One way to get your blog to grow is add social bookmarking buttons to your Blogger Blogspot blog. In an earlier article I wrote about the simplest way to place social media on a Blogger blog - that is to add an all-in-one Add This social bookmarking button.
However, as one size doesn't fit all situations there may be lots of times when you would prefer to add individual social bookmark buttons to your Blogger blog. That's why I have put together this list of useful free social bookmarking button sets. All are free to use on a personal blog and most have no restrictions for commercial use either but please do double check the license when you download them if you want to use the buttons commercially.
Best Sources of Social Bookmarking Buttons for Blogger Blogspot
128 Completely Free Icons Set
128 Icons available in 48×48px. Includes Social Media Icons such as: Design Float, Digg, Delicious, Furl, Technorati, Flickr, Stumble Upon, Twitter & more…
Web 2.0 Icons (23 icons)
23 freeware “iPhone-like” icons sized from 512X512 to 16X16 pixels. Includes Blinklist, BlogMarks, Delicious, Digg, FaceBook, Favorite, Feeds, FeedBurner, Flickr, Furl, Google Magnolia, Misterwong, Myspace, Newsvine, Netvibes, Reddit, Simpy, Stumbleupon, Technorati, Twitter, Youtube.
Socialize (12 icons)
12 high quality, free icons in these sizes: 16x16px, 32x32px, 48x48px, 64x64px and 128x128px and 32-bit transparency PNG file format.
Handycons (12 icons)
Handycons is a free, hand drawn social media icon set containing 12 icons. Package contains icons for del.icio.us, Digg, Mixx, DesignBump, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Developer Zone, DesignFloat, Technorati, Twitter and RSS feed & Email icon, of course. All icons are available in four sizes: 16x16, 24x24, 32x32 and 48x48 pixels.
Handycons 2 (20 icons)
20 more hand drawn icons following on from the first Handycons set. Package contains Facebook, Blinklist, Feedburner, Flickr, FriendFeed, Furl, Gmail, Google, Heart icon, Last FM, Linked IN, Magnolia, Newsvine, PayPal, Skype, Sphinn, Twitter, Vimeo, Yahoo and You Tube icons. All icons come in four sizes: 16x16, 32x32, 64x64 and 12x128px.
Social Media Icons (26 icons)
26 clean looking free social media icons available for personal or commercial use.
Aquaticus Social (30 icons)
30 Web 2.0 social media icons in 4 sizes. Free to use on blogs. List includes popular icons like: Blogger, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, flickr, furl, Google, Ma.gnolia, Mixx, MySpace, NetVibes, NewsVine, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter, Yahoo!
Aquaticus.Social by ~jwloh on deviantART
Social Me Icons (30 Icons)
30 free iPhone-inspired icons that can be used on blogs and websites without restriction. 4 sizes up to 60x60px, 48x48px, 24x24px, 16x16px. List includes popular icons like: Blogger, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, flickr, furl, Google, Ma.gnolia, Mixx, MySpace, NetVibes, NewsVine, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter, Yahoo!
Social.me by ~jwloh on deviantART
Social Bookmark Iconset Pt I
Social Bookmark Iconset Pt II
Ok so that's my current list of some of the best free social bookmark icons available on the net suitable for a Blogger Blogspot blog. This is a pretty extensive list to get you started but I will add more as time goes on and I come across other great sets. If you find what you are looking for here please let me know and if not I would be interested in that too.
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Add a Social Bookmarking Button to Blogger
In this tutorial you will learn how to add an Add This free Social Bookmarking button to your Blogger blog (Blogspot) blog. By adding this feature to your blog you will enable visitors to your blog to create links to popular social bookmarking sites such as Google, Technorati, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Furl, Yahoo etc. Adding personal social bookmarks enables visitors to share these links with others thereby helping you attract more traffic to your site. For more information on the benefits of social bookmarking please refer to my article - Benefits of Social Bookmarking for Blogger bloggers.
This tutorial shows you how to place a social bookmarking button on your site by accessing a free social bookmark and feed button builder service called Add This. Add This will supply you with a simple piece of code which when placed in a widget will insert a social bookmarking button either at the end of each post or in the sidebar. If you wish you can add the social bookmarking button to both as I have done on this site. For those new to blogging don't worry if this sounds complicated as this article gives you step by step instructions suitable for any Blogger user including beginners.
