We've added some new features to the ANR Blogs. The first feature you may or may not notice right away depending on who's blog you visit. In keeping with the ANR Strategic Vision we have added a brand new style for the ANR Blogs. Part of this addition is giving you blog owners the option of choosing what style you want to use. If you use the new style you can upload your own custom header. This was added due to popular request and also due to the fact that not everyone can use the UC logo. Some other features that come with the new style is automatic meta tagging to help some search engines with page rankings. More on meta tagging below.Let me explain how to change your blog style.
- Login to the ANR Blogs
- Go to the Administration area
- Select "Edit Blog Style"
- If you select and save the "UC Blog Style" an option to upload a custom header will appear
The custom header will automatically be resized to 740 x 117 pixels. So it's best to make your header this size from the beginning. Only JPG file types are accepted for custom headers.
The changes to meta tags are quite extensive so let me explain them below. Firstly, the page title has been updated to better reflect the page content by providing data that is context sensitive to each page. For example: "Post Title - Blog Name - ANR Blogs". The "Blog Description" is a field in the Main Blog Information page. This description is now added to all Blog pages. So you may want to check your blog description and make it properly represent what your blog is about. The last addition is the keyword meta tag. This meta tag is simply a list of keywords that describe the content on the page. A keyword field has been added to the main Blog Information page. So you can add keywords pertaining to your blog as desired. In addition to the keyword field tags that you use in your posts are added to the keywords meta tag. The meta tags have a limit as to how much data you can add so not everything can be added. Instead we try to keep the information added context sensitive. So on your blog's home page the keywords will list the keywords you've entered plus all the tags from your post's tag list sorted by count. When viewing each individual post the keywords lists that posts specific tags first then the keywords added for the entire blog.Once again all of these changes are to help your blogs and blog posts rank higher on the different search engines. To see how best to make use of descriptions and keywords please take a look at the links below...
Google suggestions
Bing suggestions
Yahoo suggestions
Can you remember back to Kindergarden when you were taught to share toys? Well, today we are having a similar lesson only this one is about sharing the web. A recent popular trend is to share news articles, web pages, blog posts, and most anything interesting you can find on the web with friends, family, or co-workers. There are a few sites that specialize in this type of sharing. A new feature we've added to the Blogs is to easily share pages with these social networking websites. Dave developed this feature for Sitebuilder 3.0 and he adapted it to make it easy to use for the Blogs.
Using this feature is quite simple, it does require an account with each social networking application you would like to use. Sharing a page with one of these applications simply involves going to the page you would like to share. Clicking "Share" and selecting the Application you would like to share the page through. Click on one (or all the applications) each one will prompt you to login if you are not already logged in. There may be some other options before the page is shared. But the hardest part is already done.
You may not want to use an application. That is ok, you can e-mail the link directly to a friend or co-worker. Click the "email" link and enter your recipients e-mail address and your done. Of course you can enter a personalized message if you like.
We hope you like the new features and use them to your hearts content!
In recent weeks there has been some updates to the Blog system that should be noted. While these are minor, they can be very helpful and help make more content available to those of you who frequently post on the ANR Blogs.
First, change goes out to those wo make comments on posts. Now if you leave a comment and someone else comments on the same post, you should recieve an e-mail letting you know that someone else has commented on the post. We added this because many times people will reply to a comment but the commenter may never know about the reply.
For the second change we now allow users to embed content like YouTube videos into the blogs. Here's one below as an example:
This is quite easy to do but a couple steps should be followed for it to work correctly. First find a video you want to embed or include in your post. Then copy the "Embed" HTML coding and paste the coding into the source code of your post. That is it! Don't worry I'll give more in depth steps in an example below.
In order to embed the YouTube video above. I went to YouTube and found the video I wanted to include. Next to the video is small box where you will find the "Embed" HTML code that can be copied and pasted in to the blog post.
The arrows point to the code that needs to be copied. Here's the steps needed to embed the video into your post.
