How to Add Internal Links Within Blogger Posts

In the Blogger tutorial I discuss how to add internal links within your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) to point to either another section within the same post or to another post.

There are lots of times when you may want to direct a reader to a different part of your Blogger post depending on what their needs and interests are. Or you might want to alert the visitor to something significant in a related post. In this article I will show how to make use of internal links both within posts and in Blogger generally.

Why bother with internal linking you may be wondering? Well the answer is to improve SEO. Blogs with a good internal linking structure will fare better than blogs that don't link posts. Plus you will be creating an aid to navigation for your reader. On longer posts jumps links to different sections within your post or to other posts mean readers can quickly find the information they are looking for.

How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within the Same Blogger Posts

How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within Different Blogger Posts

How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within the Same Blogger Post
Consider the above links. Click on them. Each jump the reader to a different part of this article. This type of internal linking is common practice in website building and can be equally applied to blogs to assist with navigation.

How did I create these links? The answer is that I used simple html that anyone can learn in a few minutes. Here are the steps I used to create these links.

1. Log in to Blogger
   
2. Go to Posting > New Post or Edit Post and either create a new article or edit an existing one.
   
3. Within the article find a place where you want to add some jump links. This will be early on in the article as it will help the reader figure out what information is significant to them and how to get there quickly
   
4. Switch to the Edit HTML mode rather than compose mode so you can see the code you are inserting into your post
   
5. Create a couple of headings that will be your links to material further down in your Blogger article. Note you can also just jump to a word but for the purposes of this demonstration and clarity I am going to use headings. When creating this post I used the following headings:
   
   

   How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within the Same Blogger Post
   How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within Different Blogger Posts

6. Add links to your headings like so:
   
   

   <a href="#withinposts">How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within the Same Blogger Post</a>
   
   <a href="#withinblogger">How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within Different Blogger Posts</a>

   
   
   • The href attribute and closing </a> element is the same structure you use for other links in your blog
     
   • Each identifier is preceded by a hash mark (#). The # tells the visitor's browser to look for a section within your post
     
   • Each link identifier needs its own unique identifier and needs to be enclosed in inverted commas. Use a name that reflects the link you are creating if possible as it will make it easier to identify on a page with a lot of internal jump links.
7. Now go to the first point in your post where you want to jump the reader to. This will be the start of some new idea, section or logical split in the information.
   
8. At this point create your anchor text by first adding your heading and then enclosing your heading with this anchor structure.
   
   

   <a name="identifier">a heading</a>

   
   
   • Note the use of the name attribute at the beginning and the </a> element at the end
     
   • Each link identifier needs to be enclosed in inverted commas. Make sure to match up the correct identifier with the one created in step 6
   
   
   Using this anchoring structure our first anchor becomes:
   
   

   <a name="withinposts">How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within the Same Blogger Post</a>

   
   Substitute your own link identifier and headings
   
9. Now move on to the next point you want to link to and create the second anchor. In this example we use the same structure but change the identifier
   
   

   <a name="withinblogger">How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within Different Blogger Posts</a>

   
   Again substitute your own link identifier and headings to suit your article
   
10. Save and Publish as normal and you will see your links are live and will jump the reader to different parts of the post

How to Create Internal Links To Sections Within Different Blogger Posts
Now you know how to create links to sections within Blogger posts let's look at how to create internal links within different Blogger posts.

Most of you will be able to create a link to another post in Blogger using the posts editor. You just highlight the text you want and click on the figure eight icon and Blogger creates the link for you. Which is great most of the time.

However what if we want to direct the visitor to a particular section of a different post? When you create an internal link it will take the viewer to the top of the page but what if you want them to see something near the end of the article? Well using an internal link similar to what we did to create internal links within the post we can.

Say I want to take my reader to a particular post in this case Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks. How would I go about it?

