Adding floating social media sharing buttons to Blogger

As promised to some of my readers, here’s a tutorial on how to add a Mashable-like floating bar of social media buttons to a Blogger blog. I made it into a widget, so you don’t have to go into your template HTML to install (or remove) them. Just drop the whole code into a HTML/Javascript gadget.
I have included Facebook Share, Retweet, Stumble, Google Buzz and Digg This buttons in the bar. Each of them comes with a live counter. The corners of Facebook Share button and counter are rounded to blend with the rest of the buttons (doesn’t work in Internet Explorer, of course). You can add more social bookmarking or sharing buttons later if you wish.

I. Adding the buttons

1. Login to your Blogger account.
2. Go to Design > Edit HTML.
3. Check Expand Widget Templates
4. Search <data:post.body/>
5. Copy the code below and paste it before <data:post.body/>. 

<!-- floating page sharer Start chipboys.blogspot.com-->
<style>
#pageshare {position:fixed; bottom:15%; margin-left:-71px; float:left; border-radius:5px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px;background-color:#fff;padding:0 0 2px 0;z-index:10;}
#pageshare .sbutton {float:left;clear:both;margin:5px 5px 0 5px;}
.fb_share_count_top {width:48px !important;}
.fb_share_count_top, .fb_share_count_inner {-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;}
.FBConnectButton_Small, .FBConnectButton_RTL_Small {width:49px !important; -moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;}
.FBConnectButton_Small .FBConnectButton_Text {padding:2px 2px 3px !important;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;font-size:8px;}
</style>
<div id='pageshare' title="Get this from chipboys.blogspot.com">
<div class='sbutton' id='fb'>
<a name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript"></script>
</div>
<div class='sbutton' id='rt'>
<script src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js" type='text/javascript'></script>
</div>
<div class='sbutton' id='su'>
<script src="http://www.stumbleupon.com/hostedbadge.php?s=5"></script>
</div>
<div class='sbutton' id='digg' style='margin-left:3px;width:48px'>
<script src='http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
<a class="DiggThisButton DiggMedium"></a>
</div>
<div class='sbutton' id='gb'>
<a class='google-buzz-button' data-button-style='normal-count' href='http://www.google.com/buzz/post' title='post on google buzz'>
<script src='http://www.google.com/buzz/api/button.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
</a></div>
<div style="clear: both;font-size: 9px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://chipboys.blogspot.com/2011/03/adding-floating-social-media-sharing.html">Get this</a></div>
</div>
<!-- floating page sharer End -->

6. Click "Save Template"
7. Done

II. Customizing

1. Vertical alignment
   Change the value of bottom in code line 2. The code positions the button relative to the bottom of your browser window. To fix the distance even when window is resized, specify the value in px (pixels) instead of %.
2. Horizontal alignment
   Change the value of margin-left in code line 2. Negative value pushes the button to the left of the main blog column, positive value pushes it to the right.
   To position the button relative to the left or right edge of browser window, replace themargin-left with left (as in left:10px;) or right (as in right:10px;) respectively.
3. Adding more buttons
   You can add any social bookmarking or sharing button to the bar. Just put each button code inside a div, like this: 

1	<div class='sbutton'>

2	PUT BUTTON CODE HERE

3

<div>

and insert it right after line 27.

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10 Tips For Beginners Before Launching Their Blog

When you start your blog, you’re excited to reach out to the world and share your thoughts with everyone. There are some basic rules that you must follow in order to successfully launch your blog:

1. Focusing on a specific topic

Write the first few articles on a specific topic and maintain this for some duration. Even if you can make a few “off topic” topics from time to time but respect the fact that 80% of your blog should be devoted to your main theme. Therefore, it is essential to define its scope at the outset.

2. Write a few articles first

You should go for a launch only after you’ve a couple of articles on your blog. These articles should be of good quality (basic principles, user manual, controversy etc.). There’s nothing worse than a blog with 1 or 2 items.

3. Regularity

Publish an article every day for 2 or 3 weeks in the beginning, and then you can slow down the pace (say, 2 posts per week).

4. Work on your connections

Communicating via your website and social bookmarking sites like digg and delicious is very essential. If you chose a “classic” theme, very soon you will attract the world and you will improve your ranking quickly.

5. RSS Feeds

Submit RSS feeds (eg. via FeedBurner) and a newsletter.

6. Don’t Ignore the Power of Forums

Post info in the forums dedicated to your industry, start contributing in the comments of blogs (NO SPAM comments at all!)

7. Start with your Friends and Family

Send an email to your closed ones that you’ve opened your own blog. You can do this with all your contacts (personal, pro, customers, prospects …).

8. Use Printed Material

Make business cards with the address of your blog, and mention your blog in your other sites (if you’ve any).

9. Get easy links

Register your blog and RSS feeds in general or specialized directories.

10. Social Networking

Last but not the least create a profile on networking sites like LinkedIn, Technorati, Facebook, Twitter etc. It may help you to receive considerable amount of visitors, and even if it does not, it definitely improves your SEO and appearance of your site.

