Blogger, Entrepreneur, Raconteur
By Rob
See the cool social bookmarking buttons at the bottom of each post? If you would like them on your Blogger Blog, do the following:
1. Go to the “Design” tab
2. Click “Edit HTML”
3. Check “Expand Widget Templates”
4. Hit “Ctrl f” on your keyboard and find
5. Paste the following code in the box below just beneath the above code
Right click-select all and copy code to paste:
VOILA! You now have the cool looking social networking buttons at the bottom of every post! Don’t you feel awesome now?
By Rob
I have discussed URLs and Blogging platforms on Hot Dog! Money Online. This article is for people using Blogger who want their own URL.
If you want to transfer domain names for your website hosted with Blogger, there are three terms you will need to familiarize yourself with. The first is DNS or Domain Name Server; the second is a CNAME, and the third is an ‘A’ Name. These items should be clearly noted in the control panel for your domain name manager. Simply put, these three things allow you to point your domain name to your web host. Once you find where to input these items in your domain name control panel, you’re on your way to a quick and easy transfer of domain names.
A web host is a place where your website is stored. Hosting companies house servers all over the world that keep a digital file of your website stored. When someone clicks on a link to your site, the magic that is the Internet directs them to whatever server your site is hosted on.
When you create a Blogger site, you get a “dot blogspot dot com” URL for free. Your website would be: www.YOURWEBSITE.blogspot.com. This domain name or web address works just fine, but many people want to stand out by having their own domain name associated with their website: www.YOURWEBSITE.com.
If you are hosting with Blogger, there is an interface in the platform that allows you to point your own domain name to the host you’ve created your site on. It’s fast and simple to do, but that’s only half the battle. You need to let your domain name provider know where to point the URL to.
The first thing to do is let the provider know the Nameserver to point the domain name to. In your domain manager menu, find “Nameservers” and open the editing function. When you find the nameservers, they will be set to the domain name provider’s defaults and will look something like this:
NS11.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS12.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
To point to a Blogger site, simply change the “11” to “43” and the “12” to “44” so it now looks like this:
NS43.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS44.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
The next thing to find in your domain manager platform is the CNAME record. You must add a CNAME record to point your domain to the Google servers. All you need to do is enter
ghs.google.com
into the CNAME record in your domain manager and you are up and running with your domain name, www.YOURWEBSITE.com pointing to your new Blogger site.
When you type YOURWEBSITE.com (without the “www.”) into your browser you still won’t be directed to the site you wanted. This happens to everyone. The reason for this is the domain is not set up to point to what is called a “Naked Domain” (that’s a domain without the “www.” typed in before the web address). You will want the naked domain to point to your site. While in your domain manager, you will need to create ‘A’ Name records for your domain. Open the “A” Name record tab in your domain manager and create four new ‘A’ Name records with YOURWEBSITE.COM pointing to each of the following 4 IP addresses:
216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21
Make sure you delete the default ‘A’ Name records after you have added these four IP addresses.
In about an hour (often less), both www.YOURWEBSITE.COM and YOUR WEBSITE.COM will be pointed to your website.
These instructions are generic, each domain name provider has a different heads up display even though they all provide the same functionality. You need to know where each record should be entered for your domain manager. When in doubt, consult your domain name provider’s “Help” section. The nameservers, CNAME records and ‘A’ Name records as listed in this article are the same no matter who your domain provider is, you just need to be sure you know what goes where.
If you mess up one of these steps, your website will not display properly when someone enters your URL into their browser. Anything you do in your Domain manager is reversible, but getting it right the first time will save you some aggravation.
Happy URLing.
By Rob
There are literally hundreds of blog platforms out there. There are free hosts and paid hosts. Which is best for the newbie blogger? While I don’t intend to review every single host out there, I intend to deal with the “biggies.”
Blogger and WordPress are the two most used blogging platforms out there. I have used Blogger since day one and I remain loyal to the platform for several reasons.
First of all, I am used to it and I have all my blogs hosted on Blogger. To change now would require moving everything over to another host and that’s not something I have the time or patience for. I can point custom domains to my Blogger sites and, best of all, the hosting is free.
Blogger’s interface is easy to use too, particularly for a newbie. I have learned many Blogger Tips and Tricks over the years to “tweak” my sites, but even without learning how to manipulate code, you can have a pretty snazzy looking site that’s ready to go in a few minutes. Over the years, Blogger has made many enhancements to their platform to make it easier to use. They also have new template styles that make a blog look more professional (guess where this blog is hosted).
Another great thing about Blogger is you can easily put Adsense ads on your site with one click. We’ll talk more about Adsense later…
Word press is the other “biggie” out there in the blogging world. When I first started out, I tried WordPress. I didn’t like it. It took too long to set up, I couldn’t host on their site for free, Adsense wasn’t allowed (it is now), and I needed to use a “.wordpress” address (unless I wanted to pay to host my blog elsewhere). There were just too many added steps for my tastes. There are many millions of Worpress enthusiasts out there and if WordPress works for them, that’s great. The important thing is to use what works for you.
Blogger works for me, so here I am!
For a good comparison of the Blogger vs. Worpress features, this article on Pulsed says it better than I ever could.
Good luck setting up your blog!