1. I create the link as usual by copying the article URL address from the browser address bar and using the post editor to add the link. The Blogger post editor uses this structure:
   
   

   <a href="URLaddress">linkname</a>

   
   So the Blogger editor would create the following link:
   
   

   <a href="http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/05/blogger-blogspot-seo-tips-and-tricks.html">Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks</a>

   
   The link would appear like this in a browser:
   
   Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks
   
2. Now I want to direct my visitors to the section about creating breadcrumb navigation so I add a section name using the following structure:
   
   

   <a href="URLaddress#identifier">linkname</a>

   
   Thus my link would look like this in the Edit HTML section of my post editor
   
   

   <a href="http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/05/blogger-blogspot-seo-tips-and-tricks.html#breadcrumb">Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks</a>

   
   Note the link seen in a browser remains the same
   
3. If you want your link to open in a new browser window add the following to your link:
   
   

   <a href="http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/05/blogger-blogspot-seo-tips-and-tricks.html#breadcrumb" target="_blank">Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks</a>

4. Now I need to go to the post I am linking to and add the anchor. So in the post SEO Tips and Tricks I would use the following structure to link to the section about how to add breadcrumbs:
   
   

   <a name="identifier">a heading</a>

   
   So the section about breadcrumbs in the Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks article is now enclosed by the following:
   
   

   <a name="breadcrumb">Add Breadcrumb Navigation to your Blogger Blog</a>

   
   
   If you now click on the link below you will see that your browser open a new window and take you directly to the section about adding a breadcrumb to your blog.
   
   Blogger SEO Tips and Tricks
   
5. Save your changes and publish your article as normal

In this Blogger tutorial you have learned how to add internal links to a particular section of a post from both within the same Blogger post and within a different post. By adding internal links you will help your visitors to find their away your blog more easily and access information quickly. You will also be adding to your blog's SEO by linking related posts.

10 Tips to Build Blogger Blogspot Site Traffic

This article discusses 10 easy ways Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers can build site traffic and in many cases improve SEO - search engine optimization. By implementing these steps you will improve the likelihood of your site ranking more highly in search engine results of major search engine players Google, Yahoo and MSN and as a result increase the number of visitors accessing your site.

10 Easy SEO Tips for Blogspot Bloggers to Improve Search Engine Rankings

1. Make Your Title Tags Search Engine Friendly
One of the most important tweaks necessary for Blogspot Blogs is the adjustment of the title tags of your website because Blogger.com by default has not optimized these for search engines. To prove this point navigate to an individual post on your blog and you will see that the blogname appears first in the title bar at the top of your browser followed by the post name. As search engines place greater value on the first words of an entry this puts your site at a disadvantage in search engine results. Fortunately it is easy to reverse the blog name and the post name with a simple tweak. For instructions on how to change the order of these title tags please refer to my article entitled Adjust Blogger Title Tags to Improve SEO



2. Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks
Blogger automatically generates a permalink based on the title of your post each time you make a post. For this reason it is important to craft your title carefully. Permalinks are sometimes less than ideal especially if you have a long title. Take for example the following permalink for one of my posts:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/improved-permalinks-for-blogger-posts.html

You will see that it is search engine friendly in that in contains 2 keywords blogger and permalinks. However you may be surprised to know that How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts is actually the title of this post not Improved Permalinks for Blogger Posts. I have initially used a title that is keyword rich and then after publishing gone back and entered a more descriptive title. No matter how many times I change the title the original permalink remains. If I had entered the second title straight away I may have ended up with the following permalink:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-create-search-engine-friendly.html

Not very pretty is it? And as you can see the whole point of the post is lost.

For more information on crafting permalinks please refer to my article How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts


3. Add a Social Networking Button to Your Blog
By adding a Social Bookmarking button to your website you will enable visitors to your blog to create links to popular social bookmarking sites such as Google, Technorati, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Furl, Yahoo etc. This means that visitors to your site will be able share these links with others thereby helping you attract more traffic to your site and encourage return visits.

Another benefit of a social bookmarking button is that you will be able to identify visitor trends and social bookmarking behaviour on your site. For more information on how to add a free Add This Social Bookmarking button to your Blogger blog please refer to my article Add a Social Bookmarking Button to Your Blog.



4. Submit a Sitemap of Your Blog to Popular Search Engines
If attracting traffic to your site is important to you then it is imperative that you ensure that your Blogger (Blogspot) blog is properly indexed by popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. One way to expedite this is to submit a sitemap to each of three major search engines. Please refer to my tutorials on website submission, authenticating your site and adding your site feed to Yahoo Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools and MSN Tools.

