WordPress Plugins for Security

Avoid Annoying Spam with Akismet Anti Spam filter.

This is a pre-installed plugin on WordPress that needs to be activated. It is definitely a must-have plugin for your blog because it filters and hinders most spam comments appearance in your blog. Spam comments are unsolicited and annoying but sometimes odd comments slip through that you need to manually detect. To catch spam comments easily, you can check if the comments are related to any posts in your blog. If yes, then it is safe if not it only means that the comment is after the back-link just to increase their blog rankings. Once you have marked the comment as spam, Akismet will automatically recognize the commenter and will block future comments.  

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

Safe Keep Your Data with WordPress Database Backup.

Your data is important therefore you need to utilize a backup plugin like WordPress Database. It enables you to set up an automated storage of your WordPress blog every hour, twice a day, every day or on a weekly basis depending on your preference. So you don’t have to fret about lost blog posts and also keep your backups regularly updated.

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-wordpress-backup 

Fast Secure Contact Form.

This WordPress plugin will leaves a “Contact Me” link on your blog where your visitors can send you a message without showing your email address and therefore saving you against email spams. This plugin is supported by Akismet and also includes CAPTCHA that will help block email spamming issues. This is one good advantage in maintaining privacy between you and your reader.

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-contact-form/

Ideal WordPress Plugins to Boost Search Results

Google XML Sitemaps for Blog Indexing.

This WordPress plugin creates an XML sitemap of your complete blog that enables search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to index your blog. Google XML Sitemaps supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages and even custom URLs.  Aside from that, it also sends notifications to search engines whenever you have new blog entries.

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Be Visible with All in One SEO Pack.

All in One SEO Pack allows your blog posts to be easily found by search engine results by maximizing keyword content. Once this plugin is installed, all your new posts will have additional text boxes for the Title, Description and Keywords just like when you submit in an article directory.

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Increase Traffic with SEO Super Comments. SEO Super Comments is a small plugin that works to increase your traffic using your blog comments. This is a neat little plugin that allows you to use your blog comments to generate more traffic. It allows the commenter to see their previous comments in case they want to do a follow-up link back to their respective website.   

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-super-comments/

WordPress Plugins to Improve Blog Performance

Google Analytics for WordPress.

A simple way to add Google Analytics to your blog is through this plugin. Google Analytics allows you to check how well your blog is performing against your competitors. It has custom variables with default settings. It also tracks outbound links and download frequency of your sites.  

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

CommentLuv. This is a WordPress plugin that allows commenter’s to see their last blog post link whenever they leave comments and URL link. This encourages them to your websites and more comments. This also enables commenter’s to select five previous posts to link when leaving comments.

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/

Post Reply Quickly with WordPress Thread Comment.

This plugin enables the commenter to send immediate reply in a flash and also ranks your comment directly below the comment section. It also sends automated email replies regarding the comment you left on the blog.  WordPress may have a built-in comment function but this plugin is the best because it adapts to different types of themes. 

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-thread-comment/

Subscribe To Comments Reloaded.

Its plugin name does same which is to subscribe readers to comments that enable them to receive email notifications. This is extremely helpful to readers to maintain the conversation and also to keep them informed and interested so they will regularly read your blog. 

Plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments-reloaded/

Closing Up: A Little More About WordPress Plugins

A WordPress plugin is like an extension on the basic system. Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine –polls, dynamic listing on related articles, on-site rating systems, images gallery, SEO features, auto-generate XML sitemap… etc.

Similar to WordPress template, you don’t have to create your own plugins. Benefit of WordPress – there are plenty of volunteers developing plugins and sharing the codes for free. There are almost infinite number of plugins available online that you can get just about any tasks done with these existing plugins. What’s even better is that all WP plugins can nowbe installed directly from the plugin section of the WordPress admin panel.

For further reading, check out my Guide To Your First WP Blog as well as WordPress official plugin guide.

First off, congratulations! Starting a blog is a step in the right direction on the digital marketing path! Blogging is full of benefits like establishing expertise, increasing site traffic, a new medium for exiting news and specials, and it can help your site’s search engine rankings. There are a lot of different directions you can take your blog, so let’s go through some of the most popular means.

1. Blogging Niche

This is a crucial decision that will affect the entire life of your blog. There are three factors that should play into this decision: who your target audience is, what you are passionate about, and what your end goal is. The meeting place of all three of these will be where you find the most success. For example, if you goal is to reach out to vacuum salesmen but you’re writing about your obsession of Disney movies, chances are you won’t effectively reach your target audience. Or, if your goal is to make money with your blog but you don’t pick a topic that is of any interest to your audience, the income potential will be hindered.

2. Hosting and Domains

There are several articles on this site that shed light on website hosting. iPage is a great hosting solution and the best one for blogs, learn more on Jerry’s Best Blog Hosting.

You can find a lot of great articles on domains here as well. Be sure to think the name of your domain through. Most commonly it is related either to your organization name or a specific campaign/product, but feel free to be creative. However, make sure it is easy to remember or you might lose out on visits from people that can’t remember the URL.

3. Content Management System (CMS)

Gone are the days that you need to know web development to have a website. Several websites are already customized with a CMS and may have a blog plugin that you could easily install on to your website. There are also a lot of great blogging (CMS) that you can choose from. Among the myriad free systems, WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, and Joomla are my favorites. They are all easy to use, have simple interfaces, and large resources for support, plugins, and themes. You can also check out this article for a list of several more of the common blogging CMS.

4. Design Your Blog

When choosing a design, you will want to pick something that is conducive to your blogging niche. For example, if you are a photographer, having a design that allows a lot of images will be important. If you are looking to pursue affiliate marketing, make sure there is room to place the ads.

There are three different levels of themes you can proceed with: free, purchased, or customized.

Free templates are quick and easy to install, but don’t usually offer the same level of support as purchased or customized. They also are offered to everyone so the chances of another site using the same template as you are a pretty good.

Purchased templates are usually better designed than the free templates, the developers offer more support, and you can often get exclusive rights to the theme so no one else will have it.

Customized templates offer the most flexibility but carry the biggest price. If you need something to fit exact specifications this is the way to go.

If you are familiar with HTML and CSS, any of the options will work and you can customize the template to fit your needs.

5. Install your Theme and Configure Your Blog

Here is where things become very different. Everyone has their own preferences and each platform has its own configuration steps. Thankfully, all of the sites have great how-to’s on setting a site up (WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, Joomla).

