What I (am in the Process of) Learning Wednesday: Menu Bars

Well, readers, my hope was to figure out how to add a menu bar at the top of my blog and have it figured out by today.  However, as I mentioned yesterday, this is turning out to be a very busy week, so I haven't finished my learning for this post yet.  But I will keep on plugging and hope to have that out to you by next Wednesday. 

What I Learned Wednesday: Great Blog Post Titles

What is the hardest part of writing a blog post?

The title, of course!

I really hate having to title each post.  I guess I don't really have to title them.  But it would come across as "Untitled post" to everyone and I don't want that either.

So how do you get something witty and clever but also something that shows up on search engines across the world?

Fortunately I'm not the only one with this problem.  These fine folks have come up with some ideas.  Check 'em out.

How to Write Killer Blog Titles & Why Mine Suck

How to Choose a Headline Using 3 Little Known Secrets

Blog Title – It’s More Than A Few Words

 

What I Learned Wednesday: Sidebar Titles

Check out my other What I Learned Wednesday posts here.

This is turning out to be a super busy week. I am getting ready for Disney, as well as volunteering at the Book Fair and Carnival at school this week.  Whew!  I'm going to be so ready for our vacation.

In light of all that, I just have a little lesson for today, more of a blog tweak instead of part of our blog pimping.  Anyway...

Scroll on down until you see "About Me" and "Follow Me" titles on my right sidebar.  That's what I changed for today.  And it was so easy.  Really, I promise.

Those two titles are just pictures.  And you can easily put pictures on your sidebar.  I'll leave making the title picture up to you.  Once you've done that, it's time to add it to your blog.  As usual, all the magic starts on the Design/Page Element page.  You'll see your sidebar over on the right.  Click on "Add a Gadget" at the top.  You'll have lots of choices of things to add.  Scroll down until you see "Picture."  Click the plus to add a picture.  Like with our blog title, it's smart to go ahead and click that little box that says "Size to fit," because once you add your file, you can't click it.  Add your file and Save and you're all set.

So now all my titles match and, if you notice, I figured out how to get the white background out of my title.  Yay for transparent titles!!

By the way, did any of you know that hamsters hiss?  Seriously, our hamster just hissed at me when I got close to her cage.  This is bringing back flashbacks of my childhood vampire cat who hated me.

What I Learned Wednesday: Changing your Blog Header

Time to keep pimping our blog in our What I Learned Wednesday series!

If you have been keeping up with the series, you have learned how to create a blog signature and how to change the background of your blog.

Today we are going to learn the next step - how to change your blog header.

Actually changing your header is really easy.  However, creating that header - not so much.  You guys may be able to help me out on this.  I'll tell you what I know and you can comment and tell me what you know.

1. Choose your favorite photo editing or digital scrapbooking software.  A lot of people use Photoshop Elements.  I use Creative Memories' scrapbooking software program - Storybook Creator Plus.  It's a great scrapbooking program but it does have some limitations as a website design program.  
2. Spend as much time as you need (or have to because your computer is not cooperating) to make your new header.  This step will take some trial and error, especially as you try to make a header the correct size for your site.  If you are using the Minima template, your header will need to be 660 pixels in width.  There is a way around this that I'll mention below.
3. If possible make your header transparent.  What does that mean?  Well if you look up at my header you'll see that it is all in a white box.  If it were transparent, it wouldn't have that white box.  Remember the limitations of my software that I mentioned?  That's one of them.  It can't make transparent images. I'm trying to find a good program that does. If your software is capable of that, you'll need to save your file as either a PNG or a GIF file.  JPG does NOT support transparent images.
4. Next go to the design tab in your blog.  At the top of the Page Elements section, you'll see "your blog name (header)" and a little "Edit" link.  Click on that.  Your current header picture should show up there.  Click on "remove image" (you can't get it back once you remove it, so make sure that file is saved somewhere on your computer).  
5. Now if you aren't sure about the sizing of your header, before you pick a new file to upload, click on the "scale to fit" box at the bottom.  It will disappear after you add your image so you'll need to click on it first.
6. Now just add your header picture that you have saved.  Make sure the middle choice of the bottom buttons is clicked, save it and you're done.
7. Preview your blog.  Tweak anything that needs tweaking and relax.  You did well!

That's it!
I'd love to see any design changes you've made to your blog.  Simply comment below and I'll stop by to look and return the comment love.

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Remember a comment on today's post earns you another chance to enter our boredom to Disney contest.

What I Learned Wednesday: Changing your Blog Background

Last week we started a new What I Learned Wednesday series. We started pimping up our blog and I showed you how you could create a signature for your blog. 