Google - Submit Your Blogspot Blog Sitemap to Google

Yahoo - Submit Your Blogspot Blog to Yahoo

MSN - Submit Blogger Sitemap to MSN Live Search

Also take a look at my tutorial on submitting your blog to major search engines

5. Build Quality Links
If you want to rank highly in Google and other search engines then you need to generate quality in-bound links. That doesn't mean exchanging links with everything and everyone as I see some new webmasters do. A few quality links from authoritative sites will boost your page rankings quickly and are far superior to a bunch of links from low ranking sites.

There are several good ways to generate links to your blog. One easy way is to to submit your site to blog directories. For more information on recommended blog directories please see my article Submit Your Blogger Blog to Blog Directories. Another way to cultivate in-bound links is to submit your best articles to article directories. A third possibility is to actively participate in forums and on other related blogs where commenting affords you the option of adding a link to your site.

I would recommend linking to DMOZ (Open Directory Project). Care needs to be taken to submit your site to the correct subject area. Becoming listed can take awhile so patience is needed.


6. Write Quality Content and Post Frequently
If you have read any articles on the subject of Blogging and SEO you will no doubt have observed writers emphasising the importance of quality content. I can't stress enough how much return visits depend on providing inducements to visitors to come back. If your site content is well written and informative half the battle is won. Make sure you post frequently so that visitors can see the value of subscribing in a reader. Take some care with the presentation of your content and images as this will present a professional image. Avoid common pitfalls like bad grammar and spelling mistakes which stand out like a sore toe and detract from a visitor's overall positive experience of your site.

One leading professional blogger Yaro Starak recommends the use of pillar articles. These are articles that don't change over time and continue to attract visitors. The best pillar articles explain some concept, provide definitions, give advice or present some argument. Your site needs to have at least 5 pillar articles and more if you can manage it. Pillar articles need to be more than 500 words long, crafted to generate interest and provide a welcome resource to your visitors.

7. Ensure Your Content is Keyword Rich
Apart from the quality of your content there is the question of keyword density. The more keyword rich your posts are the greater the likelihood they will appear higher in search engine results. This means it is worth the effort of crafting your content in such a way that you make use of important keywords and keyword phrases frequently used. Don't go overboard however as Google is smart enough to recognise if your pages are littered with keywords and nothing much else. A useful free SEO tool to help you optimise your site using keywords and labels is Google Adwords. Another good tool to help you quickly craft keyword rich material is Live Keyword Analysis which assesses the keyword density of keywords and keyword phrases of any post you paste into the analysis box.

When writing posts make sure your opening sentence describes what the article is about and contains your keywords and keyword phrases. It is important that your first sentence is keyword rich as search engines like Google give more emphasis to content at the beginning of the post. Also it is worth including a short ending statement about the content of the post as there is some evidence that Google also places value on the content at the end of the post.

8. Manage Your Feeds Carefully
Feeds help your visitors find your site so they need to be managed carefully in order to make the most of them. Your site feeds are an important way to create backlinks too. Backlinks from authoritative sites are highly valuable and can boost your page ranking. For information about showing backlinks please refer to the Blogger Help Article About Backlinks

Ensure you have your RSS feed icons clearly visible for visitors to see. The most superior positioning of the feed icons on your site is in the header. Watch out for coming tutorials on how to improve positioning of RSS feed links.

You can redirect your feed to a feedburning service like Feedburner and then add a chicklet to your site (orange RSS feed button) so that the feed is instantly available on click. Please refer to my tutorials about Blogger feeds:Burn a Blogger RSS Feed at Feedburner and Blogger RSS Feeds and Feedburner. To add a FeedFlare to your burned feed check out my tutorial.

If you haven't burnt your feed you can try adding a Subscription Links widget to a sidebar too to encourage visitors to subscribe to your site in popular on-line readers such as Google Reader. You will find the Subscription Links widget available under the list of gadgets.


Display your most recent posts by configuring a feed widget. Under Layout > Page Elements add a feed gadget to a sidebar. Enter the URL of the default feed of your site which will be:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Enter Recent Posts in the title and then Save. For more information about adding a posts feed widget to a sidebar please refer to my article Add a Recent Posts Feed to a Blogger Blog

You can do the same for comments if you wish to have a list of recent comments displayed in your sidebar. In this case you would enter:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

For more in depth coverage about adding a comments feed to your sidebar please see my article Add a Recent Comments Feed to a Blogger Sidebar

Ensure you set up your site feeds to show the full text. To check this navigate to Settings > Site Feeds and select yes from the dropdown box for all three feeds.

