Where could I find Edit Template in new interface of Blogger

Where is the Edit template in the New Interface of Blogger!
Blogger has just changed to new interface in content management. I think it is too easy for you to get well with how to publish new posts, tag post, ... but users who used to add code to blogger template like me won't find where is the edit template box to add/remove code to. What happen if we want to add facebook share button, add relate posts, ...
This post for newbie and who still couldn't find where is it like me!

Wordpress Plugins : How to Display Most Viewed Popular Posts In Your Wordpress Blog?

Tags: SEO, Wordpress, Blogger, Most Viewed, Widgets.

Why to use Wordpress Popular Posts Plugin in a Wordpress blog? It is known fact that most of the visitors to a website like to know what is popular on that site. If you have a website with wordpress blog hosting on that and you want to show the most popular posts on that blog you have plenty of choices. There are many plugins for wordpress that show the popular content of your wordpress blog. Showing popular posts on every post and page of your wordpress blog will also improve the search engine ranking for them.

How to show these popular posts on your wordpress blog? Here is a list of few best wordpress plugins which help you display the popular content.

1. WordPress Popular Posts (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/)

This is one of the best and most downloaded popular posts plugin for wordpress. This plugin can be utilized most effectively on the wordpress version 2.8 or later. This plugin must be added in some widget area to show the popular posts in that area. You will have plenty of options to filter the popular posts also like Time Range, Sort posts by views(Total and Ave. daily), dispaly post thumbnail, etc.

2. WordPress.com Popular Posts (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpresscom-popular-posts/)

This is another most downloaded popular posts plugin. This plugin displays the popular posts in widget area based on most viewed post on the wordpress blog.

3. Most Popular Posts (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/most-popular-posts/)

This is a plugin which displays popular posts based on most commented posts i.e, it shows all the top commented posts in the widget area where you add this plugin. You can also choose to exclude posts from certain categories in the popular posts display using this plugin.

4. Ranged Popular Posts (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ranged-popular-posts/)

This plug also displays popular posts on wordpress blog purely based on the number of comments on each post. Which ever the post has most comments will be kept on the top of the popular list. You can specify certain time range also to consider posts in the popular list with this plugin.

There are some other plugins to display popular list but above are the most used by bloggers. To use any of above wordpress plugins in your blog you must add it through plugins->Add New from dashboard area and search using the name of the plugin and install them automatically. Then activate them and you can see them displayed in the available widgets list. Simply add the popular posts widget you just added to the widget area like sidebar or footer. Widget areas must be supported by your theme. Choose Best Wordpress Themes which by default will have widget areas.

Best Ways To Get Back Links To Your Webpages

tags: SEO, Blogger, Backlink,

I dont need to explain much about back links or inbound links which are the key elements to improve search traffic to the webpages. The number of back links you get to a webpage the number of chances you gain to improve search engine results. How to get backlinks to a webpage is a big question for many authors. It is not at all a big task and every one know how to get back links to a webpage but few only will implement practically.

There are many sources to get back links to a website like Online Directory Submission, Guest Blogging and others but they give back links only to the website but not individual webpages. Here I am listing the best ways to get backlinks to your webpages.

Tweets.
When you finish publishing a webpage the first thing you must consider to get back links is tweeting. When you tweet your webpage to twitter, there are many websites which reflect your twitter profile and the links you submitted on their webpages. For example if you tweet using retweet button of tweetmeme your link will be added to tweetmeme and you will get a back link instantly . And immedeately that link will be reflected on many other sites like twitiq.com and topsy.com and you will get backlinks from those websites too. So never forget to tweet you webpage after publishing.

Social Networking
Use as many social networking sites as possible and submit your webpage to sites like digg.com, mixx.com, propeller.com, stumbleupon.com, diigo.com, vox.com, spurl.com, reddit.com, icerocket.com and such other sites. They create a back link instantly for your webpage and creates chances to build traffic too. If your webpage is liked by users in any social network like digg.com they will just vote them to go up on to the top pages of that website. Once if you get such back link you will see a drastic change search engine traffic to your webpage.