How does an Add This Social Bookmarking Button Work?
The code from Add This places a button on your site which when clicked on by a visitor to your site opens a menu of the most popular social bookmarking services. When a selection is made by a visitor egDelicious, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MySpace, Stumble Upon they are given the option to submit your blog to their online bookmarks. Once a visitor submits your blog to a social bookmarking service Add This can provide you with useful analytics about bookmarks, feeds and emails depending on which buttons you enable on your site. This kind of statistical information from Add This will help you gain greater understanding of your site traffic and your most popular posts.
Steps for Adding a Social Bookmarking Button from Add This to Your Blogger Blog
1. Register for a free account with Add This
2. Once you supply a username, email address, password and your website address sign up is pretty much instanteous.
3. After sign up is confirmed click on Get Your Button. This will take you to the Create Your Button Page
4. On the Create Your Button page you will be asked to make some selections about your social bookmarking button.
What kind of Button? Select Sharing/bookmarking button
What Look? Choose any of the six button choices. For this example I am going to select the share button
Where? Select on a blog
Blogger Platform? Select Blogger
At this point the information your have entered should look like the picture below:
Once you have confirmed that you have entered the correct information click on the Get Your Code button and you will be taken to the Get Your Code page.
5. From the Get Your Code page you will be given the option toPreview your button. Do so if you wish or move on to Step 6.
Having generated the code for your Add This Social Bookmarking button you now need to decide where to position it on your blog. You may either place your new Social Bookmarking Button beneath each post (see below) or in a sidebar.
Instructions for Placing a Social Bookmarking Button Beneath Each Post of Your Blogger Blog
Click on Blog Post Button option.
Highlight the Javascript code supplied by Add This
Copy the code to the Clipboard of your computer using Ctrl + C command
In a new window open your Blogger Blog and sign in
Navigate to Layout > Edit HTML
As a precaution Backup your template in case you inadvertently overwrite some code.
Once you have backed up place a tick in the Expand Widget Templates checkbox
Use the Ctrl + F command to open the toolbar which will appear at the bottom of your page while using Blogger. You can close this at any time using the Ctrl + F command or by clicking on the blue cross in the lefthand corner.
Now highlight the following line of code and using the Ctrl + Ccommand copy and paste the code into the Search Box on the toolbar at the bottom of Blogger. This action will quickly locate the code for you in your Blogger template. You will be placing the code immediately before this tag.
<div class='post-footer'>
Return to Add This and highlight the Javascript button codesupplied. Copy the code to your clipboard using the Ctrl + Ccommand.
Reopen the Blogger window and place the cursor right before the tag that you located earlier.
Paste the Javascript code from Add This into the template using theCtrl + V command.
Your code placement should look like that pictured below
Click on Save Template
Now click on View Blog from the top menu and navigate to the end of your first post. If all instructions have been followed you will now have a social bookmarking button at the bottom of each post.
Instructions for Placing a Social Bookmarking Button in a Sidebar of Your Blogger Blog
Follow the Add This automated process by clicking on Add the Menu to My Blog button. This will place an Add This social bookmarking button in a widget in your sidebar as you see on this site.
This Blogger tutorial has covered the steps involved in adding a freeAdd This Social Bookmarking Button to your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog). Grow your Blogger (Blogspot) blog today by adding a free Add This social bookmarking button which will enable visitors to bookmark your site and share your posts with others. Add This will provide statistical tracking of social bookmarking activity on your site and help you determine your most popular posts.
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This article discusses 10 easy ways Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers can build site traffic and in many cases improve SEO - search engine optimization. By implementing these steps you will improve the likelihood of your site ranking more highly in search engine results of major search engine players Google, Yahoo and MSN and as a result increase the number of visitors accessing your site.
