Top 5 essential widgets blogger sidebar must have

Here is a ranking of the Top 5 essential widgets a blog's sidebar must have. Reactions and suggestions are all welcome on the comments area. If your suggestions give very strong points, this entry will be updated to include yours.

Top 5 essential widgets blogger sidebar must have

1. Recent Posts - This is self-explanatory. For Blogger blogs, a Recent Posts widget is very important. If you want to advertise every post you make and want the new ones noticed fast, then their titles must appear right away on the sidebar through this widget. However, due to the "newspaper style" capacity of Wordpress blogs, a Recent Posts widget is not that needed there. A newspaper style could allow up to 10+ previews of posts still with the scrollbar long enough. In Blogger blogs, 10+ posts in the homepage could make the scrollbar so tiny your readers would easily bounce away from your blog.

2. Subscription Link or Form - Make your readers loyal with this widget. If your posts are interesting and useful enough (or has a high quality for short), then readers would want to be updated on the latest from your blogs. A subscription via RSS, a reader or e-mail is a convenient way for a reader to receive updates from you. Seeing a Subscription Link or Form could possibly entice readers to give it a try, or maybe seriously subscribe to your posts.

3. Popular Posts - A great way to endorse the best posts that you made, those that made it to the top in the search engine results and those that made the most number of comments. Well obviously this is not just to take pride of your blog but to serve your new readers the best of the best so they would enjoy your blog and subscribe after. Many blogs forget this part.

4. Labels or Tags - Even the most-specific-niched blog posts could be broken up into several tags. This is how this widget is of use, clearly categorizing each tags into clear and proper groupings so users would find it easy to reach posts that they are finding with a specific topic (or label). This is to make sure that readers finding about Paris would not end up reading about Japan.

5. Pages or Links to Internal Pages - Usually, this is where links to the Contact Me, About and Blogroll reside. These are just links but they point to very important pages on a blog. The Contact Me is very important as it promotes an interaction between blogger and reader. About is one of the most important internal pages that a blogger must not forget. Sometimes a reader would directly search for that page even before taking a look at your posts. A Blogroll page is optional

IF YOU HAVE ANY ADDITION TO THIS LIST PLEASE LET ME KNOW

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What is The Most Important Widget Pages for Blogger..?

Your webmaster search is: blogger widget must have Pages

1. About Page : Many a times, visitor (more than what you’ve written) would like to know about you especially when they like your posts. You need not go in details – Just a short biography about yourself is enough to be known by reader.

2. Form or way to contact : To contact you personally then let it be a request, query or something else; you should have a contact form on your blog. Wordpress hosted blogs can have variety of such plugins and other platform can manage to find alternative or simply leave your Email ID.

3. Disclaimer or Legal Notice : In many countries, it is essential to make it known what is done with data provided. This generally includes information about “Privacy policy” and other things which may according to the country.

4. Clear Indication of License for Content : This page is not as essential because if not specifies- your content will be always under traditional copyright Licensening. It means nothing can be done without prior permission from you (Author)

Widgets

5. Search box – It is most essential thing on any webpage which facilitates user to find information on your blog. Using Adsense search box can also make money for you.

6. Category and Tag-Cloud – Categories and Tags are very helpful in finding or navigating any specific topic or keyword on the blog. Tag function is however not available on Blogger platform but still Category widget is always appreciated. Archive according to the period would also solve the purpose of better navigation

7. Subscription Links (by RSS or Email) : It is highly recommended to give vistors two options to subscribe your articles. This helps keeping in touch with new updates on yourblog. You can also provide specific feed aggregator’s link to directly add in his account.

8. Blogroll : It shows the interest of author in various fields. It can also show list of similar sites and index of resource documents.

9. Links to other sites you own : If you own more than one website, it should be told to visitors of your blog. You should be the first promotor of your work.

10. Social Network Connectivity : You probably be having your account on Twitter / Facebook, etc. then don’t hide yourslef. Expose it so that visitor can connect you elsewhere on web and it also helps in increasingblog traffic.

Tags: blogger tips, blogging tips,blogger widgets

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How to add Related Posts widget in Blogger blogs

If you are searching for a blog widget which help you display the related post on your post footer then you are on right place. I have found some real cool widgets for Blogger blogs which can be added to blogger blogs with ease. These widgets are of great use as the reader spends more time reading your blog and you get the maximum benefit. They are the best way to make reader explore your blog in easy way.

Some of the best assorted widgets are below, so check them out :

How to add Related Posts widget in Blogger blogs

1. Linkwithin Widget :

You can go to Linkwithin.com and get this widget by filling up your Email, Web address , your blogging platform and the number of posts you want to show up. No sign-up is required, just fill up the details and you will see a new page opened with complete instructions on how to install on your blog.