Consider having a feed specifically for a popular label if it contains 20 or more posts.


9. Optimize Your Use of Images
Chances are you don't give a thought to images when you insert them into your posts but images can be optimized by careful use of filenames and the alt attribute. When naming images avoid long names. Instead give your images distinctive filenames rather than something generic like 00045.jpg which has no meaning.

The alt attribute allows you to specify what text is displayed when a visitor's mouse hovers over an image. The alt attribute also gets displayed if the image is not available for some reason. By optimizing your alt attributes you are increasing the likelihood of your images appearing in Google Image Searches.

Optimizing your alt attributes is easy. Every time you insert an image into a post look for the alt attribute which will be empty by default

style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />

Fill in the alt attribute with a useful description of your image

style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Blog Know How Sidebar Showing Add This Bookmark Button" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />

Depending on the subject of your site you can gain a lot of traffic from the images you post on your site. The more unique the content of your site the greater the likelihood that your traffic will stem from images. Without going overboard ensure you have a good mix of images to support your articles.


10. Take Advantage of Web Analytics Services
Having implemented some strategies to improve crawling and indexing of your site by search engine giants Google, Yahoo and MSN chances are you will want to see how these changes have impacted on the traffic reaching your site. Web Analytics programs are a valuable tool for gaining insight into visitor behaviour and trends. The kind of information that a program like Google Analytics will provide is:

how users reach and behave on your site

the most popular content on your site

the impact of optimizations you make to your site (e.g. by how much did changing the order of title tags improve traffic from search engines?)

To integrate Google Analytics into your Blogger (Blogspot) blog please refer to my articles Track Visitors to Your Blogger Blog and Add Google Analytics to Blogger Blog

This article has discussed 10 easy ways to build site traffic and improve SEO for Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers by addressing the following areas: feeds, images, social bookmarking, title tags, permalinks, content, analytics, submitting your blog to search engines.

Add a Blogger Sitemap to MSN Bing Webmaster Tools

How to add a Blogger Blog and Blogger Sitemap (Blogspot Sitemap) to Bing Webmaster Tools formerly MSN Live Search. Step by step instructions for Blogspot bloggers who want to improve search engine optimization of their blog.

Although Bing (formerly MSN Live Search) gets a fraction of search engine traffic compared to Google and Yahoo it is still worthwhile submitting your Blogger sitemap (Blogspot sitemap) and blog to Bing. The advantages of adding your blog to Bing is that you will learn more about how your site is crawled and what keywords visitors use to access your blog pages.

Updated 24 November 2010

Due to the significant changes to MSN Live Search (now Bing) and the Webmaster Center the instructions my original instructions are now out of date. I have written a completely new set of instructions (labelled new instructions) that you will find at the top of this blog post which covers how to add a Blogger Blog and Blogger Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools. I have chosen to leave the old instructions in place as they do explain how to add a rss feed or atom feed rather than the default posts feed if you prefer.

This Blogger tutorial covers the steps involved to add your Blogspot blog to Bing (MSN). Part One deals with how to add a site to Bing Webmaster Tools while part two takes you through the steps to add a Blogger sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools. Both these tutorials are rated easy and can be performed by anyone using Blogger.

+++++++ NEW INSTRUCTIONS +++++++

How to Add a Blogger Blog (Blogspot Blog)to Bing Webmaster Tools

1. Create an account or sign into Bing at MSN. If you have a hotmail account you will already have access to Bing Webmaster Tools
   
2. Navigate to the Bing Webmasters Tools page
   
   
3. Installing Skylight is purely optional. Silverlight is Microsoft's competitive product for Adobe Flash. Try it if you wish as it adds some extra functionality but for the purposes of this Blogger tutorial it is not necessary.
   