Notice anything new on my blog?  If you are reading this in a reader, click on over and see the new look.  What do you think?  (Don't worry, it's not done yet.)
Today I'm going to show you the easy way to change the background on your blog.

Notice I said the easy way ... because that's the only way I know how to do it so far.
(All this assumes you are blogging with Blogger.  If you are using Wordpress or some other platform, then you probably know more about this than I do.)

1. Your first step is to find a background you like.  Now you can pay for one of those, but why do that when there are tons out there for free!  Just Google "free blog backgrounds for Blogger" and you'll find a bunch of sites come up.  Look over them and find one you like.  Different sites have different styles.  Some are scrapbooky, some are more modern.  Find one that suites your taste and your blog.  I found mine on Hot Bliggity Blog.
2. The background you find should have a bunch of code with it.  Copy it to your clipboard (the site I used did the copying for me when I clicked the "Install" button).
3. Go back to Blogger, to your editor and click on the "Design" tab, then on "Page Elements."  Click on "Add a Gadget," then on "HTML."  Leave the title part blank and paste your code in the box.  You can preview your blog to make sure it looks like you want.  Then make sure you click on "Save."
4. If it doesn't look right for some reason, you can change the template of your blog to Minima.  To do that, click on "Edit HTML" under the Design tab.  Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.  Under the Old Templates heading, click on Select Template Layout.  Minima is the first choice.  
5. After you have changed to Minima, look at your blog again.  If you have a weird box at the top, go back to the Edit HTML section you were just in.  Scroll down til you see /* Header.  Look in that section, any time you see "header _px" change the number in the _ to a 0.  Do the same when you see "margin _px."  That should take care of your box.

I really hope all that works for you.  I'm certainly no expert and I'm learning right along with you.  So, good luck and let me know in the comments how it turned out.

What I Learned Wednesday: Making a Blog Signature

I told you that I had a great new idea for What I Learned Wednesdays.

We are going to learn how to PIMP our blogs!

OK, maybe not really PIMP, but definitely spruce them up a bit.

I, admittedly, don't know much about HTML, but in order to freshen things up a bit around here, I'll be learning some and passing that knowledge onto you.  We'll learn a little HTML as well as learn some secrets of blog design.

Here are the topics I hope to cover over the next few weeks:

• Add/change your blog signature
• Add/change your blog header
• Make a button for your blog (great way to advertise your blog)
• Change your blog layout

If you have any topics you'd like me to cover, please let me know in the comments.  I'll be glad to research them for you.

Today we're going to start with a relatively easy topic.

How to make a Blog Signature

First of all, what is a blog signature?
If you scroll down to the end of any one of my posts, you'll see my name "Cathy" written all scrolly and pretty like this:







The best part is, it's already in my layout so I don't have to add it every time. It's added automatically at the end of my posts.

So how do you get one of those?

1. Well, you have to make a signature first.  Go to My Live Signature.  Use that website to create a signature that shows off your style.  There are lots of fonts to choose from and it you don't like any of those, you can create a signature from your actual IRL signature.
2. Click on the signature file you just created (if you register at the site, you can save multiple signatures).  Using that file, follow the website's instructions on generating HTML code.  Now you're almost done.
3. Go into your blog dashboard and click on the "Settings" button.  Find the "Formatting" tab and click on that.  Scroll down until you see "Post Template."  Copy and paste the HTML code you just created into that box.  Make sure you click that "Save" button.
4. That's it!  Your new signature should be at the bottom of everyone of your posts now.  If you decide one day to change your signature, your new signature should appear in your new posts but not in your old ones.  Your old ones should still have your old signature.

My current signature came with a blog design prize that I won a while back, so I have never created my own signature.  Today, I tried my hand at it and added it below.  What do you think?

What I Learned Wednesday

I have a great new topic for my What I Learned Wednesday series and I will tell you all about it....
next week.

This week is Spring Break for my kids, which means there will be absolutely no learning in our house this week and I MEAN IT!!

Originally we had planned to go to Dollywood today but there is a 90% chance of rain :-(.  Seeing as it costs almost $200 for the 4 of us to go for the day, we decided to wait for a better day to go.

I'm off to console my sad kids...and to make sure that they are not learning ANYTHING this week.

See you next week!

What I Learned Wednesday: Ways to Make Money Online

I have been researching ways to make money online and I've come up with a myriad of information.  I'd love nothing better than to share it with you :).  Maybe together we can learn how to earn some extra spending money every month.

1)  As we talked about earlier, become an affiliate:  Post advertisements on your blog and/or send out blog posts that advertise deals.

