Blogger Blog by Switcher

Blogger - Static Page Remove Read More

2010-02-03T06:32:00.001-08:00

Blogger Draft gave us static pages!

Along with the new Blogger Static Pages we get new issues while trying to merge the static pages with our Blogger templates.

One issue that was brought to my attention by David Bergeron in a comment here on SoSwitcher.blogspot.com was - How do we remove the “Read more…” link/text from the new Blogger Static Pages?

It took a few minutes to tweak the new template code, to remove the “Read more…” text/link from my new “Contact Me” static page (top left corner of this blog).

I doubt everyone has the exact same “Read more…” code in their template, so I’ll show the steps I took to fix this issue.

1) Backup your template.

2) Open your template in a text editor, I used the Blogger Dashboard text editor, & made sure to check the “Expand Widget Templates” checkbox.

3) In my browser I did a search for the text “Read more”, make sure to search for the exact text that shows in your blog (Read more, Continue, etc…)

4) My old “Read more"…” template code looks like this:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'><br/>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read more...</a>
</b:if>

5) My new “Read more…” template code looks like this:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "static_page"'><br/>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'><br/>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read more...</a>
</b:if>
</b:if>

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Blogger Hach,Static Page

dxf file

Blogger - Pages Hack

2010-01-30T20:43:00.001-08:00

Pages, Pages, & more Pages, that’s what Blogger brings to everyone that has a Blogger template. You can read more about how easy it is to setup the new Blogger Static Pages, over at Bloggertricks.com

After you see how easy setting up new static Blogger Pages inside your own blog, you’ll soon find out that Blogger has set a maximum of 10 static pages allowed per Blogger blog.

This blog post will show you a trick that allows us to have more than 10 static Blogger Pages.

Before I get started, I do want to stress that this hack may not be permanent, & it’s possible to lose a static Blogger page permanently, & you follow this tutorial at your own risk.

1) We’ll assume you have already reached the maximum limit of 10 static Blogger Pages, & you want to create page number 11.

2) As of this blog post static Blogger Pages can only be created inside of Blogger Draft dashboard

3) With your 10 static Blogger Pages already created, inside Blogger Draft navigate to Posting –> Edit Pages, & find your first page (see screenshot below) then click the Edit button.

4) With page one open in Edit mode, get the Blogger Page URL from your browsers address bar, then copy & paste in a safe place on your local PC.

Note: If you lose this Blogger Static Page URL you will never be able to use the existing static Blogger Page again, so it’s very important to keep the unique Blogger static Page URL while in Edit mode. Also note that the Edit mode address is not the same as your Blogger Static Pages URL while a visitor is browsing your blog. I can’t stress enough how important the Edit page URL is to keep safe. See screenshot below of my Blogger Static Page one in edit mode, showing the URL in my browsers address bar.

5) After you have saved the static Blogger Page number one URL in a safe place (text file on your local PC), we will delete Blogger Static Page one from inside Blogger Draft. This will leave us with 9 static pages left, & also now show the Blogger Static Page “New Page” button, click the New Page button & create another page, this will be page 11, make sure to save the new static page.

6) Open a new browser window or tab, then copy & paste the Static Page one URL that we saved in step number 4, & navigate to that old URL. This will now display the Blogger Static Page one that we had previously deleted, click the Publish button, & you will now have 11 Static Blogger pages, repeat all steps to add additional static pages beyond page eleven.

The screenshot below shows 14 active Blogger static pages.

Note:

This Blogger Static Page hack has not been tested long term since Blogger Draft has just recently released the static pages for Blogger, so I don’t recommend you try this hack on any blog except for testing.

By following this tutorial you do so at your own risk, so don’t complain for any static Blogger pages that you lose on a real blog, it is very possible that you can lose a static page, If blogger makes any changes in how it saves deleted pages.

Also note that I’ve had all 14 of my static Blogger pages up & running with no issues since the first day that Blogger Draft released the all new static pages.

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Static Page,Hack

See screenshot:
dxf file

Blogger - Jobs

2009-11-04T03:50:00.001-08:00

There might be a recession, but there is certainly not a shortage of people looking for great bloggers!

Why not turn your hobby into a part time or full time blogging job?

Maybe your into snowboarding, fashion design, music, SEO. or choose from a wide list of interesting jobs.

Take a look at this list of 23 jobs for bloggers, and see if your next paid blogging job is waiting for you!

Jobs powered by

Simply Hired

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Jobs,Freelance

dxf file

Blogger - How To Change Icon

2009-10-25T11:07:00.001-07:00

Want to change the default Blogger icon in your template?

1) First thing you need is a new icon! You can create your own image in whatever image editor you are comfortable with (Paint Shop, Inkscape, MS-Paint, etc…), make the image 16x16 pixels & save as a .png image.

An alternative is to search Google for a 16x16 pixel .png image that’s already finished.

Here is a Google Image search I did for the word star imagesize:16x16 , you can change the word star to any subject you like, just keep the rest of the search string the same:

(example = cell phone imagesize:16x16).

2) We need to convert our .png image into a .ico file (icon image). Go to the Dynamic-Drive website, & use their online converter to upload you .png image, & create your new .ico file (icon image). After the icon is created, download the new icon to your PC desktop.

