Blogging Tips for MQB bloggers

With the closing  of MyQuiltBlog, I know that several MQB bloggers are new to Blogger, and could use some help.  I’ve put together a few tips of some of the things I’ve learned about Blogger.  Hope this helps!

Pictures
We all love to see your pictures.  If you are having trouble with inserting pictures into Blogger, go to Settings, Basic and find the setting “Select post editor”.  Make sure you select  “updated editor”.  The “old editor” was the source of many frustrations with blogger.  Add pictures the same way you did in MQB.  Upload from your computer or use a URL from a photo you’ve uploaded to Flickr, Photoucket, Webshots, etc.  Just click on insert image icon and upload your photo or URL.  If you upload your photo to Blogger, it stores the photo in Picassa.  Drag the photo to where you want it to appear in your blog.  Click on the photo to see some choices for sizes, centering, etc.

Moving your Blog Posts
If you want to move your blog posts from MQB to Blogger, it is fairly easy.  However, your pictures won’t move with the post.  So, you’ll have to re-add them to Blogger.  To move your blog, open MQB and open the Blogger new post screen in a 2nd window.  Highlight your post in MQB, hold down the CTRL key with the letter C (or use copy) and go to the Blogger post screen and place your cursor in the edit screen and hit CTRL V (or paste)

Blogging
Personally, I think Blogger is a bit limiting with its’ fonts, font sizes, and picture handling.  I love, love, love using my Windows Live Writer for writing my blogs offline (it’s a free download).  I insert photos exactly where I need to see them, a preview shows what it will look like on my blog, and there are lots of fonts and other editing options that Blogger doesn’t offer.  I wrote about this last year, and you can read more about it here.  I also like the way it handles links—it opens the link in a new window so it is easier to come back to my blog to finish reading it. 

Comments
We all love to get comments and want to encourage comments.  Some blogs have comment moderation set so that you don’t see the comments until they are approved.  Others have word verification set for their comments to prevent spammers from commenting.  For me, I prefer to have no word verification and let the user see their comments immediately.  I’ve never had a problem, and figure if I do start having problems, I can always go back to verification.  If you don’t want to have your readers enter the word verification when they make a comment, go to Settings, Comments, and check no for word verification.  Also make sure that “anyone” can comment.  Look at some of the other settings while you are there to see what else you might want to change.

If you don't want any comments on a particular post, you can click post options at the bottom of your post to change the setting for that post.  You can also schedule your post to publish at at specific time.  This is also in post options.


While you’re in the comments settings, I encourage you to use Comment notification email.  This sends you an email whenever someone leaves a comment on your blog.  If the commenter has their email set up on their blog, you can send them an email response to their comment.  I love this feature!  It adds a whole new way to connect to your readers.  You should, however, check the email address before you respond.  Just watch for email addresses that say “noreply-comment@blogger”.  I can’t tell you how many times I sent off a response to someone who left a comment and my response went off into space.  It took me a while to figure that one out!!   

Profile
On your dashboard, you will see a place to Edit your profile.  In there is a box to check for showing your email address.  I highly recommend you check this box. When other bloggers have giveaways on their blogs, they use this to contact you if you have won.   This also lets them help with a question you may have left in a comment, and to respond to a comment you have made on their blog.  If you’re not comfortable giving our your email address, set up a new Gmail or Yahoo email just for this purpose.  Just be sure to check your email.  Also in your profile if you check the box to show the blogs you follow, others will be able to see the blogs you read.  This is a very good way for former MQB bloggers to find some of the “old gang”. Just look and see who others are following or who their followers are.  You’ll find them. Also, make sure you put a picture in your profile.  It makes it easier to identify you in your comments and as a follower.

Google Reader
When I discovered Google Reader, I thought it was the greatest tool for reading blogs.  That usually where I read most blogs because they load faster, and I can read the blogs quicker.  One irritation I have, however, is that some bloggers have their site settings so that you only see part of their blog, and then you have to visit their blog to see the rest of the post.  I must confess that there are many times when I skip those blog posts rather then click through to the blog.  If you want your reader to be able to see your full blog in the Reader, go to Settings, Site Feed, and make sure your Allow Blog Feeds setting says “Full”.  Amy from Amy's Creative Side has a great tip for easier blog reading that lets you use the Next button to go from one blog to another.  You can read about it here. 

That’s all for today.  Don't be afraid to play around with the settings on your blog.  You can't hurt anything and can always change the settings.  Hope you found some useful tips here.  In the next few days, I’ll put together another blog post on blog layout and changing up your blog to make it pretty.  It will give me a good excuse to change my blog layout.

Welcome again, new MQB bloggers.