10 Easy SEO Tips for Blogspot Bloggers to Improve Search Engine Rankings
1. Make Your Title Tags Search Engine Friendly
One of the most important tweaks necessary for Blogspot Blogs is theadjustment of the title tags of your website because Blogger.com by default has not optimized these for search engines. To prove this point navigate to an individual post on your blog and you will see that the blogname appears first in the title bar at the top of your browser followed by the post name. As search engines place greater value on the first words of an entry this puts your site at a disadvantage in search engine results. Fortunately it is easy to reverse the blog name and the post name with a simple tweak. For instructions on how to change the order of these title tags please refer to my article entitledAdjust Blogger Title Tags to Improve SEO
2. Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks
Blogger automatically generates a permalink based on the title of your post each time you make a post. For this reason it is important tocraft your title carefully. Permalinks are sometimes less than ideal especially if you have a long title. Take for example the following permalink for one of my posts:
http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/improved-permalinks-for-blogger-posts.html
You will see that it is search engine friendly in that in contains 2 keywords blogger and permalinks. However you may be surprised to know that How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts is actually the title of this post not Improved Permalinks for Blogger Posts. I have initially used a title that is keyword rich and then after publishing gone back and entered a more descriptive title. No matter how many times I change the title the original permalink remains. If I had entered the second title straight away I may have ended up with the following permalink:
http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-create-search-engine-friendly.html
Not very pretty is it? And as you can see the whole point of the post is lost.
For more information on crafting permalinks please refer to my article How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts
3. Add a Social Networking Button to Your Blog
By adding a Social Bookmarking button to your website you will enable visitors to your blog to create links to popular social bookmarking sites such as Google, Technorati, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Furl, Yahoo etc. This means that visitors to your site will be able share these links with others thereby helping you attract more traffic to your site and encourage return visits.
Another benefit of a social bookmarking button is that you will be able to identify visitor trends and social bookmarking behaviour on your site. For more information on how to add a free Add This Social Bookmarking button to your Blogger blog please refer to my articleAdd a Social Bookmarking Button to Your Blog.
4. Submit a Sitemap of Your Blog to Popular Search Engines
If attracting traffic to your site is important to you then it is imperative that you ensure that your Blogger (Blogspot) blog isproperly indexed by popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. One way to expedite this is to submit a sitemap to each of three major search engines. Please refer to my tutorials on website submission, authenticating your site and adding your site feed to Yahoo Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools and MSN Tools.
Google - Submit Your Blogspot Blog Sitemap to Google
Yahoo - Submit Your Blogspot Blog to Yahoo
MSN - Submit Blogger Sitemap to MSN Live Search
Also take a look at my tutorial on submitting your blog to major search engines
5. Build Quality Links
If you want to rank highly in Google and other search engines then you need to generate quality in-bound links. That doesn't mean exchanging links with everything and everyone as I see some new webmasters do. A few quality links from authoritative sites will boost your page rankings quickly and are far superior to a bunch of links from low ranking sites.
There are several good ways to generate links to your blog. One easy way is to to submit your site to blog directories. For more information on recommended blog directories please see my articleSubmit Your Blogger Blog to Blog Directories. Another way to cultivate in-bound links is to submit your best articles to article directories. A third possibility is to actively participate in forums and on other related blogs where commenting affords you the option of adding a link to your site.
I would recommend linking to DMOZ (Open Directory Project). Care needs to be taken to submit your site to the correct subject area. Becoming listed can take awhile so patience is needed.
6. Write Quality Content and Post Frequently
If you have read any articles on the subject of Blogging and SEO you will no doubt have observed writers emphasising the importance ofquality content. I can't stress enough how much return visits depend on providing inducements to visitors to come back. If your site content is well written and informative half the battle is won. Make sure you post frequently so that visitors can see the value of subscribing in a reader. Take some care with the presentation of your content and images as this will present a professional image. Avoid common pitfalls like bad grammar and spelling mistakes which stand out like a sore toe and detract from a visitor's overall positive experience of your site.
One leading professional blogger Yaro Starak recommends the use ofpillar articles. These are articles that don't change over time and continue to attract visitors. The best pillar articles explain some concept, provide definitions, give advice or present some argument. Your site needs to have at least 5 pillar articles and more if you can manage it. Pillar articles need to be more than 500 words long, crafted to generate interest and provide a welcome resource to your visitors.
7. Ensure Your Content is Keyword Rich
Apart from the quality of your content there is the question ofkeyword density. The more keyword rich your posts are the greater the likelihood they will appear higher in search engine results. This means it is worth the effort of crafting your content in such a way that you make use of important keywords and keyword phrasesfrequently used. Don't go overboard however as Google is smart enough to recognise if your pages are littered with keywords and nothing much else. A useful free SEO tool to help you optimise your site using keywords and labels is Google Adwords. Another good tool to help you quickly craft keyword rich material is Live Keyword Analysis which assesses the keyword density of keywords and keyword phrases of any post you paste into the analysis box.