3) Now that we have our new icon, we need to upload the icon, to the internet. Blogger won’t let us host our own .ico file so we can use Google Sites for our host, you can follow a blog post I did Blogger - Host Javascript File for Free , this link will show you how to host your own files online for FREE, you do not need to change the extension for this tutorial, your icon URL should look something like this:

http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico

4) Paste the code below into your Blogger template just below the <HEAD> tag

<!-- Favicon -->
<link href='http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico'
rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='http://sites.google.com/site/YOUR_GOOGLE_SITE/PAGE1/YOURICON.ico'/>
<!-- end Favicon –>

NOTE: Make sure to change both of the URL’s to your own links, from your Google-Sites webpage. Press the Save Template button in your Blogger editor. Make sure when you paste the code into your Blogger template, that you have four individual lines of code, if the lines are broken you will get an error message in the Blogger Editor.

That’s it!

Visit your blog & you should see your new FAV icon at the top of your browser window.

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Icon,Code

dxf file

Blogger Meta Tag

2009-10-08T18:05:00.001-07:00

I’ve been busy working on a really cool bit of Blogger Meta Tag code, the last couple of days. This new code will let me control all my meta tag content dynamically with the exception of my blogs homepage, which will have its own static meta tag content, that is still totally customizable.

What's all this mean, why do I need this?

The old way of creating Meta Tags for a Blogger Template, will only let us set the Meta Tag content for all of our Blogger blogs, as single Meta Tags, that shows the same content on every single blog page.

My new improved code will automatically write this dynamic content to the Blogger template for each individual blog page:

TITLE
Description Meta Tag
Keywords Meta Tag

1) Title Tag = Blog Post Title + Blog Post Labels + Blog Title

2) Description Meta Tag = Blog Post Title + Blog Post Labels + Blog Description

3) Keywords Meta Tag = Blog Post Labels

The Blog Title pulls it’s content from Blogger Control Panel –> Settings –> Title. The Blog Description in the Meta Tag Description pulls it’s content from the Blogger Control Panel –> Settings –> Description. All the Label content pulls it’s content from each individual blog posts labels, so we use those Labels as Keywords inside the Meta Tags.

What all this does is provide Google our own unique content & keywords, that have a very good chance of showing up inside the Google Search results Pages description, just below the Title. The reason I say a very good chance of showing up is, it’s impossible for any website on the net to force Google to use content. With the Meta Tag Description, Google most times will look for that tag & use it in the SERP.

I’ve had my new Dynamic Meta Tags crawled by Google & already showing up in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), after only a few hours of testing.

The image below, you can see a screenshot of my new Meta Tag content, from my last blog post

Blogger – Change your Tools

My intention is to have Google notice my blog for a wider dynamic selection of keywords & phrases, than my old static template. I’ll wait about a month & keep monitoring how Google Search handles the content in my SERP results, before I post any code for others to use on their own blogs, I want the code to be 100% up & running with results to show everyone.

Keep an eye out for related future blog post.

While I’m tweaking the code, have a look thru this blogs source code, to check out how every single page on this blog has dynamic Meta Tags & Page Titles (no two pages are the same).

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Meta Tags,Code,Google

dxf file

Blogger – Change your Tools

2009-09-28T13:40:00.001-07:00

Blogger & Google Webmaster Tools, make for a great SEO team. A little known secret that GWT has buried deep inside it’s treasure chest of handy tools, is a feature that I’ve been very happy to find.

Have you ever wandered which of your own blog post was the highest rated on the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page)? I’m about to show you a very cool feature, that will show all of your most popular blog post, & not only that, everyone can view their own highest ranking SERP results for FREE!

Let’s get started!

1) First thing we need is a blog (check)

2) Go to Google Webmaster Tools

3) Select your blog name from the list of your blogs/websites

4) Click on the link Your site on the web

5) Click on the link Top search queries

6) You should see a list of words/phrases. Go to the far right side of the screen & click on the link that reads Position (see screenshot below)

What you see in the above screenshot is the most popular search results from real people on the internet, searching for relevant information to this blog, from the last seven days.

Beneath the Position link, shows the real position for each group of search words, that the visitors to my site used to find this blog (soswitcher.blogspot.com).

Here is how I rank for these search strings in the past seven days:

1) google for free javascripts hosts

2) visible title code for blogger

As you can see I’m indeed number one in both of those search strings, for the last seven days. What’s better is, you can search for longer periods of time, example the screenshot below is for August.

The most interesting search I found, that just blew me away was one of the shortest search strings. The search string blogger change, shows I was number one in the month of August, but get this (here’s the good part) The search string blogger change has over 451,000,000 other pages, below my blog (I’m now 2nd place as of this post, still very happy).

All I can say is WOW!

Note:

Google Webmaster Tools takes a while to crawl your blogs pages, If you are new to GWT then you should follow my other blog post Better Google Sitemap when setting up new sitemaps for Google to crawl. The longer your involved with GWT the larger your list of SERP keywords will be.

Go check out your own Google Webmaster Tools, list of most popular search words, I think you will be very surprised at how well some of your blog post are ranking.

Lets hear how well your ranking. :)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Google,SEO

dxf file

Blogger - Power of Text

2009-09-26T20:43:00.001-07:00

I’m always looking at new & improved ways to SEO my Blogger blog. Each & every time I sit down to write a new Blogger post, I find myself finding better, more interesting information that gets me thinking of new & better ways of looking at Blogger SEO.

