Menu Tabs

Thursday 8 July 2010

Beginning Blogging 3. set up those settings.

This post is entirely dedicated to setting up your settings for your blog on Blogger. As these are fairly comprehensive I will try to be as detailed as I possibly can.

Firstly access your blogger dashboard and then click on Settings, where you will find several different tabs running across the top of the page consisting of the following, Basic, Publishing, Formatting, Comments, Archiving , Site Feed, Email & Mobile,Open ID and Permissions. Let’s work our way through the most important of these tabs.

Basic.

Basic Settings

This page is divided into several different headings the first being Blog Tools where you can import a blog, Export a blog or Delete a Blogger blog. NOTE. You are only allowed to import posts from a previously exported Blogger blog.

Next comes the title of your blog post which you can change here and this is followed by Description where you can include a short summary of what your blog is all about. You are then asked if you wish to add your blog to Blogger.com where it will be added to the Homepage, Blogger Play and Next Blog. If you wish for maximum display so that other users can find your blog easily, its best to have this set to Yes. However, if you choose No, it will still be discoverable on the Internet. 

In the same vein, the following choice of Let search engines find your blog? is also about being easily findable and if you select Yes your blog will be included in Google Blog search and also ping Weblogs.com. If you decide to choose No as your choice, your blog will not be searchable by search engines.

Show Quick Editing includes being able to edit a post with one click, Show Email Post links will allow your visitors to email posts from your blog and Adult content will enable a warning message on your blog for your readers if Yes is selected.

Global Settings

These settings are applied to all your blogs on Blogger if you have more than one. Select post editor allows you to choose between the updated editor (you can find out more about the new editor from HERE) , the old editor or to hide compose mode, and lastly you can choose to enable or disable transliteration for your blog with a choice of languages.  When you have finished, click on Save Settings.

I won’t cover the Publishing tab here as the default setting will be fine for the majority of users, and instead I’ll move on to the Formatting tab.

Formatting.

Formatting

Beginning at the top of this page, you are asked to choose how many posts to show on your main (HOME) page and you can choose between either posts or days.  Next you can decide how you want the date of your posts to be displayed above each published post and also how you want the date to appear for any older posts in the sidebar. Next you can your choose how you want your time to display, set your time zone for your blog posts and also set up your preferred language and how you wish the online editor to convert any line breaks. Next comes your choice to show the Title field and any Link fields inside your posts, to enable or not any Float Alignment and also include a Post Template in each blog post. When you have completed these settings, click on Save Settings. NOTE. Most of these settings can be left at their defaults for most users, and most will probably not need to alter them or use them.

Comments.

Settings for comments

Next we arrive at the Comments tab and page. Here you can choose between hiding your comments (which doesn’t delete any comments made) or showing them. This is followed by the setting for who exactly can comment on your blog and allows you to choose between Anyone (which includes Anonymous users) Registered users (including OpenID users) Users who have a Google account or lastly only members of this blog.  Next you can decide exactly where you want the comment area to appear on your blog page, either full page, in a pop up window or embedded below the actual post. You can also choose whether or not your new posts have comments enabled, whether to show or hide any Backlinks (if you are not sure what a Backlink is, then click on Learn More to find out more information.) Next you can choose which of your posts have backlinks and also set  the Comments Timestamp format.

Perhaps one of the most important areas to most users is next, Comment moderation, and here you can choose to set Comment moderation at Always, Only on posts older than (you can set the days here) or Never. You will receive an email if any non-member leaves a comment and you can fill in an email address in the box where you wish to receive these review comments notifications.  You can also choose whether or not your visitor have to fill in a Word verification (Captcha) before their comment will be accepted and this feature is of course included in order to cut down on spam comments.  If you are the author of the blog, you will not be asked to fill in a Captcha when you make a reply to someone’s comment.

Next you can choose whether or not to display visitors profile images when they comment and in addition you can also choose up to ten email addresses to  receive a notification  whenever someone leaves a comment on your blog. When completed, click on Save Settings.

Archiving

Most users can leave this tab setting alone as the default settings will suit the majority of  users, but if you wish your posts to be archived more frequently then you have the choice between No Archive, Daily, Weekly and the default Monthly. Enable post pages is again best left set at the default setting of  Yes.

Site Feed.

Again, the majority of users will not need to alter this tab and it can be left at the default settings.

Email & Mobile.

This tab allows you to set up to ten Email addresses which will receive an email every time  you publish a post to your blog. This is followed by Posting Options where you can (by setting up a secret word to insert into a blogger email address) the ability to email a post to your blog and in addition you have the choice to Publish those emails immediately or save them as a draft post to edit online later. You can also add a mobile device which you can then use to post to your blog. (If you need to know more information about Mobile Devices, then simply click on Learn more about mobile devices.)

Once completed, click on Save Settings.

Open ID.

The Open ID tab simply shows you your OpenID that can be used to sign into other sites that allow OpenID. You can also allow other OpenID users to comment on your posts.

Permissions.

Permissions

On the permissions page, you can set up who can also post to your blog (Authors) and also who is allowed to read your blog. You can choose either Anybody, Only people I choose or lastly Only blog owners. Your blog is set at Anybody by default.

That ends setting up the Settings area of Blogger. Quite comprehensive in nature I think you will agree.  Next post I will work through Design where we will Add some Gadgets to our Page Elements, move them around the page and take a quick look at the new Template Designer.

TG

4 comments:

  1. Excellent, technogran, just excellent. I actually had no idea about the settings page and you have explained it perfectly. Again, thanks a million :D

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  2. That's okay JennyD glad to be of help. My next post will be later today hopefully if I get time.

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  3. A lot of good stuff here, TG! I already had my settings tweaked the way I wanted but walking through them again as I read your blog assures me that I didn't miss anything.

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  4. Thanks virginia, hope you keep on reading my how-to's in case there is anything you have missed.

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