Blogger is oldest free blogging platform by Google and millions of blogs are freely hosted in it. Sometimes we can find blogger blogs are even better than self-hosted wordpress.org blogs.
You can read my previous post FREE avast antivirus for a year or trick to make free banner and logo for your blog or facebook page.
Today I am presenting a very simple tutorial about some basic customizations and changes which are necessary for each and every blogspot blogs. It will give your blog a website look as well as important from SEO (search engine optimization) point of view. I had tried to make this guide short and easy to understand for everybody. So get ready and try each and every step.
How to make menu bar without editing template?If you are new blogger and have little or no technical knowledge, then you may get little bit confused. But do not need to worry about it, you can give your blog a superb look even without editing template. It is not necessary to become a HMTL/CSS or JAVASCRIPT master to create a nice blog.
You can read my previous post FREE avast antivirus for a year or trick to make free banner and logo for your blog or facebook page.
Today I am presenting a very simple tutorial about some basic customizations and changes which are necessary for each and every blogspot blogs. It will give your blog a website look as well as important from SEO (search engine optimization) point of view. I had tried to make this guide short and easy to understand for everybody. So get ready and try each and every step.
1. Add and customize horizontal menu-bar.
As we know menu bar is very important feature for proper navigation in blogs. WordPress provides flexibility in simple horizontal menu bar or horizontal drop-down menu bar, but in blogger you have to manually edit template to add it. Sometimes it becomes too much irritating if you are new in this field. For beginners like me it may be a big challenge to create menu bar by using CSS and HTML.
To solve this problem I am sharing this trick to create a beautiful horizontal menu bar in blogger blogs without editing template. You can create it even without using single line of code. Just copy and paste code.
- Go to blogger.com and sign-in using your email and password.
- Select blog in which you want to add or create horizontal menu-bar.
- Click on Layout located at right side in browser window.
- On header section click on Add a gadget. A new popup window will open.
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| Click on image to magnify. |
- Select HTML/JavaScript and hit add button on right side. Immediately a blank text area will open.
- Do not enter anything in title section. Simply copy and paste codes below with necessary changes.
Use your own link in place of LINKS and Use your own menu items. Similarly you can add more items by repeating above code.
- Now click on save button and then popup window will close automatically.
- After that click on save arrangement button, which is located at top right corner of layout page.
If you had completed all steps successfully, click on view blog button. A horizontal menu bar is waiting for you. Now you can use this beautiful menu bar to properly categorize and navigate your posts with the help of labels.
How to customize menu bar or menu tab in blogger/blogspot blogs?
Although blogger automatically creates menu tab according to your template, But still if you want to edit color or font size of menu bar you can do it by following simple steps mentioned below.
- First of all go to Template and click on customizebutton which is located below preview window.
- Now a new webpage will open. Select Advanced option as shown in figure.
- Then you can edit text of menu bar by clicking on tab texts and edit background color by clicking on tabs background.
- Now choose color and fonts according to your blog design and click on save template button.
In this way you can create your own horizontal menu bar in blogger without editing template and using a single line of CSS or JavaScript.
Although this menu bar is sufficient to navigate in small blogs but if you have a large blog with many categories and sub-categories then you will need a drop-down menu-bar. But for that you have to edit your template manually. If you are interested in drop-down menu-bar you can read that here or keep reading this post for more interesting and necessary blogger tricks.
2. Adjust width of post body and side-bar.
Earlier you have to edit template to adjust width of post body but now you can edit it in settings easily. To adjust width you have to follow some simple steps given below.
- Login to blogger dashboard and select blog to be edited. Then click on template tab, which is located at left hand side of window. After that press customize button and a new window will open.
- Click on adjust width and change width with the help of slider.
- At last save template by clicking save templatebutton at top right corner.
But remember that if large post body is looking good in your screen then it is not necessary that it would look good in another. Therefore always see preview before saving template.