1.1 In the first step click on install widget.


1.2 A blogger window will open then click on add widget.

1.3 That’s it now the widget is added on your blog layout .


1.4 Just move it to the post footer and click on save, now the widget should be visible on your post footer.

2. Blogger Widget :


This widget is from Bloggerplugins.org, it will also display the post the same way Linkwithin widget did. It’s based on displaying the posts accrording to the blogger labels that is the posts related to the same labels are displayed only. This widget is added by editing the html code of your blog. To start applying it open up Edit Html of your blogger blog by signing in to the blogger. Click on the Expand widgets template to open the complete template. Now you have to search for some code and then copy and paste the widget code into the template. You can follow the post here Bloggerplugins.org . Just like the linkwithin widget you can also set the maximum number of post to be displayed by changing the value in this line of code :

var maxresults=5;

So these were the two widgets with thumbnails, there are also other widgets which display only text links to the related posts but I think they do not have much impact on the reader as the ones with thumbnails is more attractive.

Tags: blogger tips, blogging tips,blogger widgets

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Want The Best Of Blogger?

Want The Best Of Blogger? Use Blogger In Draft!

Hi, I was thinking about how fantastic the Blogger platform is and realized that many people have no idea that Blogger has a enhanced dashboard platform area. A simple little trick to get all the latest beta blogger devices and changes before they become permanent is to use Blogger in draft.

Blogger has a platform called Blogger In Draft! Just use this link and if you have an account with Blogger then you can use this new dash board either permanently or temporarily, as you chose. This is a great way to get the edge on competitors in the blogging field. So do not get left behind get the full blogger experience.

http://draft.blogger.com/
http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/ The Blogger in Draft Blog!

Tags: blogger tips, blogging tips

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5 Most Needed Blogger Widgets

Blogger Widgets enhance the look and feel and functionality of the blog. 5 Recommended Blogger Widgets:


5 Most Needed Blogger Widgets

1. Headline Animator

This animated widget displays recent post titles in form of headlines and plus it enhances the look of the blog. This widget can be added by joining www.feedburner.com Click the publicize tab and you will see a list which includes the headline animator

2. Share Button
Share Buttons are good for social bookmarking and help your increase the readership.
There are two Buttons

Share Button

AddThis Button

One is from Addthis and Other is Share. Both are equally good but i prefer the share button.It has 39 optional web services to choose from and also others straight away post their content in various social websites.
Link: Share Button , Addthis Button
3. Feedjit

Feedjit gives you live traffic update and shows where readers are coming from and from which site.
Link: Feedjit Widget

4. Clustrmaps

Clustrmaps shows the reader locations on a map.
Link: Clustrmaps Widget


5. Ratings(stars)

This is my personal favourite because it is very useful. It is a very cool widget. It acts a feedback system and you get to know how people feel about your blog. Though blogger has come up with reactions but it still doesn’t have ratings in it. Also it has some good additional features such as Related Posts and Most Popular Posts which are available only on registration.
Link: Ratings Widget

Tags: blogger widgets

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What is Blogger in draft? Blogger New Feature

Blogger in draft is a special version of Blogger where we try out new features before releasing them to everyone. Think of it as our sandbox, or laboratory, or just “Blogger + new things.” By taking your feedback and looking at what works and what doesn’t, we’ll be able to make features that much better when releasing them to everyone.

How can I use Blogger in draft? How can I stop using Blogger in draft?
To try out Blogger in draft, just go to http://draft.blogger.com/ and log in. If you want to stop using it and go back to “normal” Blogger, simply log in to http://www.blogger.com/ instead. Your blogs and posts are the same regardless of whether you use Blogger in draft or regular Blogger. The only difference is what you see in the interface.

What do I get on Blogger in draft?
Access to new features, functionality, and interfaces we’re trying out. To see what’s currently available on Blogger in draft, read the blog at http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/.

How do I let you know my opinion about something on Blogger in draft?
The Blogger in draft blog has comments enabled. Just find a post about the feature you want to talk about, and leave a comment!

Hey! Something changed completely or disappeared! What’s going on?
Features on Blogger in draft may be updated, changed, re-imagined, transmogrified, or removed at any time. Draft gives us the freedom to see what works and what doesn’t before we turn a feature on for everyone, so expect us to make changes — hopefully you’ll think they’re for the better!

If I’m logged in to Blogger in draft, will all my posts be saved as draft?
No, you can publish normally from Blogger in draft. We’re just being playful with the name; it has nothing specifically to do with posts that are saved as drafts. It’s the features that are “in draft,” not (necessarily) your posts.

Tags: blogger tips, blogging tips

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Adding Blogger Meta Tags to the HTML

Blogger Meta Tags

Here is how to set up Blogger Meta Tags Note: Your Blogger will need to be in classic mode for this to work.

You will want to do this to increase the Search Engine Optimization of your Blogger, by default there are no Blogger Meta Tags include.

• First we need to access the HTML and find your Blogger Title Tag
  Click… CUSTOMIZE / TEMPLATE / Edit HTML
• Locate the following code, near the top.

  Code:

  <title><data:blog.pagetitle/></title>
  

  
  

• The Blogger Meta Tags format should look like this:
  Code:

  <meta content="'My" name="'description'/"><meta content="'my" name="'keywords'/">
  

  Add these to Meta Tag lines directly under your blogger’s title tag.

• The final result should look like this:
  Code:

  <title><data:blog.pagetitle/></title><meta content='My blog description goes here' name='description'/><meta content='my blog,keywords,go here' name='keywords'/
  
  

  Save and check it with this free Web Page Analyser tool.

  
  

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