6. Social Media Syndication

If you want people to know about your great new blog, you have to set a means to tell them. The Internet is becoming very cross-connected and you can integrate your blog posts with the major social network platforms very easily.

First, most of the blogging platforms have the option to syndicate within the configuration. If they do, use that process. If not, there are several web applications that you can use (my suggestion is Twitterfeed). These applications scan your blog regularly for new posts then post new articles to the networks you indicate (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.).

7. Start blogging!

Once you have your blog set up and ready to go, it is time to start writing content! If you’re looking for more tips, check out Jerry’s 47 Blogging Tips For Newbies.

Happy Blogging!

When you’re new to the world of blogging, the possibilities seem both endless and exciting.  You eagerly put hours into crafting fresh and entertaining articles.  You spend a good chunk of each day thinking about your blog and carefully putting your thoughts into words.  When you re-read your work after hitting “publish”, you’re proud of what you’ve written.

Unfortunately, you’re the only one reading it.

It can be discouraging and frustrating as a new blogger to see little or no growth in readership.  It’s important to remember that building a loyal audience doesn’t happen overnight!  Try some of these simple and effective ways to increase traffic to your blog.

Keep to a Schedule

This is probably the simplest blogging truth: if you don’t write, then people won’t read.  Choose a blogging schedule – whether you plan on writing daily or weekly – and stick to it.  Once readers see that they can trust you to keep adding interesting and original content on a regular basis, they will be more open to investing their time in your blog.

Comment on Other People’s Blogs

Blogging is about more than finding a niche; it’s also about building community.  When you read and comment on blogs written by people with similar interests, you’re also sharing your own blog with all of their readers.  Blog owners love receiving comments, and there’s a good chance that they might click on your link and visit your blog.  Even more importantly, everyone who reads through the comments will be exposed to you and your blog.

Remember that commenting is, first and foremost, an opportunity to engage in discussion.  If all you’re trying to do is bring readers to your blog with generic comments like “Great post!” people will see through that and ignore you.  The best comments – both for engaging in discussion and for convincing new readers to click on your link – are the ones that are thoughtful, original and meaningful.  Take the time to really read a blog post and think about how you can contribute before leaving a comment.

Link to Other Blog Posts

Many blog platforms offer the possibility of backtracks or linkbacks.  What this means is that you can write a post on your own blog and link directly to someone else’s related blog post.  Your link will show up under the comments, which could bring new readers to your site.

Even if you’re not using backtracks or linkbacks, linking to another person’s blog can bring that blog’s author to your site.  Most blog authors like to keep an eye on their traffic sources to see where their readers are coming from.  Once someone clicks on the link in your post – or even if you click on it yourself – it will pop up on the other blog owner’s statistics page. 

Join Link Parties or Blog Carnivals

Link parties or blog carnivals are special blog posts that aim to bring together bloggers with similar interests.  The host blogger provides a space in their post where other bloggers can add their URLs.  Readers can then visit some or all of the posts in the party to read and comment on other people’s work.  Link parties are a great way to build your blogging community and to get to know other blogs and bloggers.

To find a link party, think about your blog’s focus and then do a quick search online.  “DIY link party”, “recipe link party” or “book review link party” will all bring up links to parties that might be the perfect match for your blog.

Link to Your Blog When Using Social Media

This tip is particularly useful if you already participate actively in message boards, groups and other online communities dedicated to the same topic as your blog.  By adding a link to your blog in your signature, you’re exposing your writing to people with similar interests.  Hopefully, some of them will visit your blog.  The more established you are as a contributor, the more likely people are to click on your link.  Don’t stop at message boards; include a link to your blog on your twitter and facebook accounts, as well as any other social media that you use.

Write a Guest Post for Someone Else’s Blog

Once you’ve been blogging regularly for a few months, there’s a lot to be gained from writing a post for someone else’s blog.  While your first reaction might be to wonder why you’d spend precious time writing for someone else, the fact is that posting your work on other people’s blogs exposes your writing to many new readers.  If you make an effort to write an engaging and entertaining guest post, some of your host blog’s readers are very likely to visit your blog.  Hopefully, this will lead to new loyal readers.

Make sure that your guest post ideas are focused and original.  For instance, if you want to guest post on a running blog, a post called “How Interval Training Helped Me Shave Minutes Off my Mile” will probably be better received than something more generic like “How to Run”.  Blog owners are also more likely to accept your offer to guest post if you’ve already engaged with them by reading and commenting on past posts.

Don’t Give Up

While there are stories out there of overnight blog success, the truth is that most blogs build slowly over time.  Be patient and take time to enjoy the act of blogging.  Keep reading and writing about topics that you’re passionate about, and eventually you will see your readership grow.

Happy blogging!

About The Author: Steven Bond
Steven Bond is an internet marketing expert with more than 10 years’ experience advising Internet start-ups and the Fortune 500 on search engine optimization, social media and advertising.  Current clients include cloud hosting provider vServerCenter.com and government resume resource GovernmentResumes.com.

Undoubtedly, the best place to showcase a range of talents is through a website. In this case, for a quick and painless website design, your best bet is WordPress.

An easy-to-use platform with beautiful, creative and downright impressive themes, WordPress is a professional’s ideal exhibition centre. But don’t take our word for it, have a look at 35 new and fresh portfolio WordPress themes that can easily grab your visitors’ attentions.

1. Imbalance 2

Imbalance 2 turns you WordPress-based website to an attractive blog, portfolio or even online magazine. This free template designed in strict modern style with a minimalistic touch.

Demo | Download

2. Ytterbiumoid

Ytterbiumoid WordPress theme is a flexible freemium portfolio WordPress theme that is perfect to showcase your works, recent projects and services.

Demo | Download

3. Adele

This wonderful theme is especially designed for business and portfolio theme lovers. Adele is a nice premium theme with a lot of features: jQuery Slider, Contact Page, logo image, contact form, Google Analytics Code and many other options.

Demo | Download

4. Grid Portfolio Theme

Grid Portfolio is a beautiful modern and minimalistic wordpress theme, designed for illustrators and graphic designers to show their amazing work.

Demo | Download

5. Fotofolio Landscape

Fotofolio Landscape is a WordPress theme specially designed for Visual Artist, Photographer, or any media designer, to show off their works.

Demo | Download

6. Big Square

Big Square is a clean, tidy, elegant, photoblog theme.

Demo | Download

7. Portfolium

If you are designer, artist, photographer, or other creative specialist you can take a full advantage of Portfolium’s fresh minimalistic design.

Demo | Download

8. Expositio

Expositio is a very simple & free portfolio WordPress theme for photographers, designers & artists.

