates come in handy, but the nice things about owning your own blog is that you have the chance to add your own personal touch. As a matter of fact, templates aren't made to restrict your freedom of design, but instead they're there to provide you a foundation to build from. With every default template available on Blogger, you can make changes to fit your style.

One of the most common requests out of the Blogger community when making alterations is how to change the look of some of the key sections like headers, navigation, and footers. Initially, these items are designed to fit within just 1/3 of the page, surrounded by padding and margins on either side. These margins are used to give the page a slim fitting appearance, but could also cause your content to look compressed.

Important: Backup your Template

Making the changes to a full screen Blogger navigation, footer, or header can be done and won't take you much time. Before you can make any changes, you should save extra copies of the template .xml file in case anything goes wrong. That way, if you don't like it or it doesn't come out looking like it should, you can reuse the contents of the original file to restore your blog to working condition.

Demo

Hover your mouse over the image to see a before and after example:


How to Make Header, Navigation and Footer Full Width in Blogger


Step #1: Access Your CSS File

If you've never opened up your CSS file before, log in to your Blogger account, select your blog and navigate to Template > Edit HTML. This will bring up the code of your template containing all your blog's internal files in one place.

Step #2: Modify the Background

Click anywhere inside the code area > press CTRL + F keys and type the following line > hit Enter to find it (stop at the first occurrence of it):
body {
Just below body { you should see some lines that will look like this:
body {
font: $(body.font);
color: $(body.text.color);
background: $(body.background);
padding: 0 $(content.shadow.spread) $(content.shadow.spread) $(content.shadow.spread);
$(body.background.override)
}
Where you see the highlighted line above in the code, remove the line and replace it with:
padding: 0px;
Different templates will have minor variations, but you should still be able to find these lines within every template.

Step #3: Change the Content Section

Next, search using the CTRL+F keys for this part:
.content-inner {
Just below it, you will see this line:
.content-inner {
padding: $(content.padding) $(content.padding.horizontal); 
}
Remove the line in red and replace it with:
padding: 0px;
This will remove any of the padding around the inner content, so it won't leave any room on both sides.

Now find this part:
$(content.background.color.selector){
Just below it you will see this line:
$(content.background.color.selector){
background-color: $(content.background.color);
}
Replace the line in red with:
background-color: $(body.background);
Finally, search for this tag:
]]></b:skin>
And just above it, add this CSS:
.main-outer {
background: $(content.background.color);
}

Step #4: Make the Content Outer Full Width

Content is displayed differently between browsers, so you'll next want to fix this so that it alters the width across the board. This code can be found searching for:
.content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner {
And just below it you will see the following lines:
.content-outer, .content-fauxcolumn-outer, .region-inner {
min-width: $(content.width);
max-width: $(content.width);
_width: $(content.width);
}
Delete the line in red and replace that line with:
max-width: 100%;

Step #5: Finish It Up

Now you have just two more lines you need to change. Look for:
</b:template-skin>
And click on the right arrow to expand the styles. Note: you will need to search for </b:template-skin> tag again, and just before it you'll see these symbols highlighted in yellow:
]]>
</b:template-skin>
Above this ]]></b:template-skin> section of code, add the following:
.main-outer {
max-width: $(content.width);
margin: 0 auto;
}
Then run a search for:
]]></b:skin>
Add these lines of code just before/above it:
.tabs-inner {
padding: 0px;
}
.section {
margin: 0px;
}
.header-inner .widget {
margin: 0px;
}
Save the template and exit out of the editor.

Finished!

Following along with this tutorial won't affect or alter the pictures you are using on the blog, just the design of the content area. If you have a logo that stretches across the screen and fits perfectly for 1/3 page header, you will need to resize and re-upload this content so that it is able to work with the new adjustments.

Automatically Resize Blogger Images to Fit Blog Post Area

resize blogger images automatically
Blogger offers most of the tools you would need to add and resize Blogger images quick and easy. You can upload photos directly on the platform and even change the dimensions based on the type of content that you are attempting to produce.