When writing posts make sure your opening sentence describes what the article is about and contains your keywords and keyword phrases. It is important that your first sentence is keyword rich as search engines like Google give more emphasis to content at the beginning of the post. Also it is worth including a short ending statement about the content of the post as there is some evidence that Google also places value on the content at the end of the post.
8. Manage Your Feeds Carefully
Feeds help your visitors find your site so they need to be managed carefully in order to make the most of them. Your site feeds are an important way to create backlinks too. Backlinks from authoritative sites are highly valuable and can boost your page ranking. For information about showing backlinks please refer to the Blogger Help Article About Backlinks
Ensure you have your RSS feed icons clearly visible for visitors to see. The most superior positioning of the feed icons on your site is in the header. Watch out for coming tutorials on how to improve positioning of RSS feed links.
You can redirect your feed to a feedburning service like Feedburnerand then add a chicklet to your site (orange RSS feed button) so that the feed is instantly available on click. Please refer to my tutorials about Blogger feeds:Burn a Blogger RSS Feed at Feedburner andBlogger RSS Feeds and Feedburner. To add a FeedFlare to your burned feed check out my tutorial.
If you haven't burnt your feed you can try adding a Subscription Links widget to a sidebar too to encourage visitors to subscribe to your site in popular on-line readers such as Google Reader. You will find the Subscription Links widget available under the list of gadgets.
Display your most recent posts by configuring a feed widget. UnderLayout > Page Elements add a feed gadget to a sidebar. Enter the URL of the default feed of your site which will be:
http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Enter Recent Posts in the title and then Save. For more information about adding a posts feed widget to a sidebar please refer to my article Add a Recent Posts Feed to a Blogger Blog
You can do the same for comments if you wish to have a list ofrecent comments displayed in your sidebar. In this case you would enter:
http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
For more in depth coverage about adding a comments feed to your sidebar please see my article Add a Recent Comments Feed to a Blogger Sidebar
Ensure you set up your site feeds to show the full text. To check this navigate to Settings > Site Feeds and select yes from the dropdown box for all three feeds.
Consider having a feed specifically for a popular label if it contains 20 or more posts.
9. Optimize Your Use of Images
Chances are you don't give a thought to images when you insert them into your posts but images can be optimized by careful use offilenames and the alt attribute. When naming images avoid long names. Instead give your images distinctive filenames rather than something generic like 00045.jpg which has no meaning.
The alt attribute allows you to specify what text is displayed when a visitor's mouse hovers over an image. The alt attribute also gets displayed if the image is not available for some reason. By optimizing your alt attributes you are increasing the likelihood of your images appearing in Google Image Searches.
Optimizing your alt attributes is easy. Every time you insert an image into a post look for the alt attribute which will be empty by default
style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt=""src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />
Fill in the alt attribute with a useful description of your image
style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Blog Know How Sidebar Showing Add This Bookmark Button" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />
Depending on the subject of your site you can gain a lot of traffic from the images you post on your site. The more unique the content of your site the greater the likelihood that your traffic will stem from images. Without going overboard ensure you have a good mix of images to support your articles.
10. Take Advantage of Web Analytics Services
Having implemented some strategies to improve crawling and indexing of your site by search engine giants Google, Yahoo and MSN chances are you will want to see how these changes have impacted on the traffic reaching your site. Web Analytics programs are a valuable tool for gaining insight into visitor behaviour and trends. The kind of information that a program like Google Analytics will provide is:
how users reach and behave on your site
the most popular content on your site
the impact of optimizations you make to your site (e.g. by how much did changing the order of title tags improve traffic from search engines?)
To integrate Google Analytics into your Blogger (Blogspot) blog please refer to my articles Track Visitors to Your Blogger Blog and Add Google Analytics to Blogger Blog
This article has discussed 10 easy ways to build site traffic and improve SEO for Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers by addressing the following areas: feeds, images, social bookmarking, title tags, permalinks, content, analytics, submitting your blog to search engines.
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If you want your Blogger blog to sizzle and really take off there are some pretty important blogging pitfalls that you need to avoid. In today's article I will be talking about 6 of the most common mistakes new bloggers make on their Blogger Blogspot blog and how to avoid them.
