Choose a Template that Helps Your Readers!

Make sure your template makes it easy for your readers to:

1. View hyperlinks.

People generally associate underlined blue words with hyperlinks. So you might want to make sure your template has this or allows you to change this option.

But you don't have to stick to this guideline - as long as you don't deviate so far that people have no idea it's a hyperlink.

Generally stay away from light colors and dull colors - you want people to be able to tell right away that it's a hyperlink.

For example on CB Blog Success the hyperlinks are red against a white background and very easy to see!

Oh and if your template does not underline the hyperlink you may want to change templates because less people recognize non-underlined words as hyperlinks.

2. Background color + text color

Make sure this combo is literally easy on the eyes. If it's hard to read then you may lose readers as a result.

3. Font Size.

Although many sites ascribe to font size 12 as it looks professional considering the eyesight impairment of many adults I suggest a slightly larger font size such as 14 pt or 16 pt.

That's it for now if I come up with any more tips I'll create another posting!

Take care,
CB Webmaster

P.S. I just came across the criteria Bloggy Award uses for picking out the best blogs and it actually corresponds to some of the things I listed above so I thought you might want to check it out.

Link showing up as code?

Here's 3 Easy Steps to correct that error:

1. Make sure there are no double spaces in how your hyperlink appears in your post edit window - take them out and your link should work correctly.

2. Make sure your code is complete. It should have a < at the beginning and end >

Also it needs to have quotes around the entire url:

<a href="http://cbblogsuccess.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-create-hyperlinks-in-your-blog.html">How to Hyperlink</a>

3. Make sure you have an end tag.

If you've typed it in like this:

<a href="http://cbblogsuccess.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-create-hyperlinks-in-your-blog.html">How to Hyperlink <- you're missing the end tag:

</a>


Simple works,
CB Webmaster

Save Yourself Time!

Menial tasks got that name for a reason - that's why it helps if you get them out of the way every time you post a blog posting.

Trust me if you don't they'll accumulate over time and you'll feel so overwhelmed it's unlikely you'll go back and do your essential housecleaning!

So here's some things you should do after you publish a post:

1. Label it - for the love of God do this please!

2. Title it - I cringe at the very thought that you aren't doing this!

3. Add hyperlinks - click here for my post on what to hyperlink.

4. Check your Hyperlinks - make sure they actually work!

5. Proofread - your and you're are not the same! Accuracy is a nice quality you can give to your readers for free!

6. Hyperlink your signature - I just have this code in a text file so I can copy it whenever I'm posting!

7. Backup your post. That means copying and pasting it in its entirety (hyperlinks HTML code and all!) to a text file on your computer! That way you won't end up flipping out in the event that your blog posting one day just ups and disappears! Just think if you do this now then you won't end up crying into your cheerios about how you've lost your baby! By the way blogger.com actually offers its bloggers a way to Backup their entire Blog! I haven't tried this yet but when I do I'll let you know if it works.

8. Ping Your Posts - well even I'm guilty of forgetting to do this one! But it's essential because it's basically how the search engines and RSS Feeds know that you've created new posts on your blog.

Think about how many thousands of blogs are out there that are outdated - well if you are keeping yours up to date you might as well get credit (and readers) to your blog! Here's a link to a site that submits the ping for your blogs

Personally I could really stand to find an excellent free automatic ping service because at Chatblog I have to ping over 50 blogs and that's just tooooooo much upkeep for me! But I guess if you have only one blog it's not that big of deal to enter your URL in a ping site every time you update your blog.

Though I have to think even you could stand from an automatic submission on your behalf - sign up once and bam it does the work for you! lol! Well I can dream, right? Heck, if you know of any free automatic ping services tell me about it so I can share it with all our bloggers! Thanks!

Well that's all I can think of right now, if I come up with any more I'll make a Part 2 for this post. Oh and if you can think of any I missed let me know!

Take care,
CB Webmaster

P.S. In case you're wondering - keeping it clean isn't only for your readers - it is for your ability to retain readers, gain new readers, keep your blog improving its rating, and increase your blog's success. Maintaining high quality is one of the best self-promoting things you can do for your blog!

Your Blog Signature

I've always heard people say to create a signature to use whenever you write anywhere on the web. They say it should include a URL to your webpage and any contact information you wish to share.