Demo | Download

9. Revolt

Revolt is a unique theme for your WordPress blog – it is customizable to your image and revolting message, and comes packed with bunch of handy plugins and tricks.

Demo | Download

10. Praseodymiumic

Praseodymiumic WordPress theme is another portfolio theme that comes with muted color palette, custom typography, custom front page widgets and testimonial widget which transform your regular blog into a fully functional website.

Demo | Download

11. Pure II

Pure II is absolutely stylish WordPress theme with minimal and clean layout and great typography.

Demo | Download

12. Portfolio Press

Portfolio theme uses custom post types for portfolio pages, takes advantage of the new menu navigation, and includes a ton of neat features.

Demo | Download

13. WPFolio 1.74

WPFolio is a free and open source theme for WordPress designed by artists specifically for visual artists. It’s simple design, easy to use, built for your portfolio.

Demo | Download

14. Sight

Sight was designed in modern minimalistic style and has two views: the standard blog view and a grid view. It works best for magazine and portfolio blogs.

Demo | Download

15. JournalCrunch

JournalCrunch, a theme for magazines or portfolios with an integrated journal.

Demo | Download

16. Spectacular

Spectacular, a free WordPress theme that aims to provide a warm and pleasurable atmosphere for personal musings and ramblings.

Demo | Download

17. Shaken Grid

Shaken Grid lets you easily add a gallery post in under one minute, it’s that simple to do. Using WordPress’s post thumbnail feature, all you have to do is upload your image, click okay, and hit publish

Demo | Download

18. Funky Funk

Funky Funk Wp Theme Free pink wordpress theme beautiful design with Grid style for new topic and featured content slider.

Demo | Download

19. Spatacus

Spatacus will suit any design taste and will manage website to a undiminished unique and brand exceeding website design and quality level.

Demo | Download

20. Ultra

Ultra is a theme that is ideal for businesses that want a very clean, elegant and professional website, however, with the custom portfolio and blog templates it is also an awesome website for personal portfolios and blogs.

Demo | Download

21. BlueBubble 3.4

BlueBubble is a Free, Clean, Simple Premium Portfolio WordPress Theme for Designers, Photographer or any other creative minds!

Demo | Download

22. SimpleFolio

SimpleFolio is a portfolio theme that includes a blog and a very extensive option page that allows you to exclude all your portfolio items from the blog page.

Demo | Download

23. Photoria

Photoria is great for a Portfolio showcasing works of a photographer or designer.

Demo | Download

24. Boldy

Boldy is a free portfolio WordPress theme with cool sliding features and multi colors variations you can check the full list of features below.

Demo | Download

25. F8 Lite

F8 Lite can transform your site or blog into a fully functioning photography or multimedia portfolio site.

Demo | Download

26. Satoshi

Satoshi is a clean and minimal portfolio WordPress theme that’s ideal for showcasing project work.

Demo | Download

27. Graphite

Graphite WordPress theme is a fully functional, free wordpress theme from MediaLoot, perfect for creative professionals but suitable for anybody.

Demo | Download

28. Slated

Slated WordPress theme is a well-designed portfolio style theme that has unlimited Colors.

Demo | Download

29. My Corporation

My Corporation is perfect for setting up your minimalistic business and/or portfolio website.

Demo | Download

30. Portafolio

Portafolio was created with portfolio sites in mind but it also makes for an awesome business theme or a simple blogging theme.

Demo | Download

31. MyPhoto

MyPhoto was created to be very minimal and elegant in design while still powerful enough to handle a large portfolio/photography site.

Demo | Download

32. MiniFolio

MiniFolio is a very clean and simple free WordPress theme that will allow you to easily set up an online portfolio and a very simple blog.

Demo | Download

33. Quik Gallery

Quik Gallery theme works best probably for videos, games or photo type sites but can also make a little unique blog with a bit of editing.

Demo | Download

34. Terbiumable

Terbiumable WP theme comes with a clean and well-structured code for easy customization for your portfolio site.

Demo | Download

35. Complete

Complete comes with a very clean, modern and professional design that is very simplistic and content focused.

Demo | Download

It’s commonly known that you only have minutes if not seconds to grab the attention of readers and potential advertisers when they arrive at your site. People are consumed with information and the internet provides it in the bucket loads. So how do you stands out from the crowd? How do you make sure that visually everything looks appealing? And, site navigation is clear and direct?

Well in case you need some ideas, here are 10 ways you can make your blog look more attractive. Feel free to use’em; and share if you have other ways in your list.

1. Keep advertisement limited and related

It’s terrible to land on a blog that serves more ads than the yellow pages. Worse if the ads are unrelated. Imagine: DirecTV ads on a web development site? I bet one will actually take your blog seriously and stay longer than 30 seconds.  

Yes, bloggers need to eat too and it is alright to place advertisement on your blog. But remember: never, ever, oversell your blog and always keep ads related to your content. Your readers will thank you for promoting a product they are interested; and you get to increase your advertisers’ sales – that’s a win-win.

2. Stay focus

I can’t stress how important it is to concentrate on your blog topic. If you are writing about Java code, STOP yelling about your cats (or your plants in the garden).

Think about it, what’s the main objective of your blog? You can’t attract 15 year old girl who’s searching for Justin Bieber and 28 year old programmer who is searching for coding advice. So before you start your next blogpost; make up your mind, decide who are your target audiences, and keep your content flows focus on the same direction.

3. Use a professional  theme or buy a custom blog theme

Sure there are lots of blog themes that are out there for free, but to stand out from the crowd its vital that you use one that is good.  I would go as far as to say that it’s worth investing in having a professional designed theme – which explains why I am using Nick’s Quadro Theme (from Elegant Themes) here at WHSR.
It doesn’t have to cost you an arm and leg to get a designer to build you a theme that only you will have. Having a blog themes membership like me or outsourcing the work through freelancers via Elance should be good enough.

In case you are using WordPress and would like some recommendation, check out: Elegant Themes, Woo Themes, as well as Blog Oh Blog.

4. Remove the clutter from your site

I don’t know how many websites that I have come across online that are choker block full of unnecessary design elements such as flash clips, audio, shockwaves. The focus of your blog should be to draw the reader to the content.

If you insist to do all those cosmetic stuffs for your blog, remember the golden key: less is more.

5. Google Adsense is NOT a fit-for-all solution

Repeat after me: Google Adsense is not for everyone. While you might be keen on making a buck from Adsense it doesn’t exactly provide the most professional appearance for your website. People have become accustomed to it and many spam based sites are using it all over their websites. It puts off other advertisers especially if some of the advertisers listed in your Google ads are competitors of potential advertisers.

