2010-12-22

Related Posts Widget for Blogger / Blogspot

Now here is wonderful hack for displaying links to related posts beneath each of your blog posts. The related articles are chosen from other posts in that same category/label/tag. With this hack many of your readers will remain on your site for longer periods of time when they see related posts of interest.


Updates:
If your related posts have not been showing up lately: See How to Fix!

Steps for Implementation:
  1. Go to Layout >Edit HTML in your Blogger Dashboard.
  2. Back up your existing Template before making any changes!
  3. Make sure to check the "Expand Widget Templates" box.
  4. Search for the </head> tag.
  5. Add the following code just before the </head> tag.
  6. <style> #related-posts { float : left; width : 540px; margin-top:20px; margin-left : 5px; margin-bottom:20px; font : 11px Verdana; margin-bottom:10px; } #related-posts .widget { list-style-type : none; margin : 5px 0 5px 0; padding : 0; } #related-posts .widget h2, #related-posts h2 { font-size : 20px; font-weight : normal; margin : 5px 7px 0; padding : 0 0 5px; } #related-posts a { text-decoration : none; } #related-posts a:hover { text-decoration : none; } #related-posts ul { border : medium none; margin : 10px; padding : 0; } #related-posts ul li { display : block; background : url("https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaIdEFCjHPf-zIOW8bNn_Wr1-mBHISO1fTi50wsKrcdF4ULHp0Z7eEYmE_qzRHVHoPyTYxnWJM7EaJWN0jIucMSKf9CpqI4ydIte_WWF5uvGK5qEggYZENzLd8hQzZA0gSmbk6KPq8ogA/") no-repeat 0 0; margin : 0; padding-top : 0; padding-right : 0; padding-bottom : 1px; padding-left : 21px; margin-bottom : 5px; line-height : 2em; border-bottom:1px dotted #cccccc; } </style> <script src='http://theblogtemplates.com/scripts/Related_posts_hack.js' type='text/javascript'/>
  7. Now search for <data:post.body/>. In some of the templates this code may look like this
    <div class='post-body>
    or
    <data:post.body/>
  8. Add the following code just beneath the code you just searched for.
    <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
    <div id="related-posts">
    <font face='Arial' size='3'><b>Related Posts : </b></font><font color='#FFFFFF'><b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'><data:label.name/><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != &quot;true&quot;'>,</b:if><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
    <script expr:src='&quot;/feeds/posts/default/-/&quot; + data:label.name + &quot;?alt=json-in-script&amp;callback=related_results_labels&amp;max-results=5&quot;' type='text/javascript'/></b:if></b:loop> </font>
    <script type='text/javascript'> removeRelatedDuplicates(); printRelatedLabels();
    </script>
    </div></b:if>
  9. Now Save your Template and you're done!
Customization
  • In order to change the number of maximum related posts being displayed for each label, search for the code below (within the code given in step 7) and change the number "5" to any desired number.
  • max-results=5

If you have any questions on implementing this hack into your own blog, shoot me a comment and I'll be glad to help!
Make sure to check out our other great Blogger Hacks as well:
Recent Posts Hack with Thumbnails; Recent Comments Hack; Sleek Search Bar

Special thanks to Real Trix!


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Random Posts Widget for Blogger / Blogspot

This widget can definitely bring some excitement to your blogger powered blog. Letting your readers surf your blog to the fullest extent by creating a link to a random post in your blog's sidebar. Besides providing fun for your blog, hopefully your visitors will stay on your site for longer periods of time.


Installation and Customization:

  • Click button below to complete Installation:

  • Once you have installed the widget, you can change the link text. The default value is "View Random Post". To change this, view the code and search for "View Random Post", and change it to any desired text.
Those are all the steps necessary to implement the Random Post Widget to blogger. I hope you and your readers thoroughly enjoy it!


Fixed some codes and now working :-) Here is the main Source

Best SEO Sites for Increased Traffic Tips

As many of you know, Search Engines are the most substantial source of traffic for almost any blog on the web. The blogs without any traffic from Google will never have the chance to be shared with the world. In order to increase your traffic, you must optimize your blog so that Search Engines are attracted to it. Which is also known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
So here is a list of useful SEO sites where you can learn how to harness the power of google :

Courtney Tuttle
Join Courtney's Internet Marketing School and you will definitely gain vital knowledge when it comes to search engine optimization.