Well I've got an even better idea than this - create a hypertext link OF your signature.

If you look at the bottom of all my postings you'll see I sign it
CB Webmaster

This allows anyone to click on it and go directly to my profile where they can find out more about me and invariably about my website Chatblog all also check out links for all CB Blogs!

Here's the actual HTML code:

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/yourprofile">Your Signature</a>


Go here to learn more about how to make a hyperlink.

Signing off,
CB Webmaster

The Importance of Linking Your Blog Posts!

Why should I link to my other blog postings within another blog post?

If you look at your blog you'll see all your current blog postings are neatly displayed sequentially in the order you wrote them and people can easily make the connections between each post.

But when the posts get individually archived they are no longer within the context of the preceding and following posts.

That means the posts that have relevant information in them will not be viewed alongside your post in the long run.

There are 4 quick ways to rectify this problem:

1. Hyperlink your relevant posts within the blog post.

2. Create a label for the post.

3. Create a blog just for your best posts!

4. And always always hyperlink to your profile through your signature.

You can do any or all of the above. I personally do all of the above to make it that much easier for my readers to locate relevant information in a snap!

Adding hyperlinks to your other posts is also important because:

1. You're going to get new readers who have not read those old posts.

2. You're going to get readers who may end up at your site by coming directly to that posting and by linking to your other posts they can see that you have a collection of high quality posts and will then want to subscribe to your Rss Feed.


Ever keeping the readers in mind,
CB Webmaster

P.S. Check out my other blog postings on profiles:
Do I really need a Profile?
Create a Great Blogger.com Profile

Deciding What to Hyperlink

Let's say you write a 6 paragraph post with each paragraph being 5 sentences long. That's approximately 275 words. So you don't want to overdo it with the hypertext. So how do you choose which words/phrases to link to?

I do it like this:

1. Provide hyperlinks to any blog postings/articles that inspired me to write the post. Give credit where it's due.

2. Locate any words/phrases that refer to another posting I made and link to those postings. To find out why read this post.

3. Select interesting concepts that not everybody may be familiar with and link it to the definition of it on wikipedia or an interesting article on the topic.

4. And always always hyperlink to your profile through your signature.

How to Create Hyperlinks in Your Blog Postings!

Wait a minute what the heck are hyperlinks? It just means instead of people having to look at unsightly long urls you can hide those and just show the name of the link.

So you don't need to have any HTML experience to do this - you just need to know the exact HTML code.

What's an HTML code? You do not need to know this - trust me (but if you really wanna know then click here).

Just enter this code in to your blog posting and it will do the "magic" for you. Of course that's assuming your blog host allows hypertext markups - if you're using blogger.com they do!

If you're not using blogger.com and your host doesn't allow hypertext you can easily start your blog in blogger.com in less than 5 minutes if you really want to. Or you can just join Chatblog and we'll set up your blog for you for free!!!

First things first, see if there is any icon on your blog posting screen that says "insert link" when you move your mouse pointer over it - it should be right around the options to Bold and Italicize text. If you do great! Click on it.

If nothing happens you'll notice at the top of your web browser a note asking for your permission to open a window. Click on it and select that option that says you want to grant permission.

Then click on the icon again and a window should pop up with a space to copy and paste a URL. Just paste the URL that you want hyperlinked into that pop-up box, then click OK. This is what should appear next:

< a href="http://urlnameyoutyped.com">< /a>

Now all you have to do is enter a title for this link right before the < /a>

Here's an example:

< a href="http://url.com/long/isok.html">Title of Link< /a>

That's it! Voila! You're done! Check it out! And you'll see the text is highlighted and when you click on it it goes to the website you wanted! Yippee!!!

In the event that your blog host does not have an icon you can still do this don't worry! Just copy and paste the following HTML Code into your blog posting and enter the actual url and link title:

< a href="http://"> < /a>

Just remember to put the link title before < /a> for the link to work properly!

Please note in reality there should not be any space between the bracket and the letter.

For these html codes (which are normally hidden in web pages) to appear I had to leave a space with these brackets:

< a href

< /a>

So make sure when you copy and paste the HTML code to remove those spaces. If you have any questions feel free to email me.

That's all there is to it!

So why not try it right now?


Looking forward to your success,
CB Webmaster