Today I was looking thru my Blogger Page Titles, & discovered the power that text plays in the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), now I’m not talking about Hypertext Links, I’m talking plain old text, you know the same as this blog post.

Let’s backtrack a bit.

Back in April of 2009, I wrote a small Mp3 Plugin for Windows Live Writer, & posted the plugin on the Windows Live Writer Gallery. Inside of the description I posted a text only version of the URL to a sample of what the Mp3 Plugin would look like, so that the end user could make a quick decision to decide If that plugin was what they wanted. Since Windows Gallery wouldn’t let me post an actual hyperlink, I had to settle for a plain text version, & hope that anyone looking thru the Windows Live Writer Gallery, would copy & paste my text URL that I posted, into their own browser, & then find my blog.

Fast forward, to today.

I was looking thru Google Webmaster Tools, & found that I was getting a lot of Mp3 related organic search traffic from Google SERP. My first thought was that Google is wrong in what they are finding. I do have a few short blog post that are Mp3 related, but that wasn’t my ultimate goal for this blog, sure this blog is all about me sharing what I know, & what I discover while pushing this blog towards the top of the SERP. Could Google really be on to something, in my Google Webmaster organic search results?

The search results in question is Windows Live Writer Mp3, If you follow that link to the Google SERP, you’ll see that I’m not number one (or am I), the number one spot points to the Windows Live Writer Gallery, the really cool thing about this is, If you look at the number one spots description, it shows that single plain text link, that I posted back in April 2009, multiple times.

Now don’t take this post the wrong way, I’m not bragging about how well I’m ranking in the Google SERP, in fact 1million hits isn’t really that much as far as SERP goes. What I’m blogging about, is that plain text is a powerful tool, & can be used to replace hyperlinks, when your in a situation like I was, If the site your posting on doesn’t allow hyperlinks.

Now again only use this trick when you are actually contributing something to others, don’t use it for spam, nobody likes spam. In this example I did a lot of work to get that plugin working, I did days of research to learn how to hook into Windows Live Writer, with VB.NET to write my first Mp3 plugin, just try & do a Google search for any good info on the related subject.

Use the “POWER of Text” wisely. :)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Google Webmaster Tools,SEO

dxf file

Blogger – Better Google Sitemap

2009-09-01T03:30:00.001-07:00

Blogger & Google Sitemaps will allow your Blogger blog to get indexed by the Google spider with very few problems. Did you know that the Blogger code for the default sitemap, that you submit to Google Webmasters Tools only allows the first 26 pages of your blog to get indexed by the Google spider?

That’s right …

If you are using the default code as your sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools, your site is missing out, for every single page that is over the 26 page limit. So say I have 150 pages on my Blogger blog, the math says I’m missing out on the opportunity to allow the Google spider to crawl 124 additional Blogger pages, on my blog!

I’m ready for change …

I actually found out that I was allowing my Blogger blog to be short changed by the Google spider, on one of my other Blogger blogs, & this wasn’t only a few pages, it was a huge amount of pages, in fact my blog was over 400 pages long, & out of those 400 pages I was only allowing the Google spider to crawl 26 of my latest blog post.

Whooooa… STOP THE BUS!

The default sitemap code looks like this (see red/bold text below):

1) http://YOUR_BLOG_NAME_HERE.blogspot.com/atom.xml?orderby=updated

The code above is all good, as long as you have less than 27 blog post, but the fact is you’ll quickly find that you will with no doubt exceed that maximum limit at some point in your blog.

From all my research & trial & errors, on all my Blogger blogs for well over a year & a half, I’ve found the code below to be a better alternative to the default Blogger sitemap code. The new code will break the sitemap down into multiples of 100, so for every 100 pages on my blog, I need to tweak the sitemap code a little bit.

New sitemap code (Google spider crawls the first 100 blog post)

1) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

So in the new sitemap code above, we start with the very first blog post (start-index=1) & now allow the Google spider to crawl to page 100 (max-results=100).

Say you have over 100 blog pages, what you need to do is submit additional sitemaps for the same blog at the Google Webmaster Tools website. As an example I have a Blogger blog that has over 400 pages, for that blog I have 4 sitemaps, that look like the code below.

1) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

2) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=100&max-results=100

3) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=200&max-results=100

4) atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=300&max-results=100

Notice how each new sitemap starts at a higher start-index, by 100 blog post. So for the sitemaps I have, I’m covered for the first 400 blog post of my Blogger blog.

Below is a screenshot of my sitemaps, for one of my blogs that has over 400 pages.

NOTE:

When you submit sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools, for a Blogger blog. Google won’t crawl your Blogger Labels, that’s the reason why every page isn’t being crawled in the screenshot above.

This new sitemap code has greatly improved how Google crawls my blog, I went from having only the first 26 pages of my blog crawled to now having 324 pages crawled by the Google spider.

I have internal links hard coded into my template, on every blog page, so it’s important to me to allow Google to crawl as many pages as possible, as often as possible. I also have widgets that have text that changes often, that text also is picked up by the Google spider, which allows my blog to show a massive amount of relevant keywords, for my Blogger Blog.

dxf file

Blogger - Increase Your Label Limit Per Page

2009-07-16T09:15:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wanted to show all of your blog post from a single Label?