2)  Write Freelance Blog Posts:  Are you knowledgeable in something?  (Hint: Everyone is knowledgeable about something.)  Find someone who wants that knowledge and is willing to pay for it.  There are many websites out there that recruit bloggers to write articles for them on a wide variety of topics.  This article gives you some resources for that.

3)  Use Swagbucks as your search engine and earn points called Swagbucks.  Typically I earn between 5-7 swagbucks for every 4 or 5 searches I do.  When you get to 450 swagbucks, you get a $5 Amazon gift card.  It may not seem like much, but it's free money for doing something online you'd probably do anyway.  I've made $110 over the last year just using Swagbucks (my sister has earned a lot more!).

4)  Shop online through My Points.  Get rewarded with points per dollar for your purchases.  For example, shop at Kohls online and earn 2 points per dollar.  Shop at Kmart online and earn 5 points per dollar.  Redeem your points for gift cards to Amazon, Kohls, Target and more.  I have $150 in gift cards over the last year using My Points.

5)  Do online surveys.  One of my favorite survey sites is Synovate.  You earn points for completing surveys.  every 5000 points earns you $5.  I have earned $30 over the past 6 months this way.  But not only do you earn money at Synovate, you get full sized free products to try out and answer survey questions about.  Over the last 6 months, I gotten a bottle of shampoo, a tube of toothpaste, Rice Krispy treats, Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, 2 full-size rolls of paper towels and a large thing of napkins.  Besides helping us save money that we would have spent for those things, it's always fun to get free things in the mail.

What I learned Wednesday: Helpful Links

Trying to make money on your blog?  Check out all my previous What I Learned Wednesday posts.

As I explore how to make money both online in general and specifically through my blog, I find that the best resources are other bloggers.  So I'm going to give you a list of helpful links this week.  Some are on how to make money online.  Some are on how to spruce up your blog.  I plan to follow some of these suggestions and I hope you do too.

1)  Stephanie over at Somewhat Simple tell us 7 ways to give a blog a facelift.  Learn how to change your template design, add a signature, create a button, switch to a dot com, change the font of your blog, add a favicon, and add a horizontal navigation bar.

2)  Amy at Blogging with Amy brainstorms 8 ways to make money online some as a blogger and some not as a blogger.  She follows that up with even more ways to make money online.

3)  Jennifer from the Days of a SAHM is offering to make free blog buttons for anyone interested.

4)  Read one man's story of how he built a business with no money to spend.

5)  Finally, Amy tells us candidly how much real bloggers actually make.  Especially note how many hours a days she puts into blogging - a lot more than I do.

6)  Remember my posts on affiliates?  You can see them here, here and here.  Amy gives a more extensive list of affiliates that you can check out.  (See Question 15.)

I tried to compile a great list of resources for you to investigate on your own.  I'd love to hear what changes if any, you are making to your blog as a result.

What I learned Wednesday: Affiliates Part 3

Want to learn how to make money with your blog?  Check out my What I learned Wednesday posts here.

This is going to be my third and final posts on affiliates.  Next week, I'll start on a new topic.

I had some more time this week, so I researched a few more affiliate networks.  One of my pet peeves with these websites is that you really can't see anything about the site until you join it.  There isn't a posting of sample ads listed.  There isn't a range of payouts amounts listed.  It's very general and vague until you join.  And some of the sites are harder to join than others.  Some require your social security number on a tax form.  I'm sure that it is legitimate, but it never sits well with me to give out my SS# for any reason (I don't even like to give it to doctor's offices).

So here's the lowdown on the sites I visited:

Logical Media - I reviewed this pretty extensively in last week's post.

My Savings Media - After reading other bloggers posts about this, I decided to join this network.  Of course, like other affilitate networks, I couldn't find out too much ahead of time.  To join this site does require your SS# and a tax form to be filled out online.  I am now waiting for a phone call from my affiliate manager.  You cannot logon to the site without being approved by phone first.

Escalate Media - I looked over the home page at this site. It said:

We look for affiliates that use a combination of different marketing tactics, including search engine marketing, email marketing, contextual advertising, social marketing and banner ads.

That kind of intimidated me because I don't know what most of those tactics are.  I'm not planning on emailing out ads.  I don't know what it means to do social marketing (maybe on social network sites) and I don't know much about making banner ads.  So I chose not to join that site.  Maybe if I learn more about that form of advertising, I will reconsider.

Panthera Network - The first two requirements to join this site are as follows:

1. Only publishers with a web site are accepted.

2. You MUST have a top-level domain where a WHOIS search will show you or your company
as the registered owner of the site. No free hosting web sites will be approved.