Sitemap is like map of your blog visitors. It contains whole information of posts like date, time, day etc. It is also important for search engines like Google, Bing, Duckduckgo and Yahoo. So lets take a lookup at how to do it.
Meta content is a small description of posts shown by search engine. Although search engine does not use meta description to search blog, but it is necessary to attract visitors, because it is very helpful for visitors to understand content of post before visiting your blog.
Images and screenshots are used in post to make content easily digestible. But you can also use these images to increase your traffic and improve search rank. Below I am mentioning three methods to customize your images in blogspot blogs.
Disable showcase images with lightbox with the help of drop down menu.
I think it is not necessary to show mobile view in PC. But I received few requests therefore I am mentioning it here. It may helpful for those visitors who are using slow net connection. You can also see live demo at bottom of blog.
3. Add HTML sitemap for visitors of your blog.
Sitemap is like map of your blog visitors. It contains whole information of posts like date, time, day etc. It is also important for search engines like Google, Bing, Duckduckgo and Yahoo. So lets take a lookup at how to do it.
- Click on pages tab from blogger dashboard and create a new page.
- Give your new page a title sitemap. Then locate HTMLand compose tab at top left corner of editor window. Click on HTMLtab and copy and paste code below.
- Click on compose tab and then publish button to publish your sitemap page.
Now you had successfully created sitemap for your blog. But you have to add it in sidebar so that visitors can reach that sitemap easily from any post or page. For that just follow three more steps.
- Click on view page button to open your newly published sitemap page and copy URL of sitemap page from browser. It should be something like URL below. http://www.info4download.blogspot.com/p/sitemap.html.
- Open layout window from blogger dashboard. Add HTML/JAVASCRIPT gadget in right sidebar, then copy and paste code below. But remember you have to put URL of sitemap page in code in place of “sitemap URL”.
Press save arrangement button and then view your blog. Your sitemap is ready for use in sidebar with attractive banner. If you want to read more about features or updates of this sitemap you can visit its official site from where I get this code. Click here to visit webpage.
You can also make and submit XML sitemap of your blog for search engines to boost your traffic dynamically. Click here to create and submit XML sitemap without knowledge of HTML or XML.
4. Enable and add meta tag blogger blogs.
4. Enable and add meta tag blogger blogs.
Meta content is a small description of posts shown by search engine. Although search engine does not use meta description to search blog, but it is necessary to attract visitors, because it is very helpful for visitors to understand content of post before visiting your blog.
By default meta tag is disabled in blogger blogs. You have to enable it manually in settings. To enable meta content read instructions below.
- Click settings tab in left hand side of blogger dashboard window, then select search preferences. Locate meta tags and click on edit button. Write a short and sweet description of your blog in less than 150 characters.
- Now you can write description of individual posts. For this edit old or write new post. If you observe carefully, you can see a new tab search description. Click on this tab and write description of your post.
In this way you can write meta description for your whole blog and individual posts. Do not worry if you had not enabled meta tag yet. No need to update older posts, because Google will automatically create a description for that posts.
5. Customization of images in blogger blogs to increase traffic.
5. Customization of images in blogger blogs to increase traffic.
Images and screenshots are used in post to make content easily digestible. But you can also use these images to increase your traffic and improve search rank. Below I am mentioning three methods to customize your images in blogspot blogs.
- By default blogger automatically creates a lightbox at border of images. It is a rectangle shaped box surrounding images. If you do not like it you can disable it easily.
Disable showcase images with lightbox with the help of drop down menu.
- You can also increase traffic of your blog by altering images. Means rename images to words related to your post. For example if you are using image of duck in a post related to download, then rename image of duck to “free download” before uploading.
- It is very important from SEO point of view that you should always add title and alt text in your screenshots. After dragging image to post editor left click on it and select properties. Enter title text and alt text to image related to your post.
6. How to add mobile view in PC widget in blogger blogs.
I think it is not necessary to show mobile view in PC. But I received few requests therefore I am mentioning it here. It may helpful for those visitors who are using slow net connection. You can also see live demo at bottom of blog.