It’s actually very easy to show all the blog post from one label, on a single webpage in Blogger, here’s how:

1) First we need a Label from our own blog, I’ll use the Label Blogger from this blog, as an example.

2) Next we need the URL/link of our Label, so for my Label Blogger, I go to my blog that already has a link to my Label (Blogger), & Right click –> Properties then copy the URL. My Blogger Label URL/Link looks like this: ( http://soswitcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger )

Notice the name of my Label at the very end of the URL/Link (Blogger), that Label can be any Label that is on your own blog. Also you should know, that Labels are case sensitive.

3) Here is how we control the maximum number of Blogger blog post for a specific Label, on a single page. We already have the URL/Link from our Label (Blogger), now we need to add this small bit of code to the end of the Label ?&max-results=3 so now our Labels new URL/Link will look like this:

http://soswitcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger?&max-results=3

The example URL/Link above will return the last three blog post from my blog, click here to see.

4) The last step is to put our new Label URL/Link into HTML code so we can use the link anyplace inside our blogger post, or a Blogger HTML/Javascript gadget. Here is how to do that:

<a href="http://soswitcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger?&max-results=3">Blogger Label=3</a>

This text ( Blogger Label=3 ) can be anything you want it to be.

A few examples from my Blogger Label:

NOTE:

In my example above I have a total of 11 blog post on this blog that include the Label Blogger, so any number higher than 11 will still only show 11 blog post. This can be a good thing, If you want to show a fixed amount of blog post (example=30).

Just remember it’s annoying to have a single webpage with long blog post that runs on forever, so don’t over do it. :)

Again, all Blogger Labels are case sensitive, so make sure you don’t use blogger instead of Blogger, for our example, because my Blogger Label started with an uppercase B.

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Label,Post

dxf file

Blogger - Embed Mp3 Flash Player

2009-07-15T17:22:00.001-07:00

This is a quick tutorial on how to embed a small flash mp3 player into a Blogger post.

We will use Google Sites to host all of the files (flash, javascript, & mp3) for this project, you can find out more, on how to host files for free from my previous post Blogger - Host Javascript File for Free

1) The first thing we need to do is visit 1pixelout.net & download the audio-player.zip file that includes all the necessary files.

2) Unzip the audio-player.zip file that you downloaded from 1pixelout.net

3) we need two files from the audio-player folder

audio-player.js
player.swf

4) We need to rename audio-player.js as a text file to be hosted on Google Sites, since Google Sites won’t allow us to host javascript files, again you can learn how that’s done by reading this post. So our audio-player.js should now look like this example: audio-player.txt (notice the .txt extension)

5) Upload both the audio-player.txt & player.swf to your own Google Sites webpage. The Url’s should look similar to the links below:

audio-player.txt = http://sites.google.com/site/YourSiteName/mp3player/audio-player.txt
player.swf = http://sites.google.com/site/YourSiteName/mp3player/player.swf

6) Go to your Blogger Account –> Layout –> Edit HTML, & then make sure the Expand Widget Templates checkbox is checked.

7) Find the </head> html tag, in your template, & past this code one line above it (remember to replace the http://sites.google.com/site/YourSiteName/mp3player/audio-player.txt link to your URL, on your Google Site, & also press the SAVE button below the Blogger Template editor:

<script language="JavaScript" src="http://sites.google.com/site/YourSiteName/mp3player/audio-player.txt"></script>

8) Ok the hard part is finished :), now each time we want to add a Mp3 to a Blogger blog post, we just need to add the code below, don’t forget to change the URL/links to your own links, & also change the actual Mp3 to your own mp3 that you host on your own Google Sites webpage for free:

(Download Mp3 Code Sample)

NOTE:

Anytime you want to add more than one Mp3 to a webpage you need to make sure to change the “Object Id” so that you won’t have any conflicts between each mp3 player, example audioplayer2 & playerID=2 the player name can actually be named anything you would like to name it, it’s just easier to add a number at the end of each name. :)Here is the finished mp3 player in action

Credit goes to http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/ & http://www.macloo.com/

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Mp3,Mp3 Player

dxf file

Bing – Marketing Ka-Ching!

2009-07-10T19:21:00.001-07:00

I was reading this article today on MSN, that ask the reader If they should save or pay down debt? While reading this short blog style article, I noticed that starting in the second paragraph, the writer started embedding search strings for the new Bing search engine from Microsoft.

Microsoft, what a clever company it is…

What makes Microsoft so clever in this article, isn’t the article itself, it’s the long list of URLs that move the reader from the article to Bing search results pages.

What’s so clever about the way they are moving traffic away from this article, you say? Isn’t it just an average article with URLs, that just happen to be pointing to a search page? No, no my friend this is internet marketing at it’s best.

Search page marketing…

This article is setup to drive traffic to Bing. While the author of this article moves readers to a premade search string on Bing that will find higher paying strong Microsoft keyword Ads.

It looks like Microsoft is building their new Bing search engine, with the help of a small army of bloggers, embedding all their blog style articles with premade Bing search pages.

Bottom line is, everyone has an exit point on every webpage, with this technique Microsoft is moving their traffic to position readers in front of higher paying Ads.