- Copy "Embed" HTML coding (make sure to copy all the coding)
- Edit your blog post
- Click on the "Source" button in the WYSIWYG editor. (this switches to the HTML view of your post)
- Find the place where you want to include the video.
- Paste the copied HTML code into your blog post.
- Click the source button again.
If all went well you should see an empty box where the video will be displayed with a small green puzzle piece in the middle. To test the video Click "Save and Review" the video should load and be dispalyed inside your post.
If viewing the HTML Source is too confusing there is a second way to paste the "Embed" coding. Simply paste the coding in the text editor without clicking the "source" button. Click "Save and Review" then click "Re-Edit This Post", and the "Embed" HTML coding should be be properly converted. You should see an empty box where the "Embed" coding once was. This method may not always work, but it never hurts to try it if the steps above are too complicated.
Hope this post is informative and helpful!
While the title is seemingly normal and boring, the reality is this update may change your life as we know it today. Or not... That depends on how important the ANR Blogs are to your sitebuilder site. Previously, anyone with a sitebuilder site could integrate ANR Blog posts into the right column of the home page. Now, this integration includes a choice to pick the center column as well. Part of the change also includes an RSS Feed link at the bottom of the Blog posting section. The RSS Feed lists all the posts that are displayed on your site. So if you have more that one Blog displayed on your site, all the posts come in as a single RSS Feed.
Displaying your blogs in the center column is very easy to do. Here's how to do it:
1. Login to Sitbuilder
2. Go to "Edit Home Page"
3. In the "Blog Options" on the right column, you will now see 3 options for displaying ANR Blogs. You may:
- Display No Blogs
- Display Blogs in the Center Column
- Display Blogs in the Right Column
All the other options work exactly the same for both columns the blogs are displayed. One difference you will see between the right and left columns is the center column displays the posts main picture as a small icon at the beginning of the post.
Example of ANR Blogs in center column:
ANR Blogs in right column:
For more information on how to add ANR Blogs to your Sitebuilder site take a look at my post entitled "New Feature".
It looks like the other features found in the "Blog Options" have never been explained. So here's what the other features do... (see the "Blog Options" example above)
Section Title
This is the title to display above the Blog posts.
Number of Posts to display on main page
Displays the number of posts you enter here. This can be any number from 1 to 255 and it only applies to the main or home page of your site.
Number of Characters to display on main page
This tells the system how many characters to display for each post. This can be anywhere from 20-1000 characters.
Blogs shown on Site
Here's is where you pick which blogs to display. You may select as many or as few blogs as you like.
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A few minor improvements have been made to the Blogs RSS feed and Podcast feed. The changes relate to keeping up with RSS technology and providing a way to tracking RSS feed usage. You may never see any of these changes. However if you like statistics, then you will probably be looking for your blogs RSS feed usage.
Let's take a closer look at how to see your RSS feed's usage. First, your Blog must be gathering statistics using Google Analytics. To find out more about that read my previous Blog Post on Blog Statistics. Once your Blog is gathering statistics it may not be gathering stats on your RSS feed. If you post regularly then you can skip this next part. If your not sure it doesn't hurt anything so... Go to the Blog Administration and click on the link "Rebuild RSS". This refreshes your RSS feed and simply makes sure the tracking mechanism is in the RSS feed.
Now is where you need to wait for the data to come in or you can go to your RSS feed and view a post or two to make sure data is available. After this you need to wait at least a day to see the results.
In Google Analytics you will find your RSS feed usage in the Traffic Sources section. A Traffic Source from an RSS feed will look something like "RSS / RSS". You can also find the RSS feed usage in the "Campaigns" section of Traffic Sources. The RSS Feed campaign is called "RSS Feed". So this should be easy to find. Take a look at the example below:
You can see above that the RSS Feed campaign has one visit. It's as easy as that! Now you can measure how effective your RSS feed really is.