6. (Bonus tips on advertisement) Let people know who you are and give your web stats upfront

Don’t hide your stats or assume that an advertiser is going to email you to request them. People don’t have the time or patience for that. Give them up front, let them know your audience, demographics, Google PR and Alexa rank. They should be able to see clearly how many unique visitors you get and number of impressions.

Use an about page, contact, privacy and disclaimer. Let people know about your blog, who you are and how to contact you. Keep your site transparent in how it uses visitor information. Any attempt to hide this only increases distrust.

7. Create a fight if necessary

That’s right. Create a (civilized) fight with other blogger if that’s what it takes. Nothing wrong with taking pride and standing up straight for your opinion.

Fact: Fights gain attention, simple and direct. In SEO term, this is what we call ‘link baiting’. Quoting Robert Scoble, "Truth is, if you bash the SEO world they will all link to you, argue with you, etc." Accept it. The Internet crowds love to watch fights and good bloggers should never refuse an (constructive) argument.

8. User friendly and convenient to use

An attractive blog is more than just some nice theme designs and colourful icons. It also need to be user-friendly and convenient to use. I believe you don’t need me to tell you how important a good site navigation is. So let’s talk about the convenience of sharing your content online (which is very important these days).

In the era of Web 2.0 we have Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, MySpace, Digg, and other thousands of unnamed networking sites. I bet you are at least using a few of them. But, have you maximize the usage of these social tools? It’s extremely easy to share a piece of good article and it’s a sin to not leverage the power of these tools nowadays.

Install Tweeter gadgets, Facebook addon, or better, use plugin like Share to encourage users sharing your blogposts with their friends.

9. Post regularly

Readers will be more likely to follow your blog if you are posting regularly – publish blogpost weekly, bi-monthly, or even monthly – it doesn’t matter what it is (although it should be at least once a week in my opinion) – but you should always stick to a schedule so your readers know when to expect new reading materials from your blog.

(Unfortunately I am not doing too well in this section. But hey, I am sure you can do better than me, right?)

10. Quality, well researched, useful content is gold

Take your time to write quality content. Don’t just follow others and have your own opinion. Some says you should spend 90% of your effort researching out what you’re going to blog (and the remaining 10% effort for typing it out). Well the figure might not be perfect for everyone but I guess it tells clearly that how important is your research to your blog. People are searching for strong quality content and if you focus on giving that you will attract a loyal readership.

11. Post from your experience

Quoting Yuwanda Black from BloggingTips.com   

I like first-hand information. In fact, many web surfers are looking for this type of info. It’s no coincidence that “how to” information is the number one selling product on the web. Most of it comes from first-hand information. So use case studies, write in the first person (eg, use “I”), tell your readers how you solved a particular problem, etc. I sell a lot of ebooks by doing just this. It lets readers know that you know what you’re talking about; hence, you become an authority voice in your niche.

To prove Black’s point, my blogpost on BlueHost/HostMonster CPU Throttling Features is a good example. The blogpost tells the story of my difficulties dealing with Bluehost/Hostmonster’s CPU throttling features back in year 2009. Because the story is coming first-hand from a user’s point of view, it sparks quite a discussion (I got BlueHost CEO Matt Heaton joining into the discussion) in the blogsphere. In fact, it’s still attracts comments and attention (free links!) from bloggers until today (after almost two years!).

So hey, next time if you are running out idea, perhaps it’s time to look around and see if there’s anything in your life that’s worth mentioning.

With unlimited information becoming available with the click of a mouse, internet users have lost their patience, when it comes to waiting for a WordPress blog to load. If a page is taking too long to become legible, most internet users will move on to the next page that offers similar information, news, views, images or whatever else they are seeking. Therefore, if you want to capture your audience long enough for them to read what you have to say, you need to not only make sure that your blog is attractive to look at but that it loads quickly, before you lose a prospective reader.

The good news is that there are some easy tips and tricks that you can use to maximize the speed of your WordPress blog. Let me take you through a tour of the 10 best ways to speed up your blog. Some of these tricks are so simple that they might seem obvious to some of you but all of them work brilliantly when it comes to reducing the page load time.

1. Cache Fully Generated Pages

The reason why WordPress is slow is that it is a PHP script, which means that the page is dynamic and WordPress needs to execute all queries before the page can load. The best way to get around this problem is to use static pages. All you need to do is install a plugin called WP Super Cache, which will cache the fully generated pages that can be brought up quickly by users rather than waiting for dynamic queries to be processed. As soon as you install this plugin, you will find a noticeable decline in the load time of page, as well as more efficient usage of server resources.

2. Disable Hotlinking

Hotlinking is basically bandwidth theft, where other sites create direct links from their articles to the images on your page, slowing down your server load time. One person doing this doesn’t really matter. But the reality is that hordes of spammers hotlink and copy your write-ups and images. Even the best web hosting service will be adversely affected by this. Rather than looking for a cure, what you need to do is prevent hotlinking from being attempted in the first place.

One way that you can do this is by placing a code in your root .htaccess file.

The code you need to place is as follows:

#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden or custom image option
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?wpbeginner.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?google.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?feeds2.feedburner.com/wpbeginner [NC]
RewriteRule .(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ – [NC,F,L]

3. Create Smaller WordPress Pages

Even if you intend to create a huge resource of information that also includes many images, it is best to split up a long post into smaller pages with a few images. This way you will be able to increase your page views and get people to read long enough to want to know more. All you need to do is to use the WordPress admin panel to add the <!—nextpage> code at the end of each split page. Also, ensure that your template functions properly.

4. Use Excerpts on the Main Blog Page

Okay, I am not a big fans of the usage of Excerpts in WordPress but without doubt it is a good way to speed up WordPress blog – especially if you are featuring several loooooooooong blogposts at your index page. Rather than showing full posts on the main page itself and burdening this page, you can display excerpts of up to 10 posts on the main blog page. For this, you need to visit the index.php and set a limit to the number of pages displayed through the WorldPress admin panel under the tab of Settings > Reading. You can do this in the following way:

Go to index.php and find:

<?php the_content(__(‘(more…)’)); ?>

Replace this code with:

<?php the_excerpt(__(‘(more…)’)); ?>

Limit the number of posts displayed via the tabs Settings > Reading in the admin panel:

5. Optimize the MySQL Database

You can either do this manually or by using a plugin. In the manual method, you will need to access phpMyAdmin and choose your database. There will be an option for you to select the tables and optimize them. On the other hand, you could use a plugin called Optimize DB by Joost De Valk. This plugin will do exactly the same thing as you would have done manually but will minimal effort on your part.