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Combining Google AdSense and Analytics

Taking advantage of all the tools available for SEO is the main task of a web developer. In this sense, he will be able to give his/her website the maximum chance of getting the highest ranking in search engine listings.

Google AdSense and Google Analytics are just some of the most common tools web developers use to keep track of how their SEO strategies are faring in the online market. It gives them data on how well their ads are doing in terms of generating the customer traffic and revenues targeted.

Many analysts suggest that linking your AdSense account to your Google Analytics one is very advantageous. This is a very simple trick that most web developers overlook but doing so can provide with additional revenue in your ad placements.

Basic Requirements

To be able to link your AdSense to your Analytics account, a few requirements should be met. These include:

1. You have to have your own Google AdSense account and be registered as an AdSense publisher.
2. You have to have a Google analytics account for all of your sites. They should also host Google ads on them.
3. Although optional, your website has to generate enough traffic and be worth optimizing. This is why most of the developers who link their AdSense with their Analytics accounts are usually the ones who have established their websites for quite some time and are looking to take advantage of linking both accounts for additional revenue.

The Benefits of Integrating Your AdSense and Analytics Accounts

The integration you will make between these two accounts can provide you with extra information which can be valuable in adjusting your strategies with your SEO process. If your website has just been set up, the info provided by the integration may not be as valuable since yours still lack the amount of traffic needed to come up with useful conclusions. This integration is usually beneficial for established sites and can increase customer traffic and AdSense revenue at the same time.

This process can also bring about answers to some simple but important questions with regards to your SEO processes. It can give your specific data on which part of your site generates the most revenue and which parts are outputting dismal results. In this way you can readjust the said parts to be able to make all of them successful in generating revenue. You may have an elaborate plan on paper but sometimes this does not translate into the actual world. The combination of AdSense and Analytics provides you information to be able to guide you accordingly in moving forward with your SEO strategies.

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Increase Adsense CPM/CPC

Recently one of my reader asked a question about the CPC he receives for each click from adsense. He is getting around 0.01$ per click (yes, its very low). He asked me to check his blog for some suggestions. I found out the possible reasons for low CPC. In this post, let me explain simple tips on how to increase Adsense CPC.

What is Adsense CPC?

CPC is ‘Cost Per Click’ in average. Let’s say, you get 0.02$ for one click and 1$ for another click, so your average CPC is (0.02$ + 1$ )/2 =  0.51$. CPC is a another factor in Adsense to decide the performance along with eCPM (Effective Cost Per Mile) and CTR (Click Through Rate).

You must try the possible methods to increase the CPC in Adsense to maximize the revenue. Increasing the CTR also will help, but when CPC is low with high CTR, still there will be less earnings.

For example, instead of getting 10 clicks at 0.02$ CPC ( 10 x 0.02$ = 0.2$), try to get 2 clicks at 0.50$ CPC which is 2 x 0.50$ = 1$, much better isn’t it?. So, your CTR is less ( 10 to 2), but final earning is much better ( 0.2$ to 1$) because of good CPC ( 0.02$ to 0.5$). I hope you got my point.

Monitor your Higher CTR Ad with Custom Channels:-

Channels are very important here. This gives the clear idea of which Ad slot is performing well, measure CPC, eCPM , CTR and earnings of particular ad block.Create custom channels for each ad slot in your blog and monitor the performance for  two weeks.

How this helps in increasing Adsense CPC?

• Remove the low performing Ad slot from your blog ( Decide by CTR and final earnings) for testing purpose. Now, Google may serve better ads to other two ad slots which is performing well, so your earnings will increase.

Before creating your custom channels, you may want to take some time to consider how channels can best be used on your site. Think about which metrics you would like to track - are you looking to compare performance of various ad layouts, or do you want to find out which groups of pages are generating the most clicks? When creating custom channels, we suggest that you use descriptive names for each channel, so that they are easily identifiable in your reports.

Once you've decided how you're going to use custom channels, there are two steps to creating them: first, the creation of the custom channel name; and second, adding the channel-specific code to your webpages.

To create a new custom channel name:

1. Log in to your account at https://www.google.com/adsense
2. From the links below the AdSense Setup tab, click Channels
3. Choose the appropriate product sub-tab and click the Custom Channels link
4. On the resulting page, enter a name that will help you to identify this channel later. For example, carpages or blue_skyscrapers. You can also check the targeting checkbox to have this custom channel displayed to advertisers as a targetable ad placement. If you choose to do so, you'll need to enter additional details. If not, simply continue to create a custom channel for tracking purposes only.
5. Click Add channel. Your new channel will be added to the Active Channels list.

To add the channel-specific code to your page:

1. Click the AdSense Setup page and choose the appropriate product. After choosing your ad type, format, and colors, select up to five custom channels from the Channel list by clicking the add>> link. Then click Continue.
2. Copy-and-paste the ad layout code into your webpages. The channel identifier within your code will track performance on these pages.

