Tips on Tuesday: Blogger Tips

I've been asked a few times about sharing some of my favorite tips & tricks with everyone. So I figured I would create "Tips on Tuesdays". Since so much of what I've learned this past week is fresh on my mind I thought our first TOT post would be about Blogger (aka Blogspot). 

Tip #1 - This one is for my fellow "blogger/blogspot" friends - if you have an older blog you may not be aware that Blogger has updated their editor and it has some great features. You simply need go to the "settings" tab of your blog and scroll down to the bottom of the page until you find this:  

If you still have "Old Editor" marked, then you'll need to change it to Updated Editor. Now that you've changed you will notice it's much easier to place your photos and adjust their size and alignment while making your blog post. I'm sure there are other changes, but that's the most obvious for me.

Tip #2 - This might seem obvious to many of you, but it's a nice reminder. Try adding a hyperlink to your photos. I always add text that hyperlinks back to where I found the photo, but it would save me time to just hyperlink the photo. Just highlight your photo and click on the "link" button and add the URL. Consider adding a caption too...a fun feature available with the help of Tip #3.

Tip #3 - And have you heard of "BLOGGER in DRAFT" yet? You might have seen it when you're on your Dashboard. Try it out...it's amazing and so much fun to use. I loved that I could easily adjust the width of my blog, the columns and number of columns much easier then the old html code. I loved that you can easily create your backgrounds and color layout of your blog. I would recommend playing around with it on a sample blog first though (unlike me)...that way you won't mess up your blog. Trust me though, after playing in Draft...you will never go back!!

Post Edit: Found this great video that shows you everything I was trying to explain about Blogger in Draft.

Tip #4 - For my friends that hope to increase their readship for one reason or another I (an many others) would strongly suggest that you change your blog from a "name.blogspot.com" to just a "name.com". It's easier for people to remember and helps you with your blog ranking. You can do this right inside of Blogger, select settings and then Publishing. For only $10, blogger will register your domain through godaddy.com. In fact, I just changed mine to allreddesign.net and although allreddesign.blogspot.com will still work, it will be much easier to pass along the shorter version when telling people about it!