In order to do this, create a post and click on the small photo icon on the top toolbar next to the font style settings. A pop-up will show up on your screen asking you where you'd like to upload the image source. You have a choice between adding pictures from:

- Your local computer
- Previously uploaded images on the blog
- Picasa Web Albums
- An image URL

upload blogger image

Once you select the image that you want to use, you'll see four image sizes to choose from - small, medium, large, and x-large; it also gives you the option to determine the alignment. If you find that the four preset dimensions aren't providing the outcome you desire, there are easy ways to resize Blogger images to custom dimensions in order to fit your blog post area.

Step #1: Retain the Image Quality

If you know that you are going to need to resize Blogger images once you post them to your blog, make sure that you start with a photo larger than the 640px dimensions of the x-large option. It's easy to bring an image down in size, but if you try to make a small image bigger, you'll lose some of the quality. Just make sure that you watch out for the file size containing the image; the larger the file, the slower it will load on your website.

Photoshop is a powerful image editor that can help you to resize Blogger images or modify your images before you post, but it is also an expensive investment. There are also many other freeware image editors that can perform the simple task of resizing the photo. Determine what size you'd like the photo to display on the page and manually resize Blogger images to those dimensions; other users have found that 700px is a pretty flexible width size that works well on posts.

Once you've got your photo resized and added to your post, click on it and choose the 'Original size' option. If your photos are going to exceed the post editor, it probably means that they are larger than the body of your post, so let's fix that and make them fit exactly.

set image to original size

Step #2: Modify The Site's CSS

Next, you'll want to modify the CSS of your Blogger template to accommodate the adjustments. Don't worry; you won't need much coding experience to complete this task.

Open up the Blogger dashboard and go to 'Template' > 'Customize'. You'll see the option for 'Advanced', click on it and find your way to the 'Add CSS' tab... paste the following CSS code inside the empty box:
.post-body img {
max-width: 100%;
max-height: auto;
display: block;
margin: auto;
}
Adding the code to this section, automatically adds it between the <b:skin>....<b:skin> tags of your Template (Template > Edit HTML, above the ]]></b:skin> tag). So, no matter whether you add it above ]]></b:skin> or within the Add CSS box, the effect should be the same.

Remember that when you make changes to the CSS of the blog's Template, these changes will affect every post previously added, using the "Original size" dimension option.

To spruce up the post even more, add the last three lines shown in green below:
.post-body img {
max-width: 100%;
max-height: auto;
display: block;
margin: auto;
box-shadow: none;
border: none;
padding: 0px;
}
Screenshot

resize blogger pictures

This code will get rid of any borders and padding around the image and give it a much more natural look within the post. Hit the "Apply to Blog" button once you've finished adding it.

Note: This will only change the images set to Original size. To resize images with different sizes and apply this change on ALL the pictures added to your posts, add this CSS instead:
.post-body img {
width:100%;
height:100%;
display: block;
}
Please consider that, if you have posts with photos floating either on the right or left side of the content, they will automatically go full width.

Step #3: Create A Post

After making the adjustments to both file size and CSS, you may go back to the post editor and repeat the Step 1 to add an image. When you return to the screen that asks for size, click on the "Original size" option and confirm your choice. Your newly added image will then be displayed with the adjustments that you created, so that it fits nicely the width of the post area.

How to Turn Off Auto Enhance for Blogger Photos

When you go to upload photos on Blogger, look closely for changes between the picture you uploaded on your computer and how it looks on Blogger. If you notice any darkening of the pictures themselves, especially in light-colored areas of the photo, you are seeing the results of a Blogger auto-enhancing feature.

This Blogger auto-enhancing feature is packaged within the service and is intended to give your photos a more professional feel. It works by smoothing out fuzzy photos and removing any imperfections in personal photos, so that you see your best looking you. However, you may realize that not every picture that you upload needs to undergo this enhancement. In fact, it may even cause your site to look dull or outdated as it can turn white photos gray.

auto enhance on off
The first picture was auto-enhanced, while the second one was not

Turning Off Picture Auto-Enhancement on Google Plus

Fortunately, there is a way to adjust these settings so that you're able to turn them on and off at will. You may be surprised to know that the root cause of these changes actually lies with the Google uploader and your decision to link your Google+ and Blogger accounts together.