6. Minimize external websites and scripts

You can avoid the use of external scripts, both directly and through plugins. Some plugins can take a long time to load and often lead to your page not loading properly, especially during times of heavy traffic. Also, displaying widgets on your sidebar will only slow down your site.

7. Use Expires Header for Static Resources

This header helps you specify the time period for which a visitor will be able to bring up specific static content, including CSS files, images, javascript, etc.) and thereby cut down on load time. Use the following code in your root .htaccess file:

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif A2628000
ExpiresByType image/png A2628000
ExpiresByType image/jpg A2628000
ExpiresByType image/jpeg A2628000

Here, the figure 2628000 represents the number of seconds in a month. You can change this figure to any time frame of your choice.

8. Remove All Unwanted plugins and PHP tags

If your page is using more than 15 plugins, look for those that can be directly integrated into your theme. At the same time, check whether you actually need those plugins or whether you can do without them. Also, look at your header.php and other theme files to check for php tags. You will find numerous redundant tags or unnecessary queries that can be removed without harming your site.

9. Compress All Java Script files

Regardless of the size of these files, if they are repeatedly loaded, they will use up huge server resources and increase load time. Various compressors are available online that will help you save on resources and speed up your WordPress blog.

10. Minimize Database Calls

Database calls are what make WordPress dynamic. Although having a dynamic page is at times unavoidable, replacing database calls with simple text can significantly decrease WordPress load time.

For instance, if your header.php code looks like this:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" <?php language_attributes(); ?>>
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo(‘html_type’); ?>;
charset=<?php bloginfo(‘charset’); ?>" />

This means that useless database queries are being called up. These can easily be put in simple text form, like this:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

Some other ways in which you can bring down the number of database calls including having a static stylesheet URL, having a static pingback URL, having a static feed URL, as well as removing the WordPress version of the blog.

If you really want people out there to visit your blog and get them to comment regularly, then you have to do the following. Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to do everything. You just have to choose a couple of them and see what works for you. If one doesn’t work, you can always discard it and give another one a go. I’m pretty sure at least one of these will work for you!

Beginner Tips For Bloggers

1. Get yourself ready. Blogging is not as easy as 1, 2, 3, nor is it as quick as lightning.
2. Pick an attractive blog name, but a name that tells your readers what your blog is all about.
3. Write content that is unique and useful for your readers. Plugging your blog or some other product tends to turn readers away.
4. Link your blog to other related blogs.
5. Promote your blog ONLY when it’s up and running already.
6. Don’t paste your link anywhere you can paste it. Users will consider you spam and you can get banned for it.
7. Cross-promote your content by linking to previous posts.
8. Open up to your readers. Tell them who you are, why you’re blogging, and what kind of readers you want to have.
9. Work with other bloggers who share your goals. You’ll find it easier than working alone.
10. Some comments will always be against you. Accept that and move on.
11. Nothing screams SPAMMER! more than links used as your signature in the comment body.
12. Don’t make comments too long. You can use the material as a new blog post.
13. Choose a blog niche that’s not too narrow but not too broad either.
14. Write something that’s interesting to you. Blogging should be a passion, not something you force yourself to do. 
15. Post new content once or twice a week. This’ll help you avoid burnout.
16. Write compelling headlines, those that pull people into reading your posts.
17. Avoid cluttering the sidebar with too many widgets.
18. View your blog on different browsers to see how different users can view your blog. 
19. Limit the number of items on your home page. Don’t put all posts in there.
20. Reduce the size of your images to 50KB. Anything bigger than that and it may take forever for your blog to load.
21. Stick to JPEG images, PNG, and GIF. Avoid BMP.
22. Use animation sparingly. Loud and annoying pictures are not attractive.
23. Invite guest writers to write posts for your blog.
24. Don’t use too many guest posts or your readers will think you’re always having the day off.
25. Always proofread your content before clicking the Publish button.
26. Join a blogging forum, like Bloggeries, BloggerTalk, and Bloggst.
27. Read other blogs. That way you have an idea of what others are saying and might even help you think up of something to write on your next post.
28. Reply to comments. This lets your readers think you actually are a real person.
29. Tell your Facebook friends you’ve got a new post. Much of your traffic will come from your social network.
30. Bookmark your site. Digg, StumpleUpon, and Reddit should work just fine.
31. Talk about something different every time you write.
32. Promote your blog in Twitter.
33. Make it easier for your readers by breaking up your content in short paragraphs and using headers and bullet points.
34. Write in a casual, easygoing manner to engage your readers. Avoid using a formal tone.
35. Get your own domain name, at least, when you have established quite a good following.
36. Optimize your blog for search engines.
37. Analyze your blog stats so you have an idea of just how good (or bad) you’re doing things. You can sign up for a Google Analytics account for this.
38. Submit your blog to blog directories.
39. Write an About page and a Contact page.
40. Don’t forget to upload images and videos to enhance your content.
41. Choose a professional theme. That means avoid splashy colors and flamboyant designs.
42. Do NOT, at all costs, copy content from other blogs and pass it off as your own. This is plagiarism and you could get sued for this.
43. Insert appropriate meta-tags to help the search engines find your blog.
44. Create a tab for your recommended articles.
45. Activate Akismet spam protection for your blog.
46. Build a Google site map. This helps Google find you faster.
47. Put the appropriate keywords in your headlines.

Must-Know WordPress Tips, Tricks, and Hacks

1. Make a custom page as your home page. Copy the original page.php file or make a new file and add this code at the top: <?php /* Template Name: Template1 */ ?>. You can use your own template name then publish it. Now, go to Settings > Reading then select the new page as your home page.

2. Create dynamic sidebars. Make different sidebars for different pages. The home page uses the index.php file, a single page uses single.php, and several pages use page.php. To create a different side bar for the home page, simply create a new sidebar file and name it l_sidebar2.php.

3. Let your readers submit their own posts. Install the TDO Mini Forms plug-in to enable other users to write their own posts and submit it you. All user posts are placed in “draft” status so you can check them before being published.

4. Break down your comments into pages.  Install Paginated Comments, a WordPress plug-in designed to optimize your blogs for the search engines. You can choose to break down pages according to comment size or number of comments.

5. Display captions for your blog’s images. Use the Image Caption plug-in to obtain the alt or extract attributes in images that have these attributes and place a caption right under the images.