Free Forums
Consider free forums like www.warriorforum.com, bzimage.org and www.seo-news.com also which are the major sources to get backlinks. Participating actively on free forums, open topics related to your webpage and linking to your page on that forum will give relevant backlinks to your webpage. You can consider forum websites like forums.digitalpoint.com to post relevant topics and link your webpage from them.

Free Classifieds
Free classifies are also big sources for getting back links to your webpages. There are many classifieds sites who offer posting classifieds for free and also offer a backlink from there to a webpage. Just create 4 to 5 different short posts to your webpage and post them as classifieds in those sites which offer backlinks to your webpages. Consider sites like dragginclassifieds.com which show recent posts and recently viewed posts which help your classified to be appeared on top page when ever some one visits your classified.

Most of them who read this hub knows that these are the best ways to build backlinks to the webbpages but in practical they don't implement. They just neglect considering these ways. But I consider using these ways to get backlinks and I get enough results by implementing these techniques. You too try implementing these once and see how easy is it to get back links.

How to keep your blog Alive during Long vacation

Tags: SEO, Blogger, Tips.

Planning to go on a long vacation with family? Have you ensured your blog won't go on vacation with you? Sometimes, we tend to procrastinate (haven't you ever?) even in the most favorable conditions and a long vacation can really trigger this deadly virus within you, unless you do the preparation in advance. Careful planning can keep your blog alive even during considerably long vacations. All you need is a meticulous plan to place everything in the right place.

Schedule beforehand - Unless you explicitly declare your non-availability during vacations, you can't afford post-less weeks without intimating the same to your subscriber base. The larger your subscriber base, greater is the risk of losing your credibility if you keep your blog starved for a long time. It's better to write some posts in advance and schedule it for the vacation time. You can reduce of the size of the posts as well as the frequency to speed up the scheduling process.

Invite guest posts - This is the second best option to fill your editorial calendar with content from your peers and readers. Gently push a message through popular social media platforms (Facebook, twitter) asking for guest posts. You can send direct message or email to some of the close blogging peers asking to contribute during your vacation.

Repurpose old content - This is an art that comes handy in such situations. It's like packing the old wine in a new bottle. Pick some of the least performing posts from your archive and create a fresh one improving on the old version adding some more spice to it. It's like adding bells and whistles to the old car and presenting it with new looks to the buyers. Needless to say, this method speeds up the post writing process and helps you in filling your editorial calendar at a much faster pace.

Interview peers - Who doesn't like to get interviewed and featured in front of qualified traffic? Quickly jot down a set of questions and create 4-5 different sets. Mail them to your network (selective peers), sit back and relax. In a day or two, you'll receive completed questionnaires ready to be scheduled. Just be careful not to post them in quick succession.

Miscellaneous tips for blogging on the go
Here are some essentials guidelines to make your routine blogging tasks as smooth as if you're doing them from your usual blogging workplace.

• Don't forget to pack your blogging gadgets (laptop, smartphone and tablet) loaded with all the essential software.
• Make sure you've turned off automatic software updates; else you may get a hefty bill (in case of metered broadband) from your hotel.
• Blog about your entire day spent with the local people/culture and co-relate it with your blogging activities.
• Switch-off comment notifications while you're on the move. Don't forget to enable them when you're back in your hotel room.
• Avoid geo-tagging your social networks updates during vacations.
• Nothing's better than editing and posting the drafts while sipping coffee in a local cafe.
• Visit a local bookstore and you're guaranteed come out with dozens of new ideas to post during your long vacation.

What other tips you'd like to share with us for painless blogging during travel? Has it ever happened that you've canceled your trip merely because you couldn't keep up with your blogging routine? Share your thoughts and comments below!

Five best SEO Tips for Blogger

Tags: SEO, Blogger, Tips.

Web content creation and search engine optimization go hand in hand. You have great writing skills, but still wondering why your content is not getting higher ranks in SERP's? Maybe you are not paying attention to some basic SEO techniques that can help your blog posts achieve good ranks in relevant search results. Let's see some basic SEO tweaks, that are easy to implement and can do wonders in optimizing your blog's content for search engines.

Use Dashes Instead Of Underscores

If is often debated whether we should use dashes or underscores in the url. Everyone has it's own opinion and generally people end the debate by saying "It's a matter of personal preference, both do well". Well, here's what Matt Cutts has to say about it...