1. Avoid Poor Content
I can't emphasize enough that the standard of your content will make or break your blog. Poor content = few return visitors. Good content on the other hand will attract visitors and keep them coming back to check out what's new.
Successful bloggers write clearly, know their subject and develop their own unique voice. A conversational style is often recommended but I suggest just write naturally and that naturalness will shine through.
Post quality well researched content that is interesting and topical. To do this you need to know your audience. Who are your readers? Do you know? If you don't know your target audience it will be hard to put yourself in their shoes which is exactly what you need to be able to do when you sit down to write a post. Ask yourself what are my readers looking for that would make them visit my site and read my post. Are they looking to be entertained, informed or a bit of both? Sign up for visitor tracking such as Google Analytics if you aren't already so you can get an idea of your visitor base. For help with implementing Google Analytics please read my post on adding Google Analytics to your Blogger blog.
2. Avoid Hopeless Headlines
I've seen some pretty hopeless headlines that don't give me enough of a clue about what a post is about to entice me into reading the article. If you want to attract readers to your site you need to grab them. That means putting some thought into crafting headlines that have punch. Remember your headline needs to reel your visitors in so make sure it is well thought out and punchy. Your headlines have to stand out to be noticed as so many people read headlines in RSS feeds.
Another important consideration when deciding on a headline is SEO. Consider what your readers might search under to find your post. "Blogging pitfalls" and "common blogging mistakes" are more likely keyword search phrases than "bad blogging practices." So knowing your keywords will help you craft headlines that are keyword rich.
3. Avoid Posting Too Infrequently
Once a visitor has found your site you want them to keep coming back. One way to ensure repeat traffic is to post frquently. Many new bloggers start a blog but find it hard to maintain a posting routine that is frequent enough to retain traffic.
Just the other day I had someone comment that one of the reasons why they liked my blog was the frequency at which I post. I try to post a new article every second or third day if possible. I usually am working on lots of other articles in the background so that I might have two nearly finished and half a dozen or so at various stages of completion. Using this system I have some flexibility and a cushion if anything comes up to interrupt my posting schedule.
Whatever you do don't make the mistake of posting just for the sake of posting otherwise your readers will see through this and you will lose readership.
4. Lack of Overall Focus - Trying to Paint the Whole Wall
So many new bloggers start their site without a clear focus. What kind of focus you may ask? Well making money is not enough of a focus. I am talking about identifying your niche and sticking to it. If you try and paint the whole wall your visitors will be confused about what your blog is about and you will very likely lose traffic rather than gain it.
Having a focus is important. On Blog Know How for instance, I concentrate on helping webmasters of Blogger blogs get the most out of their blog. I particularly aim my site at the new blogger and provide detailed step by step walkthroughs with them in mind. At the same time, however, I cater for all Blogger webmasters who access my blog. What I don't do though is go outside the theme of Blogger by writing about blogging in general. Instead I write articles that may be general in nature but are tailored to Blogger webmasters.
Yes I could get more traffic perhaps if I widened the scope of my articles to include Wordpress or blogging in general put what would then make my blog stand out from a whole heap of other blogs giving advice on blogging? Having a niche earns me traffic that is focused. Site visitors come with the goal of becoming more informed about using Blogger. If they go away having learnt more than when they arrived my site will have done its job and I may have just found myself a repeat visitor.
5. Avoid Too Much Advertising on Your Blog
New blogs need to build traffic and too much advertising can be a big deterrent in
achieving this goal. When your site is very new it doesn't pay to have too much advertising at all. Err on the side of less advertising rather than more. Bear in mind of course that Rome wasn't built in a day and your site won't be either. Have faith that your traffic will build and you can gradually introduce more advertising like Google Adsense as visitor numbers increase.
6. Avoid Too Many Social Bookmarking Buttons
Too many social bookmarking buttons can clutter up your blog and slow it down. Many people still don't know too much about social bookmarking so avoid the temptation to overuse these icons. Rather than use a whole bunch of popular icons like Digg and Technorati which can lead to a cluttered look and feel I use a single consolidated button like Add This. Share This is another popular button for sharing your posts.
To install a social bookmarking button on your Blogger blog follow the step by step instructions contained in my article on Add This
This article has discussed 6 common mistakes new bloggers make when developing a new Blogger Blogspot blog and given suggestions on how to avoid them.as visitor numbers increase.