Since Blogger is free hosting site and I am not listed as the owner of the site, I can't become an affiliate with Panthera.

Commission Junction - I spent a lot of time here.  It seems like it's a very large network with lots of choices of ads.  That can be good or bad.  Too many choices can be very overwhelming to me.  The other drawback to this site is that it appears that you only get paid if the clicker takes an action, i.e. registers at a site or buys a product.  You do not get paid just for people clicking on your ads.  So, for now, I decided to forgo becoming an affiliate there.

Amazon Associates - Notice all those links I have to books and products on Amazon?  That is part of being an Amazon Associate.  If you buy something after clicking on one of those links, I get a small commission from it.  If you blog on blogger, this is really easy to set up and use.  You don't have to pick ads and copy html into your design.  You sign up through the "monetize" tab in your editing menu.  A new box will appear in your editing screen to the right of where you type your blog post.  It has a search box that you use to find the product you'd like to link up in your post.  When you find the product, you can choose to link up a picture, a link or both.  And that's it.  Super easy.

Google Affiliate Network and Google AdSense - These 2 programs work in conjunction with each other, although I am having difficulties getting them to work together.  Google AdSense is another affiliate that is very easy to sign up with if you are on Blogger.  Sign up under the "Monetize" tab on your design page.  Choose where you want the ads to appear (side bar, under each post, in a feed reader, etc) and Google does the rest.  They choose the ad and put it there.  You get paid based on clicks, impressions (how many times the page is viewed) and leads (sign-ups).  Google Affiliate is supposed to work with adsense somehow, but I can't get Google Affiliate to recognize my AdSense affiliate number.  And I can't get an account set up without it.  So I'm still working on that one.


I hope this helps some of you and encourages you to play around with ads on your blog.  I think Amy said it best,

Experiment, experiment, experiment! Experiment with different networks, ad sizes, text links vs. images, placement on your page, etc. Sometimes there are vast differences in revenue when small changes are made!

Good luck affiliating!!

What I Learned Wednesday: Affiliates Part 2

I'm learning more about blogging.  Come learn with me!  Start by checking out these What I Learned Wednesday posts.

My assignment for the week was to follow up on last week's post by researching affiliate network websites and report back what I had learned.

Since last week I have visited several affiliate networking sites.  I checked out Logical Media, My Savings Media and Escalate Network.  I looked over their sites and found which companies they advertise for.  Escalate Network focuses on advertising with couponing and saving money bloggers .  My Savings Media specializes in product samples and coupon offers.  Logical Media seemed to offer more of a blend of companies.  Since I have a blog that encompasses a lot of topics, I decided to start by joining the affiliate that seemed more general, Logical Media.

After being an official affiliate with Logical Media for several days, here is my take on their site:

It is very confusing and not very user-friendly, especially for the user that really doesn't know too much about the back-end workings of their blog.  When you sign in, you are taken to the campaign screen.  There you pick the advertisements that you want on your blog.  You can choose from 3 different types of campaigns. 

1) Pay per click - you get paid each time someone clicks on that ad
2) Pay per lead - you get paid each time someone clicks on the ad and completes the sign up at the linked site
3) Pay per sale - you get paid each time someone clicks on the ad and buys something at the linked site

You can search for an ad by company or by type of campaign.  That part is pretty self-explanatory on the site.  However, that is the only self-explanatory screen on there.  The next part is where the confusion starts.  After you choose the company, you are taken to a screen with lots of ads to choose from in lots of different sizes.  There is HTML code under each ad, but there are also text fields that can be changed.  Once you change them, you can generate more code. The text fields use a bunch of acronyms that I don't understand so I'm not sure if I should be filling those out and making new code or using the pre-made code.  To top that off, I have gotten about 10 emails a day from them with links to use for new campaigns.  That is great, but I'm not sure what to do with the links.  There aren't pictures attached so it's not an ad I can display on my site.  It's only a link.  Anyone have more experience with this and know what to do with those links? 


Anyway, I figured out enough to add some ads to my page.  Feel free to look around and "Ooo" and "Ahh" at them.  I think I'm going to camp out on this topic for another week and check out another affiliate network site to see if its user-interface is any better.

Thanks for learning with me!

What I learned Wednesday: Affliate Programs

See previous What I learned Wednesday posts here.