6. Create a Random Page button. Random Redirect is a cool plug-in for this. You can create a link on your home page. When someone clicks on that link, they are redirected to a random page on your blog.

7.Enhance your blog’s display quality by converting text into images. Use the FLIR (FaceLift Image Replacement) plug-in to convert text into images without changing your HTML codes. This is only useful for browsers that have JavaScript enabled.

8. Display relative dates. Relative dates look like this: posted on November 2, 2010 (20 minutes ago). If you want to use this, install the WP-Relative Date plug-in and look for the code <?php the_date(); ?> and replace it with <? php relative_post_the_date(); ?>.

9. Show people your latest del.icio.us bookmarks. Upload the del.icio.us-for-wordpress folder into the /wp-contents/plugins directory and activate.

10. Separate content from certain categories. Install the Advanced Category Excluder plug-in into /wp-content/plugins/advanced-category-excluder/. This will enable you to hide certain categories from other parts of your blog.

11. Prevent duplicate posts. Add a posts_where tag then start the first loop. Next, add the posts_where filter using the posts_where tag you made for the first loop. Start the second loop then remove the filter.

12. Make a Redirect Page template. Upload the templates.redirect.php file to wp-content/themes/theme_name/ and go to your Page Content panel then enter the URL of the page you want to redirect to. Then choose Page Redirect on the dropdown menu.

13. Add a StumbleUpon badge to your blog so users can share it with everyone else. Go to www.stumbleupon.com/badges and copy the code displayed in the box on the page. Next, open your single.php file and look for the following code: <?php the_content (“<p class=serif>Read the rest of the entry</p>”); ?>. Immediately after this, paste the code you copied from the StumbleUpon website.

14. Inform your readers of blog updates via IM. Use the Notifixious plug-in to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory activate it through the Plugins menu. This allows you to tip off your readers of new posts via their chosen IM platform.

15. Filter spam comments out of your blog. Use Akismet, short for Automatic Kismet, which administers several tests on each new comment and decides whether it is in shape for publication or not. Simply upload the Akismet file into the Plugins directory and activate it using the Plugins menu.

16. Make your pages load faster by caching. Disable to PHP safe mode in your blog and install the Apache mod mime and mod rewrite modules. Next, enable WordPress Custom Permalinks then upload the wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/ folder into the directory. Activate this plug-in from the Menu. WP Super Cache works by creating static .html files from your heavier .php scripts. Your server will then respond to the .html files afterwards.

17. Create page buttons. Throw out the Older Posts and Newer Posts button and install the PageNavi plugin automatically from your admin page.

18. Remove unnecessary words and enhance your blog’s SEO using slugs. Install the SEO Slugs plugin so you can automatically generate more optimized slugs for your headlines.

19. Link keywords to other related posts, pages, tags, and categories. Put the SEO Smart Links folder in your plug-in directory and activate it from the Plugins menu. This automatically links keywords to other parts of the blog.

20. Display list of related posts after each post. Install the WP Related Posts plug-in and place the following code in your templates: <?php wp_related_posts(); ?>. Then go to Manage > Option > WordPress Related Posts and choose your settings.

21. Allow your readers to subscribe to comments. Install the Subscribe to Comments plug-in. You can let your readers subscribe to the comments even if they have not yet posted a comment by placing the following: <?php show_subscription_checkbox(); ?> outside the comments form.

22. Copyright your posts. Install the Simple Feed Copyright plugin by uploading the folder into your plug-ins directory and activating it from the menu. This displays a copyright notice at the end of each post.

23. Style up your archives. Use the Snazzy Archives plug-in to provide a visual archives page to your blog. Upload the folder to your plug-ins directory and activate it from the Plugins menu.

24. Create a page where you can store all ideas for your subsequent posts. Use the Post Ideas plug-in for this. Upload only the postideas.php file into your plug-ins directory and install it. You can then write post ideas, sort them by name, date, or priority, research keywords, and edit or delete them.

25. Add Gravatars to your posts. Place the following code in the theme: <?php echo get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), ’80′. You can also add a get_the_author_email tag and customize the size of the Gravatar.

In Tutorial 2/6, we used the Blogger.com’s standard template “Minima” and our blog looks like this now:

Yes yes, I can hear everyone complaining how dull it is already! But fear not, we are going to transform this blog into something much more interesting and wonderful at the end of this post. Before that, let’s look at how other people tend to customize their website/blog template. How about we begin with this site – WebHostingSecretRevealed.com?

Design of Web Hosting Secret Revealed

1. Blog Title with Logo (should be easily interchangeable)
2. Home button to let reader return to the main page
3. Other useful links to be put at the top

Actually, this is a much adopted approach for the web nowadays. This layout gives the reader a totally neat and “user-friendly” feeling. You could see many more examples around:

Design of EnGadget

Site link: http://www.engadget.com/

Design of CNN

Site link: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Getting into action: Installing K2

We are going to use this approach to customize our blog. To begin, let’s head over here to have a look at a very popular blog template called K2. This is what we want! Customizable title and background picture with tabs underneath it, awesome. Now download the template:

The file downloaded is “k2-blogger.xml”.

Now, from your Dashboard, you’ll need to get to Layout>Edit HTML. Before we begin any modification to your blog, let’s be on the safe side and backup your current template, haha! Just in case any “unfortunate” events occur, at least we could revert back to the old one.

1. Backup a copy of your current template (the file would be “template-somenumbers.xml”)
2. Choose the file “k2-blogger.xml” that you’ve downloaded just now
3. Upload the new template to the system

OMG!!! Your blog just magically transformed into a beauty!

Still, this is not perfect yet. The downloaded template consists of some tabs and links that we will not require for our blog. Hence, some minor modifications are still needed. We could even change the title background to something we fancy. Just follow the below tips to make everything go your way.

In Edit HTML page, tick the Expand Widget Templates checkbox, and be in the Edit Template column to do this:

Change the highlighted link to the link of the title background image you would like to use.

Edit these codes to change the tabs to the links that you’d like to display.

Tada! Have a look at the customized blog now and compare it to the previous layout. Wonderful isn’t it?

To experiment with a variety of different templates, give these links a try:

• Eblog Templates
• Cheth Studios
• Mint Blogger

In the next and final installment of this Blogger Tutorial, we’ll be learning how to use some analytical tools/statistic counters to analyze and understand where our blog readers come from, what they are interested in, and how all these data could help you improve your blog contents and increase your readers. Till then, adios!