Microsoft, very clever indeed…

Technorati Tags: Bing,Adsense,Google

dxf file

Blogger – Title Labels Page Title SEO

2009-07-01T13:18:00.001-07:00

The Blogger Page Title by default isn’t SEO friendly to say the least. I added a Title tag code snippet to my blogger template ( Blogger - Change Page Title Tags for your Blog ) a while back. Everything looked good on my Page Title, but when I did a Google search for each of my page Titles, my blogs homepage always showed up, instead of each specific page Title, in the Google search results, which wasn’t what I wanted at all!

The answer…

I started searching for a better way of handling my blog page Title problem, what I found was a snippet of code that would change everything about my page Titles in a far better way than I was looking to accomplish. This new code snippet not only added my blogs specific page Titles to all my Google searches, for my blogs page Titles, it also added all my Labels to my Google Search results (Very Cool)!

By adding my Blogger Labels to the Title of each page, I’m adding keywords to the Google search results, so that moves my blog post ~~one step~~ closer to the top of Google search.

The code…

Below are the steps to add your Labels to your Blogger page Title:

1) Backup your blog template .xml file, to your local PC

2) Go to your Blogger Dashboard & Layout –> Edit HTML

3) Find the <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> tags at the top of your template, & delete them.

4) Add this code, above the <head> tag, at the top of the template :

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<b:section id='titleTag'>
<b:widget id='Blog2' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='nextprev'/>
<b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='post' var='post'><data:post.title/></b:includable>
<b:includable id='status-message'/>
<b:includable id='comment-form' var='post'>
<div class='comment-form'>
<a name='comment-form'/>
<h4 id='comment-post-message'><data:postCommentMsg/></h4>
<p><data:blogCommentMessage/></p>
<data:blogTeamBlogMessage/>
<a expr:href='data:post.commentFormIframeSrc' id='comment-editor-src'/>
<iframe allowtransparency='true' class='blogger-iframe-colorize blogger-comment-from-post' frameborder='0' height='275' id='comment-editor' name='comment-editor' scrolling='no' src='' width='100%'/>
<data:post.friendConnectJs/>
<data:post.cmtfpIframe/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
BLOG_CMT_createIframe(&#39;<data:post.appRpcRelayPath/>&#39;, &#39;<data:post.communityId/>&#39;);
</script>
</div>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'/>
<b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'><head>
<title>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>&#8212;
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast != &quot;true&quot;'>,
</b:if>
</b:loop>
</b:if>
</b:loop> &#8212;
<data:blog.title/>
</title>
</head></b:includable>
<b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinks'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'/>
<b:includable id='comments' var='post'/>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/> AnyCustomTextHere</title>
</b:if>

5) Replace the text AnyCustomTextHere in the new code snippet (towards the bottom of the code), with any text that you would like to show at the end of your blogs Title.

Note:

This code does have a couple of things I don’t really like, still it does a much better job at blog post SEO than the default Title tags, or any other Title tags I’ve tried on any of my Blogger blogs, not to mention adding all your Blogger Labels into Google Search results :

If you want to change anything on your Blogger Dashboard Layout (edit gadgets, etc…) make the changes, but don’t click the SAVE button at the top right side of the screen. Blogger should still save your changes.
If you want to add any new gadgets to the Blogger Layout, remove the entire Title code snippet, from the Blogger HTML editor, then save your template, paste the Title code snippet into another text editor (Windows Notepad), until you are done adding gadgets in the Blogger Dashboard Layout, when finished adding gadgets, replace the Title code snippet you saved inside of Windows Notepad.
This new Title code snippet will also add all your comments from each blog post, to Google search results, I don’t like this feature & have tried to remove it, only to have blogger keep adding the code back to my Title tags, in the template, this is probably my biggest complaint about this code snippet, because each time someone adds a comment to your blog post, it will change your blog post rank in the search engines for better or worse.

Update:

Here is a link to a 2nd text file that includes similar code as this tutorial, this new code will only return Blogger Labels in the Page Title, everything installs the same on both versions.

(Download Blogger Labels Only - File)

Update:

Here is a link to a 3rd text file that includes similar code as this tutorial, this new code will only return Blogger Titles (without labels) in the Page Title, everything installs the same on all versions.

(Download Blogger Without Labels - File)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Title,Page Title,Google

dxf file

Blogger – Profile Location

2009-06-25T15:51:00.001-07:00

The last time I checked Google Blog Search, I found 604,632,067 search results for the word “blogspot”. Now that’s a lot of Blogger blogs out in cyber space.

I got to thinking about other bloggers that use the Blogger platform to host their blogs, but more specific, I was wanting to know If I could find any bloggers in my own town, you know geographically close to me.

What I found…

It’s actually very easy to find all the bloggers that host their blogs on a Blogspot domain, & are in the same town or at least very close to you. In the example below, I’ll look for all the Blogger members that are located in Bismark, North Dakota

http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g?t=l&loc0=US&loc1=North+Dakota&loc2=Bismark
Here are the search results for the above URL

To find your own town/location change the text in red, If you state or town has two parts to it’s name (example:North Dakota) you will need to add a plus sign between the words, like I have done in the example link above.

You should also know that this only works on members that have filled out their Blogger Profile page. The example URL is also based on a search in the USA, If you have another country you would like to find, you can fill out the location of your profile page, in your blogspot profile. Once your blogspot profile location is completed you can right click/properties on the locations link to get the code for the country your in. Then just change the town, etc… to something close to your own location, If nothing shows up for your own town.