4. From the Bing Webmaster home page click on Add Site
   
5. Fill in the URL address of your Blogger blog eg blogknowhow.blogspot.com
   
   
6. Click on Submit
   
7. Your blog will now appear on the list of added sites under your Bing Webmaster account
   
   
8. Click the Verify Site link at the right of your blog
   
   
9. Choose Option 2 - Add meta tag to your default webpage
   
   
10. Copy the meta tag code that appears in the dialog box by right clicking on it with your mouse and selecting copy. Keep the Bing Webmaster Tools window open as we will be returning
    
    
11. Login to your Blogger account if not already logged in using a different browser window
    
12. From the Dashboard go to Design > Edit HTML
    
13. Paste the code below the <head> tag and before <b:skin> and as early as possible
    
    For the new generation of default Blogger templates I suggest placing the code just below these two lines:
    
    

    <head>
    <meta content='IE=EmulateIE7' http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'/>

    
    
    For earlier generations of default Blog templates and custom templates I suggest you place the Bing Webmaster meta tag after these lines:
    

    <head>
    <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

14. Click on Save Template
    
15. Return to Bing Webmaster and click on the Verify button
    
16. If successful your Blogger blog will be added to the list of sites. Information about your blog will show not available as it takes at least 48 hours to activate.
    
    
17. Click on your blog and you will be taken to the site information screen. Notice the menu (bank of tabs) for easy navigation (as pictured). Use the dropdown menu to navigate between your blogs if you add more than one to Bing Webmaster.
    
    

How to Add a Blogger Sitemap (Blogspot Sitemap) to Bing Webmaster

1. Sign in to Bing Webmaster if not already signed in
   
2. Click on your Blogger blog from the list of sites
   
3. Click on the Crawl tab from the top menu
   
4. Click on Sitemaps from the menu on the left hand side
   
   
5. An Add Sitemap dialog box will pop up. Enter the following URL of the default posts feed of your Blogger blog eg
   
   

   http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

   
   Replace the yourblogname with the name of your blog
   
   
6. Click on the Submit button
   
7. If you have entered the details of your sitemap correctly you will now be presented with a added sitemap success screen
   
   

In this Blogger tutorial I have taken you through the steps involved in submitting a Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) to Bing Webmaster Tools (MSN). I have also shown you how to add a Blogger sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools by using the default Blogger posts feed.




+++++++ OLD INSTRUCTIONS BELOW THIS LINE +++++++

Steps to Add Your Blog and Sitemap to MSN Live Search

1. Login to MSN Webmaster Center with a hotmail account if you have one otherwise you will need to sign up first.


2. By default you will be taken to the Site List - Webmaster Tools page.

3. Click on Add a Site and enter the URL address of your site in the box provided

4. Enter the address of your sitemap in the box provided:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Be sure to substitute yoursitename with the actual name of your site

5. Enter your email address if you wish MSN Live Search to contact you if it encounters problems

6. Sign up for periodic news updates if you wish otherwise uncheck the box

7. Click on the Submit button

8. Next you will be taken to the Authenticate Ownership of Website Page. You will be given two authentication options choose the Meta Tag Authentication Method by highlighting the code provided and copying it using Ctrl + C. Keep this browser window open as we will come back here.


9. In a new window of your browser login in to your Blogger blog and navigate to Layout > Edit HTML. It is a good idea to backup your template at this point in case you inadvertently overwrite some code. To backup your site Click on Download Full Template

10. Locate the <head> tag which will be about 5-10 lines from the top. You can paste the code anywhere in the head section. I suggest after this line:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

11. Save Template

12. Return to MSN Live Search Webmaster Centre and click on the Return to Site List button

13. All going well you will now be able to see your Blogger website listed in the list of your sites


14. Click on your site and you will be taken to the Site Summary - Webmaster Tools page


15. It is now a matter of waiting for MSNBot to crawl and index your site. You will need patience as this is by no means a fast process. Don't forget to sign out of MSN Webmaster Tools.


For a quicker response you can also try submiting the sitemap of your blog to Moreover.com. Historically Moreover has provided the submitted feeds to MSN for crawling and indexing. I am not entirely certain this is still in force but it is simple to do so worth a shot I say. Simply copy the code below and paste it into your browser address bar

http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/rss.xml

Be sure to substitute yoursitename with the actual name of your site

If successful you will receive the following message:

Thank you for your ping. The moreover database will be updated with the new data from your url - http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/rss.xml as soon as possible

Update 24 November 2010

This ping is no longer working. I suggest you try a ping service or blog and ping tool. If you search under "ping a blog" you will find there are lots of services available.