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (Confirm Cekap), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the fifth article of E-quan’s Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first four articles here, here, here, and here. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

1. Photobucket

Site: http://www.photobucket.com

Like mentioned in the last tutorial, Blogger provides the capability of attaching photos to your blog post. Your photos will be uploaded to the Blogger server and kept there, randomly. Photobucket provides a way for you to keep your photos in an organized manner. First, you upload all related photos to one folder, say “Finland Trip”. Then, you could easily use them for your posts.

2. Flickr

Like Photobucket, Flickr is also a photo repository.

Besides giving you the option to share the photos in your Flickr account to your Blogger blog, you could also first edit your photos. Flickr Edit is powered by Picnik which gives you powerful editing capabilities. Resize, crop, red-eye reduction, you name it.

3. Chat Box

Site: http://www.cbox.ws

Everybody needs a CBox (Chat Box). You need to provide an area for your readers to gossip, haha! It’s a quick way to let your readers ask you a question; respond to your readers, etc. It also keeps the history of your chats so that you could refer to them if you want to. It’s in html, no java nor flash required. Simple yet great.

4. Statcounter

Site: http://www.statcounter.com

Statcounter is an invisible web tracker that will help you monitor the traffic to your blog. By invisible it means that your reader will not know that they are being “tracked”. Haha, it is not something illegal, by all means. The best thing is it is really free, no advertisement whatsoever. You get to have a detailed report on where your readers come from, what browser they are using, which post they frequent the most, and so much more.

Even a hit counter to show daily or accumulated visits (Detailed reports showed below).

5. Search Box (Install from Blogger Gadget)

Search boxes have become a necessity for blogs. It will be so much easier for your readers to look for a particular post amongst your humongous archives of posts. Just provide an easily accessible corner of your blog to put this. Your reader simply needs to type in some keywords, and the script will automatically crawl through your blog and presents the matching posts. It is powered by Google Search.

6. Recent Comments (Install from Blogger Gadget)

“Recent Comments” is a gadget that allows you to show latest reader commentary on one column of your side pane. The motive that many bloggers start implementing this is to encourage readers to engage in discussion on the posts you have written. If a reader sees another reader commenting on something, he/she might feel want to participate too and the chain goes on. This is definitely a good way to attract your readers to come back to your blog for updates.

7. Facebook Badge

Site: http://www.facebook.com

Since July 2009, Facebook’s official user count has already reached 250 million! Almost everyone has a FB account nowadays – your friends, family, colleagues, even your bosses. By adding a FB Badge, you could show your current FB status on your blog. Your readers will know what you are up to lately and if they like, they could also easily add you on their FB from there. Get to know more friends, expand your social circle!

8. Twitter Updates (Install from Blogger Gadget)

Every now and then, instead of writing a full-blast post, you might want to update your readers about your current mood, things you are doing, and whatnots. If you have a twitter account, you might be doing just that already! Now, it is easier than ever to integrate your twitter update straight to your blog. Your reader could now track your presence, every second, haha. “Going shopping now, blog laterz..”

9. Google Translation Gadget

The translation tool is something really awesome – totally translate your blog to another language! This might only be an extra add-on for your blog but you might never know how useful it really is to your readers. Powered by Google Translate, this gadget gives you a dropdown menu so that your blog could be translated to a language of your reader’s choice. I do not know many languages but I tried with Chinese Language and Bahasa Indonesia and it’s “freakingly” accurate. Salute to Google Translate for this.

Do you feel powerful already? Try enrich your blog with these addons today. In the next entry, we’ll be talking about how to apply custom templates to your blog (instead of using the boring ones Blogger provides, haha). I’ve also narrowed down some great places for you to get free quality custom templates. Don’t miss it!

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (Confirm Cekap), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the third of article of E-quan’s Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first two articles here and here. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

The writing interface on Blogger.com

This is your writing window and you might want to get a bit familiar with the interface:

Some key functions on the writing panel:

1. The Undo/Redo button
2. Strikethrough, YEAH! So you could write something like this: “Although I’m a rocket scientist smart, I tend to be humble.”
3. The highlight button, example “That freaking T-shirt costs $100?!? NO WAY!”
4. Hyperlinking. This is really useful to lead you readers to another site by clicking some text. For e.g., please click here. (Ooppss, I mean the word “here” is demonstrating a hyperlink, not an example on how to hyperlink is available there, haha!
5. Insert Image button. We’ll talk more about this.)
6. Preview gives you a snapshot on how your post will look like when published. It is always advisable to preview your post before really hitting the “Publish” button.
7. Labels functionality. For your posts, you are able to tag them into categories of your wish, e.g. Food&Travel, Work, Rants, etc. If your reader clicks on Food&Travel, all posts with the associated label will be sorted out and presented to him/her. How convenient!

What to write in your first blog post?

Now, you may wonder, “How should I write my first post?” The answer, unfortunately, varies. For me, my first post was about what my blog title meant. As a general guidance, you might want to consider these three points when writing your first post:

Who are you?
An introduction of you as the owner of the blog, maybe some particulars on your occupation, location, and interests.

Why are you blogging?
This is quite important to your readers but it is more important to yourself, really. Knowing why you want to blog is a great motivation to keep on doing so and you may find yourself writing more quality posts.

What will you be blogging about?
By having a general idea on what you will be writing in the next posts/future and relating them in your first post, it will get your readers coming back for more as you write.

I must admit that the above is a more conventional way of starting your blogging journey. It should work for most bloggers but there are also available tips on the net on writing your first post, creatively/differently. Have a look!

• 5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post with a Bang
• How to Write Good Blog Post
• Writing Effective Blog Posts

Getting into action

Haha, I think I’m dragging too much on the introduction. We will really write our first post now.

To set an example, I have already created a new blog “E-quan Travels”. The idea of this blog is to share with my readers the places I’ve been to and the memories along the journey. Let’s see if you could get some idea on how to write your first post by seeing how I write mine.

First, a snapshot on my Page Elements:

Writing the text

On the bottom you could see the words “Draft saved at..”. Blogger automatically saves your work periodically so that you wouldn’t lose it just in case unfortunate event happens, say BSOD?

Attaching a picture

First, you’ll have to click the “Insert Image” button. You will then see the images below:

Click “Choose File” and choose the picture you would like to attach

After successful uploading, you will see a thumbnail of the picture. You may click “Choose File” to add more pictures or “OK” once you’re done

You will also be given options on the size of the picture and where to position it. Cool!