- Click on layout tab of blogger dashboard, and then add a gadgetat footer section. Now add HTML/ JAVASCRIPT gadget.
- Copy and paste code below. And do not forget to place domain of your blog in place of <your-domain>.
- Press save arrangement button take a preview of your blog.
7. How to decrease number of post counts in label in blogger blogs.
Labels are very important to categorize posts and navigate properly in blogger blogs. You can combine labels and menu-bar to create excellent navigation system. You should use label from your first post. But problem occurs when you have too many posts. Then it takes long time to load webpage of any label. You will definitely realize this problem when you will cross certain number of posts
But this problem can be solved by using some magical keywords. Even you do not need to edit template. So read simple steps below.
- First of all obtain URL of particular label in which you want to reduce post count. It should be something like “http://info4download.blogspot.in/search/label/label-name “.
- Now if you want to reduce number of posts to five posts, then add “?max-results=5” without quotes at the end of label URL. For example “http://info4download.blogspot.in/search/label/label-name?max-results=5”.
Now you can use this modified URL in menu-bar for proper categorization and fast navigation. If you do not want to manually edit URL of each label, then you can make it permanent by editing template of your blog. Visit thislink to get codes to edit your template.
8. Adding alexa rank widget.
Alexa is a huge website which keeps record of traffic status and popularity of all blogs and websites. It provides global alexa rank on basis of organic traffic of a blog or website. Here organic traffic means traffic coming from search engines. Less alexa rank means more organic traffic and more trust on blog or website.
If you want to show visitors alexa rank of your blog, you can do it by adding alexa rank widget on your blogger blogs. To add this widget go to Layout >> Add a Gadget >> HTML/JavaScript and copy and paste code below by replacing your domain name.
Some other important SEO modifications for blogger blogs.
9. Removing navbar widget:-
Navigation bar is created at top of blogger blogs by default. But it is useless and consumes space as well. So you should remove it from your blogspot blog. Go to Layout >> navbar and enable OFF radio-button. Now save arrangement and click on view blog button.
Navigation bar is created at top of blogger blogs by default. But it is useless and consumes space as well. So you should remove it from your blogspot blog. Go to Layout >> navbar and enable OFF radio-button. Now save arrangement and click on view blog button.
10. Add email subscription widget: -
Email subscription is very important for ant blog. You should add this widget from your first post. You can add it by Layout >> add a gadget >> email subscription. Similarly you can add Google’s custom search bar from Layout window.
Email subscription is very important for ant blog. You should add this widget from your first post. You can add it by Layout >> add a gadget >> email subscription. Similarly you can add Google’s custom search bar from Layout window.
11. Addinng logo and copyright note:-
You can use your own logo instead of blogger's default logo. Go to Layout >> Favicon and upload your own logo. But remember icon image should be square and less than 100KB.
You can use your own logo instead of blogger's default logo. Go to Layout >> Favicon and upload your own logo. But remember icon image should be square and less than 100KB.
If you want to add your copyright note, you can add it at botttom of your blog. go to Layout >> Attribution and type simple copyright note or message for visitors of your blog. Use it carefully.
I will recommend you not to copy and paste CSS or JavaScript codes in your template from anywhere in internet. Use codes of only trusted sites. Avoid editing template unnecessary and do not forget to take backup of your template before editing or customizing.
I hope all these customizations and modifications will help you to make your blog beautiful and search engine friendly. I had tried to use minimum technical words and avoid unnecessary screenshots. But still if you face even minor difficulty in any part, you can contact me by comments or by contact us page. I will try to help as soon as possible. If I am missing something or have grammatical mistakes in post, please inform me. I will soon update this guide with more SEO facts.
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Reference blogs helpful in this post are:-
tricksglobal.net, helplogger.blogspot.in, superwebtricks.com, Google.co.in, youtube.com
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