The Keyword Academy
This is personally my favorite SEO site run by Courtney Tuttle and Mark Butler. You'll learn more in one of their posts than you will in 50 of Darren Rowse's Posts.

Grizzly's Online Blog
He's got some great strategies for making an income online along with useful SEO tips.

Search Engine Land
Search Engine Land is a hub for news and information about search engine marketing, optimization and how search engines work for searchers.

Daily Blog Tips
Improve your blog with Daily Blog Tips. A fast paced blog featuring articles on blog design, SEO, promotion, monetization and more

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
talk about Google, SEO, and Gadgets. But mostly Google.

SEOmoz
Search Engine Marketing News & Tips

Search Engine Journal

Pronet Advertising
Pronet Advertising is a weblog about Neil Patel's personal experiences in online marketing.

Search Engine Guide
The small business guide to search engine marketing. Articles from the top names in the industry cover topics including SEO, PPC, SEM, blogging, social media, adsense, adwords, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Internet marketing.

Online Marketing Blog
All about the intersection of search engine & social media marketing

Marketing Pilgrim
Andy Beal discusses news from the search engine industry, blogging, rss and other internet marketing.

Search Engine Watch
Search Engine Watch provides news and tips about search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), and searching the Web. We offer daily news & analysis of the search industry, including the latest on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.

Get Elastic
Ecommerce articles on internet retail, online marketing, social media, SEO, and killer ecommerce tips from Elastic Path Software; Featuring the Get Elastic ecommerce podcast - conversations with ecommerce industry insiders.

Web Analytics World
Manoj Jasra's insight on Web Analytics and the Search Marketing Industry. Also including Interviews, Technology Reviews and Podcasts

BlogStorm
Search engine optimization & internet marketing blog

Small Business SEM
Small Business SEM by Matt McGee | SEO and Marketing Discussion for Small Businesses

SEO Scoop
SEO Scoop is a popular search engine optimization blog that focuses on SEO tips, theories and news.

Search Engine Roundtable
Search engine optimization news and resources



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PayPal Donation Button Widget - Make Money


Here is a great way for your readers to reward you for all the hard work and effort you've put into your blog. A PayPal Donation button will allow your readers to easily send you money via PayPal.

PayPal Icons
These icons can be used as your donation button if you choose to customize.


Adding a Paypal Donation Button

Sign into your Paypal account and if you don’t have one you can get a free paypal account here.
  1. Login into your Paypal account with your paypal E-mail address and password:
  2. Click on ‘Merchant Services’ Tab available in the Top Menu
  3. When you scroll down your window, you will see a ‘Donations’ link in the ‘PayPal Website Payments Standard’ heading Section.
  4. Clicking on the ‘Donate’ link will take you a form where you are asked to fill some information’s like Organization name/service, Donation ID (optional).
  5. Click on 'Customize Appearance' in order to use your own image for the button. You may use one of the images above if you like.
  6. After Filing the required information click on ‘Create Button’ link.
  7. Now you will see some HTML Code, copy it

Adding HTML code into Blogger blog:
  1. Sign in into your Blogger Blog and Click on the ‘Layout’ link in your dashboard
  2. Click ‘Add a Gadget’ link and select ‘HTML/JavaScript’ option
  3. Now paste the HTML code that you copied from your Paypal account and save it.
  4. Now open your blog and you will see the ‘Paypal Donate’ button in your blogspot blog sidebar. You can display Donate button wherever you want on your blog like blog Header, footer or its sidebar

Adding HTML code into Wordpress blog:
  1. Login into your Wordpress blog and go to its Dashboard
  2. Click Presentation –> Widgets
  3. Click on the content area in front of ‘Text 1’ widget
  4. Paste your HTML code in the content area available and save changes
  5. Open your Wordpress blog and check donate button will be in your blog sidebar

Wordpress Donations Cloud
This paypal widget is quite useful because it's more than just a button. It allows users to link to their own site when they make a donation. Therefore encouraging your readers to make a donation.


I hope you've found this article to be of great help and I wish all of you much success in your blogging adventures!