Step 1: Access Your Google Account

Blogger is just one of the many services that make up the Google network. When the company released Google+, this Blogger auto-enhancing feature came with it because adjustments were made to the Google uploading service. These same changes take place when you're adding pictures from your library in Picasa. The good thing about Google is that they allow you to make adjustments to your settings from one central location by navigating over to your Google account.

In order to turn the "Auto Enhance" feature off, go to your Blogger dashboard, and click your icon in the top right corner, then the blue "View Profile" button (if you are not using Google+, click the "Account settings" link). Now you'll be taken over to your Google+ profile or settings.

google blogger profile

Step 2: Find The Enhancement Settings

Once opening your Google account, look for the tab on the top left corner of the page that says Profile > navigate to Settings - or if you are using a Blogger profile, click the "Edit settings" link under "Google+ settings". This will bring up a list with "Photos and Videos" options including "Show geo location�" and "Allow viewers to download my photos...". Look toward the bottom of the list for the 'Auto Enhance' heading and check the "Off" option to turn this feature off.

auto enhance off

Step 3: Auto Enhance on Photos You've Already Uploaded

Any picture that you upload from here on out will no longer be subject to this Blogger auto-enhancement feature; however, this will not revert any pictures that have already been uploaded. If you want to make any changes to photos that were uploaded during this period, do the following: from the same panel, click on the 'Photos' tab which it will take you to the albums for each blog > click on the blog where you wish to disable the auto enhance effect and press the down arrow > go to the "Apply Auto Enhance" option and choose 'Off'.

pictures auto enhancement

Notice The Results?

Now that the auto-enhancement feature is turned off, you may start to see different results when uploading. Remember that this change will affect all of your Google services across the board such as Google+ and YouTube. You may turn this feature back on, at any time, by repeating the steps list above and re-checking the account settings box. When you're done, just turn it back off. Understanding these changes gives you the power to decide for yourself which pictures you'd like enhanced, and which you don't.

How to Optimize Images for Better Search Engine Rankings

When search engines start indexing the pages on your site, they don't just focus on the writing. Web crawlers employed by services like Google and Bing shuffle through your site's structural code looking for any relevant information that they might offer to their customers. Some of the information includes things like backlinks, tags and even images.

Images make up a big part of any website. They help to excite the visual senses of readers and offer a little extra entertainment value. What most blog owners don't realize is that all of the photos that they upload to their site aren't confined to their site alone. Crawlers make sure that these images also show up within their respective search engines sites.

Image searches can have the effect of drawing in large numbers of new readers that were just looking through content in Google images. You can benefit from this traffic and increase your average subscriber by practicing image optimization.

seo image optimization

Image Optimization Tip #1: Alt Tags & File Names

Visitors may love images, but computers don't. Computers are designed to do what you tell them without violating any of the parameters. When web crawlers come across images on a website, they really don't know what to do with it because they are made to collect information, not interpret it. The solution to this problem is to optimize images and appropriately label your alt tags so that they display the correct content when someone goes to look for it.

For example, let's say you upload a picture of your dog, and label the "alt" tag by the dog's name, 'Frank'. The web crawler is going to read the alt tag without ever realizing it's a picture of a dog; therefore, the crawler will come to the conclusion that it needs to display the image when someone run a search for 'Frank'.

The minor word choice mistakes may not affect the operations of your website, or how your image is displayed, but it will affect the search results of others and the traffic that comes into your website. Whereas you may have been able to attract the dog lovers in the world using image optimization of your dog tagged 'dog', you are now drawing in crowds searching for their uncle "Frank".