Embedding a video

Don’t we just love YouTube? Now, you can share the videos you like without needing to ask your readers to go to a particular youtube page. You can straight embed the video in your post! When you view a youtube video, you might have noticed the “Embed” column.

The “embed” part is all you need. Let’s copy that code down with Ctrl+C.

Remember that when we are writing our post, we are in the “Compose” mode. But when we need to embed a video in our post, we will have to go to the “Edit HTML” mode. From the “Compose” mode, put your cursor at the location where you would want your video to appear, then switch to “Edit HTML” mode.

Paste the code you copied just now there with Ctrl+V. TADA! Not hard, eh?

Finishing touch: Hit the publish button!

I think that’ll be all for my first post. Customarily, I will go to the “Preview” mode to proofread my work. It’s also easier to spot any mistakes or errors in your post by having this “bird-eye” view on your post. Yeap, I think I’m quite satisfied with this post. Just before hitting the “Publish” button, I’ll label my post. Erm, perhaps I’ll categorize this as “myblog”. Next, when I blog about travels to other countries, I might have labels like “Europe”, “Asia”, “Middle-East”, and so on.

Have a look at my work here Equan Travels!

It’s simply remarkable how Blogger has made blogging so easy and hassle-free. Just some minor tweaking and you’ll have a clean and organized blog. In the next tutorial, we’ll be exploring some must-have tools for a blogger like storage space for your photos/videos, chat-box, and many more. So stay tuned!

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (Confirm Cekap), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the third of article of E-quan’s Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first two articles here and here. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

So you’ve decided to pursue further, GREAT! In the last article, we touched a little on Blogger introduction and also its history. Some pros and cons on using Blogger were also deliberately discussed. Today, we’re gonna register for a Blogger account! I hope you’re as excited as I am.

Just click this button to start registering for an account

The whole registration process is really simple and can be divided into three sections namely:

1. Create Account
2. Name Blog
3. Choose Template

Step 1: Create A Google Account

In [Create Account], instead of creating an account solely for Blogger, you will be registering for a Google Account. This grand account enables you to access many Google services like Google Calender, Googler Reader, and many more. Please understand that this is not an option. You can’t just use your own e-mail account (hotmail, yahoo, etc) as the main user identification for your blog. So, if you already have a Google Account, e.g. Gmail, then great! You could log in to your account first before returning again to the Blogger registration page.

Step 2: Naming Your Blog

[Name Blog] is a very important step of the registration process so pay a little more attention here:

Blog Title

“Blog title”, like the name implies, is the title of your blog. This title will appear at the top of your reader’s web browser whenever he/she visits your blog. You may put anything relevant here and it is not constrained to limited characters so it is okay to put “My Little Diary”, “Daily Rants”, etc here.

Blog Address

“Blog address (URL)” is your actual address in cyberspace so you better get this right, haha! My suggestion is to be creative on this one. Something simple and easy for your readers to remember so that they could frequent your blog again. Besides having the constraint that your blog will be hosted at subdomains of blogspot.com, your URL must also only contain alphanumerical characters and the only allowable special character is hyphen (also known as dash, -). The “Check Availability” is a function for you to check whether your desired URL has already been taken up or not.

Step 3: Choose Your Blog Template

In [Choose Template], you will be given a few choices of dull standard blog templates to choose from. These are actually very basic layouts but should be adequate to cover your needs. Please choose one that you feel best represents how you want your blog to be presented. Blogger reminds us that, “you can easily change the template later, or even create your own custom template design once your blog is set up.” For me, I’ll choose “Minima” because the design looks nice and clean.

Congratulations! Once you click the “Start Blogging” arrow, you will be brought to a new page where you could write your first post.

But instead of starting to write straight away, let’s explore some of the Settings and Layout that are available to us to be customized.

Blog Configuration: Settings, Archive, & Page Elements

We’ll go to the Settings first. “Settings” is a place where you could customize how your blog shall “behave”. Let me show you some of the more important settings in “Settings”, haha.

Settings – Publising

Here, you could totally change your blog’s URL if you think the current one is not suitable anymore. Again, it’s subject to availability of course.

Settings – Formatting

This is a setting to determine how many blog posts will be displayed on the main page of your blog. If your blog posts are usually long and full of pictures, it may be a wise choice to put a smaller number for this one so that your reader wouldn’t take forever to load your blog.

Settings – Comments

Comments are the feedbacks your readers leave you at the end of your blog post. Here, you could choose who are able to leave comments at your blog, where the comment form should be placed, and so on. I want to touch a little on “Comment moderation”:

Sometimes, you don’t really want comments to be shown on your blog without you first authorizing it. This is called “comment moderation”.

If you set this to “Always” and you include an e-mail address, every time a reader leaves a comment, it will not be automatically shown on your blog but will arrive at your e-mail first. You then decide to approve or reject the comment.

Blog Archive

Archiving is a systematically procedure for storing your blog posts. You can archive daily, weekly, or monthly.

Figure on the right is the example of an archive.

We will now proceed to “Layout”. Layout, as the name implies, is a place where you could adjust the look and feel of your blog.

Furthermore, with Blogger’s superb features, you could even customize it by just clicking and dragging. (Now that’s user-friendly!)

Page Elements and Gadgets

The most important thing I want to show you here is adding a Gadget. A gadget is a small tool that is programmed to do a specific task. With the default layout chosen, Blogger has already thrown in “Followers”, “Blog Archive”, and “About Me”.

How to add/remove gadgets

Try clicking and dragging them to re-arrange the positions of these gadgets. Now, click “Add a Gadget” to see what goodies we could pack into your nice little blog.

A Blog List is a list of your favourite blogs together with the links to them. Let’s add this one. Let’s see, my favourite blogs include: Xiaxue, Kennysia, and many more. Add add add!

And as you can see on the right, that’s my completed blog list.

Example: Facebook Badge

There are so many possibilities here and so many cool things to play with. You can now even add, what is referred to as “Facebook Badge” here so that your Facebook status update could also be shown on your blog!

Anytime if you would like to change your blog’s template, just go to Layout – Pick New Template to do so, simple as that.

Please feel free to play around and click “Preview” to see how the changes will really look like to you and your readers. “Clear Edits” is your Undo button and “Save” to save your changes. Good luck!

P/S: In the next session, we’ll be writing our first ever Blogger post! Please stay tuned as tips on writing a clean post, attaching a photo, embedding a video, tagging/categorizing posts and more will be shared.

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (confirmcekap.blogspot.com), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the second of article of the Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first article here: Blogger Tutorial (1/6): Introduction & Getting Started. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..