So if you have a url like word1_word2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 (which almost never happens). If you have a url like word1-word2, that page can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2″. That’s why I would always choose dashes instead of underscores. To answer a common question, Google doesn’t algorithmically penalize for dashes in the url. Of course I can only speak for Google, not other search engines.

We can see, he clearly states the advantage of using dashes over underscores. This fact is further supported by the default url structure in Wordpress, Blogger and all other major blogging platforms. All of them automatically use dashes instead of underscores.

Optimizing Pics (SEO Friendly Images)

Use of illustrations in blog posts is quite common, and almost all of us use them every now and then to make the posts more sticky and readable. If we are using images in our posts, we must also know how to make them SEO friendly to get extra traffic from search engines. If optimized correctly, we can get very good traffic through 'Google Image Search'. To clearly understand this optimization process, lets take the example of an image shown below.

1. Naming Files Correctly

Choosing a file name that correctly describes the context of the image makes it easy for the indexing bots to categorize it in a better way. Wrong way to name the above image is IMG02056.jpg.

How about ball.jpg?
Hey, that's obvious buddy.

What if we name it blue-ball?
That's better.

And how about plastic-blue-ball?
Hah, that's excellent...

2. Descriptive Tag

Let's take a look at the HTML code, that we use in embedding the images in blog posts.

i) Bad Approach

<img src=/images/IMAGE02056.jpg"/>

ii) Better Way

<img src=/images/blue-ball.jpg" alt="Blue ball"/>

iii) Best Way

<img src=/images/plastic-blue-ball.jpg" alt="An air filled plastic blue ball"/>

Note the descriptive alt tag, that will help in better categorization of the image while indexing will be done by various search engine bots. This will increase the chances of this image being shown in relevant image search.

Wrapping Contextual Text Around The Image

Make sure you embed the image right in the middle of the related content, with relevant titles and descriptive text. This will further help the bots to better categorize and index the image.

Smart Anchor Text

Linking out to resources and information is an essential ingredient of any blog post. Whether we are linking to any external blog/website or doing cross-linking (internal linking) of posts, choosing a proper anchor text increases the relevance of the content to which it is referring. Proper anchor text helps in achieving better ranking in SERP's and is one of the most important part of on-page optimization process. Here is an example that shows proper implementation of anchor texts.

First take a look at this example with poor anchor text as well as redundant text.

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Now the same paragraph revised with optimized anchor text and stripped redundant text.

Blogger has introduced a new blog exporting feature to easily export a blog with minimum efforts.

In the first example, not only text is redundant, but the phrase that we have selected for the anchor text has no relevance to the post to which it is referring. On the other hand, in the second example we have stripped off the redundant text and have chosen a relevant phrase that accurately define the content of the page to which it is going to refer.

Optimized Permalink Structure

An optimized permalink format helps in boosting the rank of your posts in search results. Blogger does not allow manual modification of permalink structure, but it has fairly good automated permalink generation system.

On the other hand, Wordpress allows you to modify the permalink structure as per your needs. Not only we can create a global permalink structure, but can also edit the permalink at the post level. By default, Wordpress has a cryptic permalink structure such as http://www.yourblog.com/?p=123. Here post id is included in the URL, giving no indication about the content of the post.

The permalink structure should be such that robots can easily identify the content through it. To change your Wordpress blog permalink structure go to 'Settings -> Permalinks' and click the 'Custom Structure' option.

Fill the following structure tag in the text box to create most search engine friendly URL:

/%postname%/

After completing this setting, the permalink structure will be something like http://www.yourblog.com/seo-tips-for-bloggers, which clearly tells the robots about the content that is associated with this URL.

Create XML Sitemap and robots.txt

Create a robot.txt file to prevent robots crawling useless or duplicate content. You can create this file in a simple text editor and saving it as robots.txt.

Here is a typical robots.txt file with some common entries that indicate those paths that should not be crawled by bots.

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*/feed/$
Disallow: /*/feed/rss/$
Disallow: /*/trackback/$
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /rss/
Disallow: /comments/feed/
Disallow: /page/
Disallow: /date/
Disallow: /comments/

After creating this file, upload it at the root of your blog's domain.