To track a page using a different custom channel, you'll need to update the code on that page. You can also remove all channel tracking from a page by generating ad code that specifies No channel selection and replacing it on your pages

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36 RSS Feed Distributions To Promote Your Site

Many website owners, especially bloggers utilize RSS feeds to distribute their content. For those that use Feedburner, you’ve probably already chosen a few services to further publicize your feeds.

But there are also a number of additional directories available to further promote RSS feeds to help you increase visitor numbers. I found a list of RSS Directories supplied on DotSaucethrough a post on Money Making Scoop. The original list is a few months old and include a few urls that no longer work. So I poked around and pulled 36 of the 55 RSS Directories which are functional and easiest to submit, including an addition of my own: Blog Burst.

These RSS directories receive visitors and submissions fairly frequently. I highly recommend checking out #36, Blog Burst. Feeds are manually approved and any blog accepted should receive quality traffic through this service, as some of their clients include Reuters and USA Today.

1. FeedFury
2. FeedBomb
3. Plazoo
4. RSS Micro
5. 2RSS
6. FeedsFarm
7. RSS Feeds
8. Feeds4all
9. Postami
10. Feedest
11. MySpace RSS
12. DaytimeNews
13. RSS Feeds Submission
14. MillionRSS
15. Yahoo RSS
16. More News
17. Find RSS
18. Feed Base
19. RSS Motron
20. Octora
21. Blog Digger
22. Feed 24
23. Findory
24. Feed Boy
25. Chordata
26. Golden Feed
27. Read A Blog
28. Newgie
29. Jordo Media RSS
30. RSS Network
31. Ice Rocket
32. Blog Pulse
33. Feeds2Read
34. Feed Shark
35. Feed Plex
36. Blog Burst

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SEO Strategy: 5 SEO Tips to learn from Popular blogs

What are the SEO strategies, if at all, followed by popular blogs ? Do they give importance to SEO ? If they do, are there anything to learn from it ? Is it different from the regular basic SEO ? Let’s find out if we have answers for the questions above.

Do popular blogs have to follow SEO in the first place ?

One argument I’ve repeatedly come across is that if your blog is popular, then you don’t need to really work on the SEO part. Very fair observation that but I can’t completely agree, though I’d love to. The reason is that this is a chicken-egg problem. Do you have to first do SEO and then get the site popular, or get the site popular first then do the SEO.

In my opinion, SEO comes first irrespective of whether you’re popular or not. SEO is one of the basic foundations of a website and I can’t think of a reason why it should be ignored. Anyways, the fact is that many popular blogs, while they want to focus more on content, the SEO basics are well taken care of. Let’s dig deeper.

1. Healthy Publishing frequency

One of the major signals to Google, about the authority f your blog is higher publishing frequency. If your blog can churn out 25 quality post a day, that’s no amateur blog. Note that the number is not the sole factor here but the quality factor of each of them. There are several “splogs” out there that copy content from popular blogs from their RSS feeds. But none of them can be counted as “authoritative” as their content is copied and duplicate.

If an upcoming blog, can match up to the biggies with good publishing frequency and original content, then you automatically gets upped to a better authority/trust level with Google.

2. Efficient Interlinking

If you look at any popular blog out there, you’ll see that most of them rely heavily on keyword based interlinking. This means that a clever strategy is behind the whole scene. Interlinking can be done in many ways. From simple “Read more” links to proper keyword based deep linking. The idea is to use the homepage PageRank of the website and leverage it onto inside pages, interlinking them with well targeted keywords.

3. Getting the basics right

The crux of the matter is that with all that overload of content coming in, its impossible to always check for keyword densities and keyword research indexes. Instead, the way out is to create a good basic foundation built strong on SEO and then let everything else fall into place by itself. Many of the popular blogs have the basic SEO metrics covered well in advance even before going full swing with their content. Good amount of time spent building a solid foundation based on SEO is worth all the time you’d spent on it later.

4. No unnecessary focus on keywords

If you watch closely, unlike SEOs who sometimes appear to others as a little too obsessive about keywords, popular blogs does not really focus much on the keywords to the extend of repeating them unnecessarily for the sake of keyword density. The content is unique, rich and social media friendly, not entirely SEO friendly. Even if the authors wanted to, not all the time could they do an SEO formula check on articles. So beyond the basic title/headline optimization I cannot see a scope for detailed keyword analysis or focus.

5. Efficient control of Crawlable space

As a part of getting the basics right, content focused blogs has a huge challenge in front of them, of managing the bots. As important as creating search engine friendly content, is important to manage the bots and controlling them into crawling certain spaces while clearing out others. Webmasters essentially has to have a good grasp about what part of their website is important and what not. If that sounds rude, what part is search engine material and what not. So to enable the bots to crawl those pages/part of the site that’s search engine material, its essential to control them using advanced SEO tool such as Robots.txt files, Nofollow/NoIndex tags etc.

Summary

Essentially, the idea is that popular or not, you need to have the SEO basics in place to build a website, and as and when your blog gets popular, there might be restrictions to the possibility of going into details of keyword research and competition. But the fact is that if you have a good sound SEO foundation, then things will fall into place with the content building in on top of everything. However, the focus should be on building authority and trust with Google with popular, shareable and quality content.

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