It’s kind of fun to see If you can find anyone you know in person, good luck with your search & have fun. :)

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Profile,Location

dxf file

Blogger - Blog List SEO

2009-06-17T16:30:00.001-07:00

A Blogger Blog List is a gadget that will list your favorite blogs. Blogger Blog List gadgets can also be used as a simple blogger seo tool. My Blogger Blog List Gadget is at the bottom left side of my blog, it’s a short list of outgoing links, to my favorite blogs. What looks like any other gadget, is by all means an interesting gadget.

Here’s why!

I’m always tweaking my blog (who isn’t, right? lol), most times tweaking the template. What I found was, while researching some of my blog post Titles in Google search, was that my Blogger Blog List was also showing up in my search results page.

You might think, well so how is that a good thing or why does it matter at all? When one of my favorite blogs post a new blog post on their blog, what happens is, their RSS will update the Blogger Blog List gadget at the bottom of my blog (stay with me).

Here is when the magic happens.

When Google crawls my blog, looking for new content, well guess what I haven't made a blog post in a week, no fear, one of my friends in my Blogger Blog List made a new post on their blog. Google looks at my blog while still crawling & see’s that BINGO my Blogger Blog List has new content. That’s right, Google see’s new content! So what If I didn’t post anything new in the last week, the Google spider found something that’s changed on my blog.

So what does all this mean?

The Blogger Blog List gadget will let you piggyback on the shoulders of your friends new blog post, & not only that, you get search engine optimization for FREE, so what it’s not keyword specific to any of your blog post, what matters here is, your getting your own blog post messages ranking in a new way.

Below are some of my own examples, from my Blogger Blog List:

Blogger Templates

WebHostingGeeks – Most Efficient Web Hosting Review Website

The MLxperience

Can Zemanta make my blog posts more interesting? (It won't take much)

So, have you noticed your Blogger Blog List showing up in your Google search?

Technorati Tags: Google,Blogger,Gadget,Blog List

dxf file

Blogger – Ping that Blog Post

2009-06-09T11:37:00.001-07:00

http://www.arboristsite.com/chainsaw/246317.htm

Pinging a new Blogger Post, with a long list of Ping Services can be very easy for any blogger that publishes their new blog post with “Windows Live Writer”.

What is pinging, you ask?

Pinging a Blogger blog post, is a quick way to notify search engines that you have just published new content on your blog. Sure the search engines will crawl your new blog post eventually on their own. Why wait for the search engines to decide when to visit your blog?

This is why pinging a blog is beneficial, by pinging our own blog, we give a boost to our new blog post, to allow them to be updated on search engines like Google, sooner rather than later.

We can use services like pingomatic.com to manually ping a list of servers, or for everyone that works with “Windows Live Writer”, we can enjoy the benefits of having our new blog post ping every single server in the list below automatically, each time we post a new Blogger post, here’s how.

Copy the list of URL’s below
Open “Windows Live Writer”, & go to Tools –> Options –> Ping Servers
Paste the list of servers into the textbox, in the “Ping Servers” textbox
Click: Apply –> Ok

<----- Start List ----->

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://ping.feedburner.com/
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

<----- End List ----->

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Ping,Blog,Windows Live Writer

dxf file

Blogger – Feedburner in Google Images

2009-05-30T07:01:00.001-07:00

Blogger & Feedburner are both great Google products. Did you know Feedburner images, posted on Blogger, will show up in Google Images, as a Feedburner .GIF image?

I actually found this out by searching for one of my blog post Titles, to see what images are showing up on Google Images.

This will only work If you already have a Feedburner account setup, & have the Feedurner image posted on your Blogger site.

So If you already have the Feedburner Feed on your blog, try this:

Go to Google Images
Search for one of your Blogger post Titles & only the name of your blog (example:SoSwitcher) not the end (example: .blogspot.com)
My Google Image search looks like this “Blogger Ad Code Converter soswitcher”
Below is the result image from my search , it’s not an active URL, just the image.

Something else that is cool, the above image will always be updated with the newest content from my blog, since it’s an animated .GIF, while it still shows on Google Images.

What’s funny is, my search results show more links pointing to bloggertricks, than my own blog (lol).

This might not look like a big deal, having a single image on the net, the way I see it, every little bit helps a future visitor find my blog. :)

Switcher

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Feedburner,Image

dxf file

Blogger - Change Page Title Tags for your Blog

2009-05-28T23:38:00.000-07:00

I was doing some research on my blog post Blogger Ad Code Converter, & found I didn’t like the way the Google Search results showed only the word “SoSwitcher”. What I really wanted was for each of my blog post Title to not only be on the Google Search, but for it to be first words of the Title, from left to right.

So, I searched Google & found a nice code snippet that would work, I added the code to my template & remembered reading a blog post a while back that someone said your blog page would load a little bit faster (maybe something like 1000th of a second faster, HA!), any way it made sense to me, instead of using the Blogger tag (example: <data:blog.title/>) for your Blogger Template to call up your blogs URL, to just hard code the URL (example: soswitcher.blogspot.com), since I’m already editing the Blogger template.