To include the alt tag, simply add alt="this is your alt text" to your image tag. Here's an example:
<img src="pug-dog.jpg" alt="frank dog" />
But you don't have to touch the html code of the image. Once the picture is uploaded, click on it and you will see the "Properties" setting. Add the alt text inside the box and hit OK:

image alt tag

This goes the same for file names on a website. You need to optimize images and file names on everything that you decide to save to your website directory so that this information can be appropriately indexed and be used as a search term. You could name the file of your dog Frank, "pug-dog.jpg", which would encourage the search engine to add Frank into searches being performed with the phrase 'pug dog'. Alt tags and file names play an important interpretation role between you and the machine that makes your blog possible.

Image Optimization Tip #2: Add A Caption

After uploading your images, you should always add a caption to the image, so that average browser understands what they're looking at. This gives your website a more professional appearance and will help to keep people on your page.

Not everyone that comes across your picture using a Google Image search is looking for your blog. Maybe they just want to download the image, and that's all you'll ever get from them. The important thing is that they found your photo relevant to their search, and decided to navigate to your site in order to save it for their own use.

The longer those users stay on the site, the better it looks for you because it plays a role in the "bounce rate". Bounce rate refers to when someone clicks on a link, realizes it's not what they're looking for, and then immediately goes back to the search engine. If you can reduce the number of times that this happens by providing captions and intriguing content that will make people want to stick around, your SEO ranking will improve.

blogger image caption
Image caption and SEO

Image Optimization Tip #3: File Size

Improving your bounce rate can be tough because the attention span of the everyday Internet user is incredibly short. It may be as short as 8 seconds. High bounce back rates and slow loading sites can be the death of most blogs because no one wants to wait for the content to load. By the time your website finally loads with the content that you need, they could have easily visited two or more sites and found what they need from someone who was better prepared to handle their traffic.

Optimize images so that you are able to keep the file size as small as possible while retaining the quality of the photo. Images taken from DSLR camera - although they may look great - can be up to 1.4 MB in size if you take them directly off your camera and upload them on your blog. This type of space is massive for any everyday blog, and will hurt your SEO ratings.

Use Photoshop or one of many online services like Google Picasa to rescale your images or reduce the file size. Two services that can perform this ability for free and do a great job are Yahoo's Smushit and Kraken. When you access either site, they will allow you to upload the picture on the site and download the new image optimization versions for use on your Blogger site.

Putting It All Together

At the end of the day, the quality of your site and overall SEO ranking isn't just about what you have to say. It's the entire package of what you have to offer. Optimize images every chance you get and use the strategies discussed above. Now that you know that you might have been neglecting images all along, you can make necessary adjustments and start to see even better results from all your hard work.

Blogger vs WordPress: Which is Better for You?

There are two big-name services in the world of blogging: Blogger vs WordPress. No matter where you go on the internet looking for advice, these two names are nearly impossible to avoid because they play such an important role within the online content community.

If you're just starting out a new blog, or making some major changes to your current layout, you'll most likely be faced with the decision to choose between Blogger vs WordPress. Both are stellar services that are going to make your life as a blogger much easier, but ultimately, your decision must come down to one. So don't cross over, let's walk this path together and ensure that you don't get lost in the wonder world of web, looking for answers.
blogger vs wordpress

Before we start!

WordPress as you might have noticed, comes in two different flavors, wordpress.org and wordpress.com. Seemingly same, but practically, not. Like in Blogger vs WordPress, hosting at wordpress.com is like renting a corporate apartment where the corporate is responsible for maintenance and facilitation of your place. While hosting at wordpress.org is similar to buying your own apartment, where you are responsible for your place's security, maintenance and many others.

So, wherever in this post you see the word 'WordPress'; know that it refers to wordpress.org.

User-Friendliness

WordPress is a clear front-runner in the blogging and web design community in terms of how many people actually use the platform. The founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, provided eye-opening statistics that around 18.9% of the entire Internet runs on WordPress. Compared to a 2012 study done by Blogging.org, of all the actual blogs on the Internet, WordPress makes up 43%, Blogger 35%, and the remaining blogs are Tumblr or other less known services.

