I had been blogging for about 4 months before I discovered the beauty of a feed reader. Before using a reader I would find myself clicking on the links in my blogroll at all times of day, waiting for my favorite blogs to load only to be disappointed that there wasn’t a new post up yet. It took a lot of time and I was getting to the point where I didn’t think I could keep up anymore when I learned about subscribing. I had seen many blogs with writing in their sidebars that read, Enter your Email Address: or that said Subscribe with a weird little button underneath that looks like this:
I had no idea that by subscribing to a blog that I would be notified when a new post went up. HURRAY! If you enter your email address, then a notification will be sent straight to your email along with the content of the new post. Or (if you don't want more emails than your already getting) if you subscribe using a feed reader (little orange button) you can add blogs to your feed reader and check in once or twice a day to see which blogs have posted new content. I prefer the feed reader route, with Google Reader being my top choice.
* Post Scheduling
Did you know that with almost any blog host that you use, you can schedule posts ahead of time? Brilliant isn't it! You can write 5 posts (or more) when you have the time for writing and schedule each one to be published on five separate days. Here are instructions for the two most popular blog platforms:
Blogger.com
When you hit the Create tab to make a post, you'll see a right facing arrow and a blue link that says Post Options to the left of the Labels for this post: text bar (Both are just underneath the post content box). Click the arrow and it will expand to show your Post date and time. Just change the post date and time to reflect when you would like it published, the hit the Publish Post button and your post will go live when you specified it should.
Wordpress.org or Wordpress.com
Under the publish widget next to your post content box you will see something that says Publish Immediately with an Edit option right next to it. Click the Edit link, change your post date and time,then hit OK. Then hit the Publish button when your done writing your post and your post will go live when you specified it should.
* Sticky Posts
A sticky post is a post that will stay at the top of your blog, even if you publish new content. It's usually a post someone puts up to announce something special like a blog event or giveaway. Re-posting that information to keep it at the top of the page can get time consuming so that's where the Sticky Post comes in. Her are instructions for creating sticky posts in the two most popular blog platforms:
Blogger.com
Once you've logged into your dashboard click on the Layout tab. In your sidebar click on Add a Gadget. Choose which type of gadget you want to add. It will usually be either text or HTML unless you want a poll or something else to be at the top of your post column. Add your content and then save it. Then drag that widget over to the top of your post column. Voila! Now you have a sticky post.
Wordpress.org or Wordpress.com
Under the publish widget next to your post content box you will see something that says Visibility:Public with an Edit option right next to it. Click the Edit link and check the box that says Stick this post to the front page.
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2 comments:
Thanks you're awesome!!! This IS helpful!
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