How to Change Your Blog Icon

This question was originally submitted by: Scrivener's Retreat

Question #1: Is there a way we can get those little icons that appear in the window tabs on our own blogs and websites?

You most definitely can change that icon on your blog or website since we are allowed to edit html. This process will not work for your Etsy Shop since we have no html control there. If you would like to add your own icon to your Blogger Blog please follow the instructions below:

Note: These steps are a little bit more involved then some of my other tutorials, feel free to e-mail me if you get stuck and need some help.

1. Find a picture or an image you would like to use
2. Go here, click the "Browse" button then select your image
3. Click the "Generate Favicon.ico" button
4. A new page will load, click the "Download FavIcon Package" link below your image
5. Save it to your computer, note where you saved the file
6. Find the zip folder on your computer and double click on it (this should cause a new folder to appear that is not a zip folder. If this does not happen, right click on the zip folder and unarchive it using a method displayed in your "Open With" menu)
   
7. Go here and browse to the folder, inside the folder choose the file that ends with .ico
8. Click the "Upload" button
9. This will load a new page, in the third box down copy the text between the [IMG] and [/IMG] tags. The text you copy should look something like this: http://www.picpanda.com/images/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.ico
10. Log into Blogger, click "Customize", then click "Edit HTML"
11. Find "<title><data:blog.pagetitle/></title>" it should be right near the top
12. Paste in the following code right below the title tag : <link href="http://www.picpanda.com/images/abcdegghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.ico" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon"/>
13. Change the image link to the one you copied from the previous website.
14. Click "Save Template"

Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.

How to Add Categories to your Blog

Originally sumbited by: Calynette

Question #1: I noticed you have a category widget on your blog, how can I set one up?

1. Log in to Blogspot
2. Click "Customize"
3. Click "Add a gadget"
4. Click the blue plus sign next to "Labels"
5. You can change the title to "Categories" if you perfer or leave it as "Labels"
6. Choose "Alphabetically", or "By Frequency"
7. Click Save

The labels that appear will be the tags used in your articles. I recommend not using more than 3 labels for each article or it may get confusing for your readers.

More of a visual learner? Check out this video!



Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.

Placing Links On Your Blog

Question #1: How do I create a link on my blog?

To create a link you can use the code below:

<a href="http://etsytechnologyhelp.blogspot.com/" target="new">Etsy Technology Help</a>

The red text is the actual link and the blue text is what your users will see. Here is what the link would look like on your site:

Etsy Technology Help

You may have noticed that the code above includes: target="new". This opens a new tab or window when the user clicks the link rather than redirecting from your site to the link. I highly recommend this so that you are not sending your traffic away!



Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.

How to Add a Google Search to Your Blog

If you have a large number of posts on your blog a great way to help your readers out is to create a Google search for your blog. If you look up above this entry you should see the Google Search I just added. If you search for "Google Analytics" all of my posts on Google Analytics will come up, which makes it a little bit easier for you to access the post that you are looking for.

Below you will find the instructions for adding it to your own Blogspot blog:

1. Go here: http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
2. Click the big blue "Create a Custom Search Engine" button
3. Log in to your Google Account
4. Fill in a name and a description for your search engine
5. Choose your language
6. For "What do you want to search?" select "Only sites I select." In the "Sites to search:" box, place your blog address in this format: http://www.yourblogname.blogspot.com/* make sure to include the "www" and the "/*" at the end
7. On the next page you will be able to try it out and make sure it works. Search for a word on your site to see what the results will be.
8. Once you are satisfied that it works correctly, click the "Finish" button
9. Click "control panel"
10. On the left side of the page click "code"
11. Copy the code in the "Search box code"
12. Log in to your Blogspot blog
13. Click "Layout" then "Add a Gadget" and then select "HTML/Javascript"
14. Paste in your code and Save

Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? E-mail me, and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.

How to find out who has Mentioned your Blog

This is a great resource for tracking who is talking about you in their blog:

http://socialmention.com/

I have found the best results happen when you search for your shop name in quotes, e.g., "Magnet Games"


Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.