However, just because something is used more often than another, it doesn't mean it's easier to use. The problem with WordPress is that it wasn't designed for beginners who just want to take up blogging as a side hobby. In order to set up your own WordPress blog, you have to have some previous knowledge of things like hosting, bandwidth, HTML and SEO practices. There are WordPress services out there that will help set up your site and get you online, but WordPress itself comes as a set of files that you are expected to download and configure to your own site.

Some hosting companies have made the idea of using WordPress a little bit easier with things like one-click downloads; but it's still a pretty steep learning curve for new bloggers to overcome. You also have to deal with paying for the costs of hosting your site and acquiring the domain name. If you opt to use one of the many WordPress services instead of setting it up yourself, you'll be stuck with a URL such as 'yourwebsite.wordpress.com', which takes away from the professional image you may be trying to portray.

Blogger is entirely based on Google and makes setting up a blog a breeze. With Blogger vs WordPress all you need to get started is to sign up for the service using your Google account, or make a new account like you would if you were setting up an email account. From there, Blogger takes responsibility for all your files, backing up the systems and the details associated with operating a content site like a database. Blogger is so much easier in terms of walking you through the steps, providing you with everything you need to be successful and it's at little-to-no cost to you.

Design & Customizability

Hosting at WordPress means stepping into the Disney world. With hundreds of featured rich-customizable design templates, you would find yourself literally lost in the WordPress arena, ensuring that your site looks unique, catchy and simply marvelous to visitors. The wide array of WordPress templates include customized designs for nearly every walk of life including fashion, entertainment, music, health, kitchen, etc.

Blogger themes, some would say, are not responsive; but let me tell you a secret. With a little search online, you can find hundreds of free, highly customizable, responsive templates that you can easily integrate into your blog, so that you and your site visitors stay in touch with your blog through their handsets. For WordPress, however, you don't need to wander around. By default, it has rich and responsive native designs, making WordPress ideal for mobile bloggers.

Both platforms will allow you to make modifications to the theme and features of the site if you have experience or feel comfortable to use HTML and CSS. They also both provide helpful post areas for when you go to submit new content. These post areas will also include HTML and some basic functions to change the font style and the size of your text.

One design feature between the two that may tip the scale toward Blogger in the Blogger vs WordPress discussion is that Blogger is integrated with other Google services like Google Picasa. Picasa is a photo sharing site that will allow you to share all your personal photos, or the photos that you plan on using within your posts. These can then be accessed via the text editor when you are submitting content and can be easily included with the content.

Gadgets, Widgets & Plugins

Talking of plugins, WordPress provides you with thousands of easy to integrate plugins from security to multimedia, enabling you to add any feature or functionality in your site, in a couple easy steps. Users of this platform have submitted thousands of independent plugins that you can install for just about anything you would need, from SEO to E-commerce. There are so many interesting plugins available, that blog owners often make the mistake of cluttering their site with too many and distracting their readers from the content.

Blogger may not have as many plugins or widgets as WordPress, it does have enough to provide you with what you need. Blogger's simplicity in many ways provides it with an edge over WordPress because you are able to focus most of your time in producing great content, instead of seeing how many bells and whistles you can add on the site.

The SEO Question

Not every person that starts a blog is looking to make money off the content; some people just like to write for the sake of writing. Whatever your goals are for starting the blog, search engine optimization - or SEO for short - is a key strategy in growing your readership, so others might enjoy what you have to share.

Over 1 quadrillion searches are performed via Google each year. The goal of most SEO producers is to implement strategies that can appease Google so that their content will be ranked higher up in search query results. Blogger is a service created by Google, so it's obvious that they added their own formulas to the service to ensure that those blogs are doing what they need to do to be found.

Sticking to Blogger means Google would optimize your blog itself from a SEO perspective. All you need to do is check / uncheck a couple of options from your dashboard and Google will start crawling your site with just a click of a button. WordPress takes a hands-on approach that will require you to know a little bit more to modify your website design and content to meet these standards.