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5 Must-Have Gedit Plugins for Programmers

Many users think that gedit – the default text editor for the GNOME desktop environment – is a simple editor that can only do some basic editing. In reality, there is more to gedit than meets the eye. It has many features that makes it a good choice for programmers: syntax highlighting, auto indentation, bracket matching, etc. But perhaps the most important feature of gedit is its powerful plugin system. There are many useful plugins out there for regular users and programmers alike, but in this post I’ll concentrate on 5 gedit plugins that are essential for programmers. I consider them essential because they can greatly increase your programming productivity and make your life easier (well, your programming life at least!).


Gedit comes with several plugins enabled by default (the list of enabled plugins varies from one Linux distribution to another). Additional plugins are available in the gedit-plugins package. In Ubuntu, this package can be easily installed by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install gedit-plugins

To access the list of plugins, select Edit -> Preferences, and then select the Plugins tab. Here, you can enable, disable, configure, and get more info about the available plugins.

1. Snippets

Reduce the amount of typing you have to do by using Snippets, the auto-text insertion tool for gedit. It enables you to store “snippets” (frequently-used pieces of text), and insert them quickly into your file. Insertions can be done using a keyboard shortcut or a “tab trigger“. A tab trigger enables you to type a few characters and then hit the Tab key to insert the entire snippet (e.g. a switch statement or a for loop). The plugin comes with a number of built-in snippets for many programming languages. You can edit them and add your own by selecting Tools -> Manage Snippets.

Snippets Manager

2. External Tools

Regarded by many as the most useful one, External Tools enables you to run any external command or shell script, specifying the keyboard shortcut, the input (if any), and where to display the output. It comes with a couple of useful programs pre-installed: Build, Open terminal here, Remove trailing spaces, and Run command. You can add your own by selecting Tools -> External Tools. For example, I’ve added a tool that invokes the Ruby interpreter on the current file and displays the output in the bottom pane.

Ruby interpreter within External Tools

3. Embedded Terminal

If you are not comfortable with the command line, then you are NOT a real programmer! This plugin adds a full instance of the Bash terminal in the bottom pane of gedit, complete with your modifications.

Embedded Terminal

4. Session Saver

A very useful plugin, especially if you are working on a project requiring multiple files to be open at once. Sessions can be saved and loaded from File -> Saved sessions.

5. Code Comment

Can you remember the last time you edited a source file without commenting at least one line of code? Code Comment enables you to comment/uncomment blocks of code quickly: Ctrl+M to comment and Ctrl+Shift+M to uncomment.

Remember that there are many more gedit plugins, some of which are targeted to a specific language (like Python Console, which adds an interactive Python console to the bottom pane). Feel free to try different plugins and transform gedit into an even more powerful IDE that suites your needs.

What are your favorite gedit plugins that you can’t live without?

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Top Commentators Widget for Blogger

This top commenters widget is a wonderful tool for giving back to your most loyal readers. It's a great way to inspire your constituents to keep making useful comments on your blog. The widget displays links to to the top commentators websites and can easily be implemented in your blog's sidebar.


Features:

  • Calculates the top commentators on your blog based on the last 100 comments.
  • Displays the Commenter's Name with a link to their Site URL.
  • You may also filter your own name so that you will not appear as a top commenter.
  • Choose the number of commenters you wish to display. The default value is 5.
  • This plugin functions differently from the Recent Comments Widget.

Installing the Top Commentators Widget:

When entering your blog's URL make sure to not add the "http://". The URL should be displayed as yourblog.blogspot.com

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502 Twitter Widget Tools, Buttons, and Icons for Engaging your Followers

Twitter is continuing to grow at a most overwhelming rate. As more and more people use twitter...be sure to utilize these twitter resources on your blog or website as a tool to to expand and connect with your twitter community.

Widgets and buttons are a great way to grab your readers attention and hence increase your twitter community. Below you will find links to different sites where you can attain the source code for these widgets and icons. Please enjoy thoroughly!

Twitter Widgets

ReTweet Button
A powerful twitter widget which allows your readers to easily share your blog posts. The button also displays a live count of the amount of times the post has been tweeted! ReTweet allows you to choose from two different sizes of buttons.


TweetMeMe Button
This twitter widget is very similar to the ReTweet Button but is stylized with a green interface.


BackType TweetCount Widget
The widget also counts the number times a certain URL has been tweeted. The great thing about this counter is that you can fully customize it. Choose the background color, border color, text color, etc.


Twittley
Yet another twitter button which displays the number count of tweets in real-time.