You don’t have to stop at just your Page Title either, If you notice some of the big names on the web, like Amazon, or Ebay, they both add keywords to their websites Title, & you’ll also notice that both Amazon & Ebay, also have those same keywords in their Google Search results.

Below is the Blogger Code that I added to my Template:

I decided not to put the URL in my Page Title, but instead add the single word “SoSwitcher”.

So the code in the textbox above will look like this:

Index Page Title – SoSwitcher
Each Post Page Title – Post Title + SoSwitcher

I might be adding some keywords in the mix, sometime soon .

Switcher

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Title,Tag,Page

dxf file

Blogger Ad Code Converter

2009-05-26T13:08:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wanted to add Google Adsense code inside your Blogger Template, & found it’s not a simple copy & paste job?

Well, now your in luck!

I built a Google Widget that will allow you to convert Google Adsense code into Blogger xhtml code, & not only that, you can also add the Blogger Code Converter to your webpage or blog, since it’s a Google Widget.

The code converter is simple to use:

Copy the code you want to convert (Right click – Copy)
Paste that code into the code converter textbox (Right click – Paste)
Press the button at the bottom of the widget “Convert Code”
(Right click – Select All) of the converted code in the Code Converter textbox
(Right click – Copy) the converted code in the Code Converter textbox
Paste the newly converted code into your Blogger template, etc…

I’ve added the New Google Code Converter to my sidebar, on the lower right side. The Code Converter size can be adjusted, when you go to get the code from the Google button below.

Note:

It’s up to anyone that uses this widget to double check the Google Code Converter Widget code, for any mistakes, I’ve been working with this for a while, with no problems. Please let me know of any issues or suggestions you might have, with this widget, by adding comments below.

You can click on the Google button below to add this Widget to your own blog.

Technorati Tags: Adsense,Google,Convert Code,Widget

dxf file

Host Javascript File for Free

2009-05-16T10:47:00.001-07:00

If you have ever downloaded a Free Blogger template or Widget, you might find that it includes javascript files that link to the blog designers website, or file sharing site. It’s never a good idea as a long term blogger to leave any external links in your blog template that you don’t have control over. The reason you always need to control your templates links:

Blog Designers site goes down
Blog Designers site bandwidth has reached it’s maximum limit
As a Blog Designer you might be hosting your personal site javascript files on the very same account, that your Free Blogger Templates javascript files are hosted, so If you have 1,000 free downloaded templates floating around cyber space, and none of them change the javascript URL, they are all pulling bandwidth from your personal javascript site host.

Bottom line is, control is everything, nobody likes a broken blog.

Below is an easy & Free way to host javascript files on your very own Free Google website:

1) Sign up for a Free Google Sites website

2) Create a new Google Sites webpage

3) Get the URL/link of the javascript that is hard coded into your New Blogger template (example: http://www.YourWebsite/YourNewJavascriptFile.js )

4) Download the javascript file to your local PC

5) Open the javascript file in a text editor (Microsoft Notepad, etc…)

6) Save the javascript text file as a regular text file, so our example file in the above URL will look like this: (example: YourNewJavascriptFile.txt )

7) Upload the New Text file to your Google Sites website

8) Right click & Copy Shortcut - on your New uploaded .txt file on your Google webpage, & get the URL/link (example: http://sites.google.com/site/YourGoogleWebsite/Webpage1/YourNewJavascriptFile.txt )

NOTE: I always leave off the very end of the URL, we don't need (?attredirects=0)

9) Right click Paste the new URL/Link into your Blogger template

You now know how to host javascript files on your own Free website, not to mention Google is great about keeping their servers running at 99.99% of the time.

A word of advice, Google once had a Free website hosting a while back, Google has since shut down new members to the first Free website, so grab a free site while you can, you never know If they will stop new members from the second Free websites (Google Sites). Also the old members still have active Google websites, just no new members, get them while you can, you never know when you’ll need it to host files.

The right sidebar includes a working example of how I’m hosting a “Recent Post Thumbnails Widget for Blogger” javascript file on my own Google Site, to prevent any future broken links.

The video below, will show how to get the URL from a Google Sites webpage.

Host js

.

Free DXF files
dxf file

Blogger Poll – Add to Blog Post

2009-05-15T21:09:00.001-07:00

Over on the BloggerTricks Forums, John Cena asked If it was possible, & how to add a Blogger Widget Poll to a Blog Post. The short answer is yes, it is possible to add a Blogger (Widget based) Poll to a Blogger Post, you'll have to work with some basic HTML.

1) Create a "Blogger Widget Poll" inside your sidebar, just like you've done before. Make sure to give it an easy to find/remember Title.

2) After the Blogger Widget Poll, is added to your sidebar, visit your blogs HomePage in your Browser (I'm working with Internet Explorer as my Browser).

3) After you have your HomePage loaded into your Browser window, Go to the top Toolbar & View/Source (of your blogs Homepage) HTML.

4) In a text editor (Windows Notepad) etc... Find/Search for the Title to your new Polls Title.