And the Blogger vs WordPress Winner Is�

In terms of Blogger vs WordPress, both services might be worth trying out, but ultimately Blogger comes out as a winner in all four categories discussed above. For new or returning bloggers, it is a fantastic service that makes it easy to focus on what you love, regardless of all the add-ons and fancy additions of WordPress. Blogger's simplicity is perhaps one of it's greatest advantages and provides bloggers of all experience levels a chance to succeed.

CustomizeMe Blogger Template (Helplogger Style)

CustomizeMe is a highly customizable Blogger template and SEO optimized to index your blog faster. It has been designed in a way that it can be easily customized according to your needs without having to touch the code of your template. All you need to do is to hit the "Customize" button and you are ready to start customizing your blog. Just try the template settings and be creative with the theme fonts, colors and backgrounds.

Some of the Template Features include:

- Both Flat and Grid Design
- Sticky/Fixed Left Navigation Menu Bar
- Customized Popular Post
- Recent Posts
- Recent Comments
- Page Numbering
- Expandable Search Bar
- Floating Social Bar Widget
- Author Bio with Image
- Related Posts with Thumbnails
- 404 Error Page
- Seo friendly


How to install the CustomizeMe Template

1) Sign in to your Blogger blog and head to "Template"
2) Backup the current template by clicking the "Backup / Restore" button > "Download full template"

blogger template backup

3) Download and open the CustomizeMe.xml file with a Notepad

open xml with notepad

4) Select all the code and to copy it to clipboard

select all code in notepad

5) Go again to Template and click the "Edit HTML" button

blogger template, edit html

6) Select all the code of your current template and delete it, then paste the code that you just copied earlier
7) Preview your blog and if everything is ok, hit the 'Save Template' button.

Please note that this method might delete some of your widgets, so if you want to keep any of them, just Browse for the CustomizeMe.xml file (step 2) and click on the "Upload" button (ignore the rest of the steps).

And that's it! Now you are ready to use the CustomizeMe Blogger template.

Adding menu items

Go to Template > Edit HTML, click anywhere inside the code area and press the CTRL + F keys. Inside the search box, type "item 1" and hit Enter to find it - see the screenshot below

change blogger template html

Change Item 1, 2, 3... with your page titles and replace "add-url-here" text with your url. Finally, click the "Save template" button to save the changes.

Recent Posts & Comments Widgets

Search (CTRL + F) for the following address and replace it with your own (you will find it twice and you must change it in both places):
http://helplogger.blogspot.com

blogger template html

Please pay attention to not have two forward slashes at the end of your address, otherwise the scripts will not be able to read the blog's feeds. Save your template after you have made these changes.

Enabling "About the author" profile

Go to "Layout" and click the "Edit" link of the "Blog posts" element. In the pop-up window that appears, check the "Show Author Profile Below Post" option and hit Save.

blogger author profile

Changing colors and fonts in the CustomizeMe Template

Go to Template > click the "Customize" button. Here you can do lots of cool stuff, like change all the default fonts, text and background colors - basically, anything you want.

Some of the customizations that you can make:
Add a Background image: Background > Upload Image > Browse and hit Done

blogger template designer, backgrounds

Change Fonts, Texts and Background Colors: go to Advanced > select the Element that you want to customize > select your favorite colors and fonts.

blogger advanced designer

To remove a color, just type "transparent" inside the text box as you can see in the above screenshot (4).

Once you're satisfied with the result, hit the "Apply to blog" button and view your blog. That's it!
Have fun customizing it ;)

How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger

Our web today is a wonderful place. It's increasingly become a knowledge hub for strollers around the globe. And you know what the best part is? It does not have a religion, race or color, that's where perhaps its strength lies in. Point being, no matter what you are after, from details of products to how to use them, from fruit varieties to language origins, from how to hack Facebook account to how to set up a custom domain name in Blogger. Each and everything is there, in abundance and easily available. Now I know you are here to understand how you can setup/host your custom domain on your Blogger account. So let's get on with it, without further delay.
blogger custom domain, godaddy

Before we start

It's important that you realize, it isn't difficult to add a custom domain into your blogger account. If you are a blogger, it's perfect if you already own your own blog, it shows your passion and love for blogging and provides you with freedom to move from one platform to another, when and if you need. Also from users perspective, it's much easier for them to remember and visit your blog at customized address like myblog.com than myblog.blogspot.com.