Today's topic:  Affliate Programs

What is an affiliate program?  I'm so glad you asked.  An affiliate program is basically advertising for someone else, or for some company, then getting paid if someone acts on that advertisement.  As a blogger, I am a publisher (just found that out today. Hee, hee, hee, I like the sounds of that).  Advertisers want blogger/publishers to help spread the word about their product or service.  So they "hire" the blogger of sorts to try out and promote the product.  Or they borrow space on the blogger's site to display their banner, then pay the blogger every time someone clicks on that banner, or signs up for a service through the ad.

How do I become an affiliate?  You join an affiliate program or an affiliate network.  You can look up individual companies or products online to see if they have an affiliate program (Google the product/company with the word "affiliate" or "referral").  Or to make life easier, and, really, who doesn't want to make life easier, you can join an affiliate network.  Advertisers want to make their life easier too, so instead of forming their own affiliate program, they will use a third party site, the affiliate network, to find the bloggers for them.  They sign up their product/service as a campaign and members of the site apply for the campaigns that interest them.  As a blogger, an affiliate network gives me lots of companies with lots of campaigns to choose from.  So it benefits both the publisher (me) and the advertiser.

How do I find affiliate networks to use? Just like last week's post, this is a lot to absorb for me and I'm still doing research on which affiliate networks are best.  So, instead of going on to a new topic next week, I'm going to check out some different affiliate networks and I'm going to tell you which ones I've decided to join.  In the meantime, you can do some research too.  There were some great posts written on affiliate networks that I have been reading lately.  They include lists of different networks to join.  Please read these lovely ladies posts and check out the networks they recommend.  Then you can be ready next week to tell me what you've learned.

2Wired2Tired
Blogging with Amy
Thrifty Divas

What I Learned Wednesday: Networking

OK, this post took longer to write because I got so caught up in the new websites I found.  Beware, they can be addicting. 

What I learned last week was that bloggers use a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" philosophy when it comes to comments.  Comment more on others posts and they will return the favor to you.  More comments = more readers, i.e. more website traffic.

This week I explored the reciprocal relationship a little further by finding some blog networking sites.

And let me tell you

There.
Are.
A.
LOT!!

Basically you register your blog on the networking site, join communities of similar bloggers within the site, and get your name out there! 

Once again the blogging reciprocal relationship applies - you visit their blog and follow it, they will visit your blog and follow it.  More followers means more chances for advertisers and companies giving out free products to notice your little site.  Then, hopefully, your little site becomes your growing bigger site.  And that's always good :).

Several of the networking sites also provide a bridge to those companies looking for places to advertise or for people to review their products.

How do you find a good networking site (or two, or ten)?  The method I used was to visit the blogs that you admire, or that have similar content to yours and look on their sidebar.  Most authors post buttons from their networking sites somewhere on their blog.  Then comes the time-consuming part.  Start visiting the sites.  Poke around at all the tabs and buttons and find out if it seems like a good fit for you.  If it is, sign up. 

Once you do, it will take a while to figure everything out, but just allow yourself lots of time and start playing.

Here are just a few of the sites I really liked:

BlogFrog

Social Moms - all about connecting your blog using Facebook and Twitter

Mom Bloggers Club

BlogHer - HUGE networking site.  I haven't done much exploring on this one, but I know lots of bloggers are members here and attend BlogHer conferences.

One2One Network

Feel free to explore these networking sites or find some of your own.  The most important thing is to get your name out there!

How about you?  Do you have a favorite networking site that I didn't mention?  I'd love to find some new ones.

What I've Learned Wednesday: Comments

I told you one of my goals this year is to learn about blogging for a business and how to generate more readers.  And I also told you how I failed miserably last week - the first week of my blog schedule - by not learning anything about blogging!!

Well, it's a new week and I learned something!!

This is probably pretty basic, but I have to start small. 
 
Kristen over at We are THAT Family talks about generating comments on your blog.  Between her post and the wonderful blogger comments that were left, 

I have learned...

1) To get more comments, I have to leave more comments. (It's the whole "be a friend to get a friend" approach.)  

That makes perfect sense to me and I will try very hard this week to follow that principle.
 
2) To get more comments, I have to talk about a hot topic, one that a lot of people have different opinions on. 

Ooooo, that one is more difficult.  Most of the time I'm pretty surface-level on here and don't go deep or write about controversial subjects.  So...I don't plan to change that anytime soon.  I'll just put that idea on the backburner for now.

3) To get more comments, I can ask the readers a question, or ask their opinion on a subject.

That one I have done.  And it does generate more comments.  But I probably need to do it more.  So, I will try this week as well to ask YOU more questions.

Well, that's it for my first lesson learned:  Be a bloggy friend, ask great questions, and possibly find a hot topic to discuss.

What about you?  What spurs you to comment the most?