5) Copy (Right Click/Copy) the HTML Code that looks similar to the code below:

<h1>How do you like my blog?</h1> <iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="275" scrolling="no" name="poll-widget8782362485789065652" src="http://www.google.com/reviews/polls/display/8782362485789065652/blogger_template/run_app?hideq=true&purl=http%3A%2F%2Fsoswitcher.blogspot.com%2F" style="border:none; width:275;"></iframe>
6) Paste your new Polls HTML into your Blogger Post/Article.
7) After you get the Blogger Widget HTML, you can go ahead & delete the Blogger Widget Poll, from your Sidebar, we only needed that to get the HTML source code.
Note:
The actual Poll is inside an Iframe, I also added bit of HTML code to prevent the Poll from adding a scrollbar to the Poll, I didn’t like the way it looks witha scrollbar on the Poll inside a Blog Post, so this is just an option, to remove scrollbars, after the (height="275") add this code (scrolling="no").
Once you have the Polls HTML Code, you can change a few things to make it look better in your Blog Post, for example, Blogger sets the default width of a Blogger Poll to 100%, If you want to add a Poll to a Post/Article I think it would look better as a fixed number (example: width:275), the same goes for the Poll Height, Iframe border etc...
This is the first time I've tried this, deleting a Poll & still keep the HTML, so I want to thank John Cena for the idea.
Below is a working example of a Blogger Widget Poll, inserted in a Blogger Blog Post.
Switcher
How do you like my blog? Technorati Tags: Blogger Poll,Post,Blogger Widget

dxf file

Twister – The Game

2009-05-12T05:47:00.001-07:00

I’m always amazed at the power of a tornado, watch as the fellows capturing this storm on video, play chicken.

This is by far the best video I’ve ever seen, WOW!

Technorati Tags: twister,tornado,video

dxf file

Inkscape – Convert Bitmap to DXF

2009-04-29T22:24:00.001-07:00

Technorati Tags: Inkscape,DXF,Convert

dxf file

Google Maps Plugin – Windows Live Writer

2009-04-27T13:30:00.001-07:00

This is my third “Windows Live Writer Gallery” plugin.

This plugin will let you Insert the Google Maps code, that Google Maps will produce when you do a search.

The options are, Align map in blog post:

Left
Center
Right

Step 1: Go to Google Maps & search for a map location.

Step 2: Click on the “Link” URL, Upper Right Side of your browser window (see screenshot).

Step 3: Right click on the “Paste HTML to embed in website” textbox, & copy that code to your PC clipboard.

Step 4: Select how you want the Map to be aligned in your blog post (left, center, or right).

Step5: Click the “Insert Google Code” button in the “Google Maps Plugin” (when you click the button, the code from Google Maps will be pasted into the plugin).

Step 6: Click the “Save” button, in the “Google Maps Plugin”

This example below has a map to “Disneyland” inserted into my blog.

Download this plugin “Windows Live writer Gallery”

View Larger Map

Technorati Tags: Windows Live writer,Google Map,Map,Plugin

dxf file

Media Player – Windows Live Writer

2009-04-18T02:52:00.001-07:00

This is my second plugin for “Windows Live Writer”.

This plugin will let you add a Windows Media Player to your blog post, options include:

Adjust Width & Height of Media Player
Auto Start
Download Media
Full Screen
Center Media Player in blog post

The plugin can be downloaded, on the "Windows Live Writer Gallery".

Here is a demo of the player in action. The size of this player is 575 x 400.

Note:

For everyone that runs any type of Ads on their blog, I have a new Windows Live Writer plugin, in the works that I think everyone will like (stay tuned).

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Writer,Media,Media Player

dxf file

MP3 Plugin - Windows Live Writer / VB.net 2005

2009-04-14T18:28:00.001-07:00

I’ve been busy today, writing my first published plugin for Windows Live Writer.

My new “Insert MP3 Player” plugin is a small Quiktime MP3 player that can be embedded in blog post.

I’ve only tested this on:

Internet Explorer (8.0)
Firefox (3.0.1)
Blogger

I built my “Insert MP3 Player” plugin with the free version of “VB.net 2005 Express”. The plugin can be downloaded, on the “Windows Live Writer Plugin Gallery”.

Here is how to install the MP3 plugin:

Make sure that “Windows Live Writer” is closed
Download the MP3 plugin to your PC desktop
After the Plugin is downloaded to your PC desktop, double click the MSI Installer
Follow the instructions in the MSI Installer, the plugin will be installed in your PC, at “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins” by default.

Below is the plugin in action..

Technorati Tags: windows live writer,vb.net,plugin

dxf file

Blogger Blog by Switcher

Blogger - Static Page Remove Read More

Blogger - Pages Hack

Blogger - Jobs

Blogger - How To Change Icon

Blogger Meta Tag

Blogger – Change your Tools

Blogger - Power of Text

Blogger – Better Google Sitemap

Blogger - Increase Your Label Limit Per Page

Blogger - Embed Mp3 Flash Player

Bing – Marketing Ka-Ching!

Blogger – Title Labels Page Title SEO

Blogger – Profile Location

Blogger - Blog List SEO

Blogger – Ping that Blog Post

Blogger – Feedburner in Google Images

Blogger - Change Page Title Tags for your Blog

Blogger Ad Code Converter

Host Javascript File for Free

Blogger Poll – Add to Blog Post

How do you like my blog?

Twister – The Game

Inkscape – Convert Bitmap to DXF

Google Maps Plugin – Windows Live Writer

Media Player – Windows Live Writer

MP3 Plugin - Windows Live Writer / VB.net 2005