One of the best things about Blogger is that it does not push you to host your site with blogger. It is entirely your own choice to choose from either of two hosting plans 'hosting on BlogSpot' with address myblog.blogspot.com, or going with a custom domain with address myblog.com.

Some Popular Web Hosting Sites:

If you don't already have purchased yourself a custom domain, these are the places that you should be looking for to get one:

- EasyDNS
- 1and1
- GoDaddy.com
- Yahoo! Small Business
- No-IP
- ix web hosting

So now if you have bought yourself a domain, from either of these you would have an IP address and a name. Let's assume our is 'mynewdomain'.com.

Well, it's time to start adding a custom domain to your blogger account.

Remember:

Here we are using setup for GoDaddy.com, the most popular domain name provider. For custom domains from other sites, the steps are almost same, so don't vanish.

Setting Up Blogger Custom Domain

Step 1. Login to your Blogger account at www.blogger.com.

Step 2. Click on your blog and then go to "Settings", choose "Basic".

blogger custom domain

Step 3. Under "Publishing" section, click "+ Setup a 3rd party URL for your blog".

Step 4. Under "Third-party domain settings" next to "http://" type your domain that you just purchased and make sure that you don't forget to add the "www" prefix to the domain name.

set up custom domain in blogger

Step 5. Click "View settings instructions" to get the blogger's official instructions. On the Blogger instruction page, choose the "On a top-level domain (www.example.com)" option.

custom domain in blogger

Step 6. Under the point 9 of instructions, 4 IP addresses will be given, copy and save all 4 of them.

Step 7. Go back to your Blogger Settings and press Save. It won't get saved and an error will appear saying 'We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 32.'

setting up blogger custom domain

Step 8. Under the error, you will see two fields "Name, Label or Host Field" and "Destination, target, or Points To" field. Copy data of both rows from these fields.

Step 9. Now log in to your GoDaddy.com account and click on "My account" on the upper right corner > select "Manage my Domains".

godaddy manage domains

Step 10. Here you should see your purchased domain name > just click on your domain name.

godaddy domains

Step 11. Click on the "DNS Zone File" tab next to Settings and choose "Use Classic DNS Manager".

use classic dns manager

Step 12. Next, click the "Edit" button to edit your DNS Zone File. 

blogger custom domain

Step 13. Under the "CNAME (Alias)" menu, click "Quick Add" button at the bottom of the screen (see image 1 in the below screnshoot).

Step 14. In the Edit box that now appeared, enter "www" in the first box and "ghs.google.com" in the second.

blogger custom domain

Step 15. Click "Quick Add" again and enter details from second row of the data we saved in step 8.

Step 16. Under the "A (Host)" menu, again choose Quick Add (see the below image).

Step 17. Host will be @ and the "Points to" value should be the one provided by Google IPs, saved in step 6 above. These are the Google IPs that you should get:

216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21
Step 18. Add all 4 of them one by one and delete old host as you won't need it anymore. 

custom domain in blogger

Step 19. At the top of the page, click on the "Save Zone File" button to save your setings.

Step 20. Now go back to Blogger and try to save settings again. The registration process takes 24-48 hours, so don't worry if you get an error again. Come again later to Blogger after 24-48 hours, repeat step 2 to 4, press Save and the error should be gone.

Step 21. After your URL starts working, click on the "Edit" link next to domain name on setting page.

Step 22. Check the "Redirect... to..." checkbox below your site address to ensure that even if the visitors will miss out the www part, they will still be able to reach your site.

blogger custom domain

Step 23. And that's it. Enjoy your new URL!

So this was easy, right? Only a handful of steps and we have successfully completed our mission of adding our custom domain in our blogger account. In case you haven't yet, stay patient wait for 2 days and try again. Or repeat steps 1-22, and make sure you don't miss any. Otherwise your new URL is ready and all set to roam around the wonderful world of web.