Creating a sitemap ensures that robots can easily understand the structure of your blog and can easily crawl the content. There are many online sitemap generation services that can be used to generate the map. Wordpress bloggers can use the Google sitemap generator plugin to automate the sitemap creation process. After this plugin is installed, every time you will edit or post on your blog, this plugin will automatically update the sitemap.

Related Posts Widget for Blogger with Thumbnails

Tags: Related posts, widgets, blogger, thumbnails.

To make related post just like this blog.! It is easy. Just follow these steps below:


1. First of all Login to your blogger dashboard and navigate to Layout > Edit HTML and check the "Expand Widget Templates" check box

2. Now look for </head> and replace it with:

<!--Related Posts with thumbnails Scripts and Styles Start-->
<!-- remove --><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<style type="text/css">
#related-posts {
float:center;
text-transform:none;
height:100%;
min-height:100%;
padding-top:5px;
padding-left:5px;
}


#related-posts h2{
font-size: 1.6em;
font-weight: bold;
color: black;
font-family: Georgia, &#8220;Times New Roman&#8221;, Times, serif;
margin-bottom: 0.75em;
margin-top: 0em;
padding-top: 0em;
}
#related-posts a{
color:black;
}
#related-posts a:hover{
color:black;
}


#related-posts a:hover {
background-color:#d4eaf2;
}
</style>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var defaultnoimage="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrfa25RAgDStWwPWhRT9mrAXfsjvK_no5aUz9bLQDJR1wERHN4SE69cozLDj9UK-srBK4MAxJkbJyH8QqxhGiOVy1WW4SUfXcBJdKBUQE7lFQxfvfSiYfDuXfj-XmLYzH-44jaRjAdyE/s400/noimage.png";
var maxresults=5;
var splittercolor="#d4eaf2";
var relatedpoststitle="Related Posts";
</script>
<script src='http://blogergadgets.googlecode.com/files/related-posts-with-thumbnails-for-blogger-pro.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<!-- remove --></b:if>
<!--Related Posts with thumbnails Scripts and Styles End-->
</head>

3. Now Find

<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>

OR

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>

Now immediately after any of these lines(whichever you could find) place this code snippet

<!-- Related Posts with Thumbnails Code Start-->
<!-- remove --><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<div id='related-posts'>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast != &quot;true&quot;'>
</b:if>
<script expr:src='&quot;/feeds/posts/default/-/&quot; + data:label.name + &quot;?alt=json-in-script&amp;callback=related_results_labels_thumbs&amp;max-results=6&quot;' type='text/javascript'/></b:loop>
<script type='text/javascript'>
removeRelatedDuplicates_thumbs();
printRelatedLabels_thumbs(&quot;<data:post.url/>&quot;);
</script>
</div><div style='clear:both'/>
<!-- remove --></b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'><b:if cond='data:post.isFirstPost'>
<a href='http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2009/08/related-posts-thumbnails-blogger-widget.html'><img style="border: 0" alt="Related Posts Widget For Blogger with Thumbnails" src="http://image.bloggerplugins.org/blogger-widgets.png" /></a><a href='http://bloggertemplates.bloggerplugins.org/' ><img style="border: 0" alt="Blogger Templates" src="http://image.bloggerplugins.org/blogger-templates.png" /></a>
</b:if></b:if>
<!-- Related Posts with Thumbnails Code End-->

4. You can adjust the maximum number of related posts being displayed by editing this line in the code.

var maxresults=5

5. To edit the title of the widget you can change this line of code

var relatedpoststitle="Related Posts";

6. To change the default thumbnail, you can edit this line of code

var defaultnoimage="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrfa25RAgDStWwPWhRT9mrAXfsjvK_no5aUz9bLQDJR1wERHN4SE69cozLDj9UK-srBK4MAxJkbJyH8QqxhGiOVy1WW4SUfXcBJdKBUQE7lFQxfvfSiYfDuXfj-XmLYzH-44jaRjAdyE/s400/noimage.png";

7. To Change the Colour of the Splitter Line , edit  

var splittercolor="#d4eaf2";

8. How to display the related posts on every page and not only on the post pages?   Just remove the two lines starting with <!-- remove --> from both step 3 and step 2. that is lines

<!-- remove --><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>

<!-- remove --></b:if>