TwitterCounter
This widget shows off how many people are following you on twitter. Surely, you'll be able to impress a few tweeters.


TwitterRemote
This widget shows which twitter users recently visited your blog or website.
twitter icon picture

TwitStamp
This badge displays your latest tweet with many different styles to choose from.
twitter icon picture

Chris' Original Twitter Badge
Chris has created a snazzy looking twitter badge which loads in no time.


TwitGif
Create a twitter badge for your blog which scrolls through your most recent tweets.
Twitter / bsaves

Twitt-Twoo
A WordPress Plugin which displays your twitter status.
twitter icon picture

Twitter Tag
Here is an automatic updating twitter image for your website or blog.


TwitSig Badge
This twitter image updates with your latest tweet by creating a new image every time you update your status. With this in mind, the twitter badge shouldn't take too much time to load on your blog.


Official Twitter Profile Widget
This widget loops through your tweets and has a full range of customization options. The twitter widget allows you to choose the color scheme, dimensions, and whether or not to loop through your old tweets as well.

Add Twitter to MySpace
The MySpace Flash Widget integrates Twitter into your MySpace profile page. This is a great twitter widget for myspace!
twitter icon picture

Twitter Gadget for Blogger
Simply display your recent updates on twitter as a list with this gadget. Also featuring a "Follow me On Twitter" link at the bottom of the widget.
twitter icon picture

Go2Web20 Badge
A simple image which floats on the side of your blog and directs readers to your twitter page when clicked on. Choose whether or not to display "Follow Us", "Follow Me", "Follow", or "My Twitter" in the image. Most people choose the Follow Me on twitter widget instead of the follow us on twitter button because it sounds more personal. You may also customize whether or not to display the twitter widget on the left or right side of your webpage.
twitter icon picture

TweetSnap
TweetSnap creates an image for your twitter account which will always display your latest tweet.
Bsaves

TwitterSticker
Another website which creates an image of your latest tweet. TweetSticker allows you to customize the font color, font size, text padding, and text wrap.


Twitterati Badge
A unique twitter widget which displays your twitter friends. Click on one of your friends and you'll be directed to their actual website.

Twitter Buttons and Icons

225 Buttons from TwitButtons.com
TwitButtons allows you to easily copy and paste their button code into your site.
Twitter Button from twitbuttons.com

80 Buttons from TwitterButtons.com
Make sure to click "More Twitter Buttons" at the bottom of their site to see the full collection. This follow us on twitter widget is my favorite!


Cute Twitter Bird by The Design SuperHero
3 Variations of the Twitter Bird with 5 different Resolutions.
twitter icon picture

Twitter Bird by WeFunction
3 more adorable variations of the twitter bird.
twitter icon picture

The Social Bird Icon Set
20 Wonderfully original twitter icons by popular artists for your inspiration. These icons have been released by InspiredMagazaine.
twitter icon picture

TweetBird Icon
1 icon which comes in 512×512, 256×256, 128×128, 64×64 and 32×32 pixel sizes.
twitter icon picture

TweetaBird Icon Set
2 more cute icons by LittleBoxOfIdeas. Featuring a twitter bird cheerleaders and a queen twitter bird.
twitter logo picture

Twitter Icon Promo Pack
53 Twitter Icons by WebTreats for you to grab and use on your site.
twitter logo picture

German Twitter Buttons by MTS
10 more twitter buttons for you to enjoy!


Twitter Graphics by Graphic Leftovers
16 twitter graphics in different shapes and forms; such as eggs,lightbulbs,bottle caps, and more.


Twitter Birds by Inaliblast
8 flying twitter bird icons.


Twitter Bird Icon Set by ProductiveDreams
6 High Quality transparent PNG twitter birds.


Free Tweet Tweet Vector Icon Set
1 Twitter bird with 4 differnet poses, created by ProductiveDreams as well.


Randa Clay Twitter Graphics
18 twitter buttons for gaining new followers.


Happy Birds by WebDesignFM
4 Happy go lucky twitter birds that will encourage both your faithful followers and potential followers.


Twitter Buttons by Blog Marketing Web
31 attractive buttons to enhance the twitter experience.


Is that Everything?

If there are any useful twitter resources that I've missed, please feel free to let us know by leaving a comment. Also, don't forget to subscribe because we'll be coming out with the The Best Twitter Apps and Tools in the near future... Stay Tuned!

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