In this tutorial we have discussed in detail how to submit your Blogger Blogspot blog to MSN Live Search, authenticate your site and add a sitemap.

Submit a Blogger Sitemap to Major Search Engines

If you haven't submitted your Blogger website and sitemap to the major search engines yet this article will help you through the process. Submitting your Blogger (Blogspot) blog to the two most popular search engines Google and Yahoo is a must if you want your site crawled and indexed quickly and, of course, to receive visitors. You may also want to cast your net a little wider. If so there are a couple of other search engines worthy of note that you may not have even considered. This article explores the steps involved in submitting your blog and sitemap to 5 major search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, Moreover.com and Ask.com


Submit Your Site and Sitemap to Google
For a step by step walkthrough of how to submit your Blogger blog to Google, verify your site and add a sitemap please refer to my article Submit Your Blogspot Blog Sitemap to Google



Submit Your Site and Sitemap to Yahoo
Yahoo has a fair share of the search engine market and therefore getting your Blogger blog crawled and indexed needs to be a priority. For an in depth discussion on how to submit your site, verify it and submit a sitemap to Yahoo Site Explorer please see my article Submit Blogspot Sitemap to Yahoo



Submit Your Site and Sitemap to MSN
You can now submit a sitemap directly to MSN at Webmaster Center. For detailed steps in submitting a Blogger site and sitemap to MSN Live Search please refer to my article Add a Blogger Sitemap to MSN Live Search



Submit Your Site and Sitemap to Moreover.com
Historically submitting your Blog sitemap to Moreover.com expedited indexing in MSN because of a standing arrangement that Moreover would provide the submitted feeds to MSN for crawling and indexing. At the time of writing this article it is not clear if this is still useful as sitemaps can now be submitted to MSN directly. However, it can't do any harm so I suggest giving it a go.

To submit a sitemap to Moreover copy and paste the following line into your internet browser address taking care to replace yoursitename with the actual name of your site:

http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/rss.xml

If all is well you will receive the following success message:

Submit Your Site and Sitemap to Ask.com
It is worth submitting your sitemap to Ask.com, previously known as Ask Jeeves. It is considered an important search engine and owns Excite, Bloglines, MyWay and iWon. Ask.com also is a participant in the Sitemaps Protocol Program.

It is easy to submit your Blogger sitemap to Ask.com. Simply copy (Ctrl + C command) and paste (Ctrl + V command) the following line into your internet browser address bar. Be sure to substitute yoursitename with the actual name of your site.

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/rss.xml

Provided there are no issues you will see the success screen:



This article explored how to go about submitting your blog and sitemap to 5 major search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, Moreover.com and Ask.com

How to Add a Subtitle to Blogger Posts

This Blogger tutorial shows you how to easily and quickly add a subtitle to your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) so that both search engines and readers will have more information about your post. I also discuss the benefits of adding subtitles to Blogger articles. This is an easy tweak to your Blogger blog that anyone can carry out in a couple of minutes.



Benefits of Using Subtitles in Posts
Adding a subtitle which appears below the title of your post can be both eye catching and informative. For instance a titling schema for this post could be:

Title: Add a Subtitle to a Blogger Blog

Subtitle: Make Your Posts More Search Engine Friendly and User Friendly

If you craft your titles and subtitles carefully you will encourage more targeted readers of your blog as they will be able to see at a glance what your post is about rather than reading the whole article. Your traffic therefore might be slightly less but they will be far more targeted to the content of your site resulting in a lower bounce rate.

If the subtitle you choose for your Blogger post is keyword rich then you are also improving your chances of gaining a higher position in search engine result pages because search engines give added weight to headings and to text early on in an article. By adding a subtitle to a Blogger post you have a SEO tool which if used effectively could result in more visitors finding your site because of higher keyword density.

You can of course add a subtitle manually to each post and format it everytime. The advantage of this method over doing it manually though is that all the formatting is in the stylesheet section of your template so you only have to change the colour scheme and font variables in one location and Blogger will look after the rest. Any change will be reflected in each and every post that has the subtitle <div> tags.


How to Add a Subtitle to Blogger Posts
This tutorial guides you through the steps to take to add a subtitle to your Blogger blog. The trick requires only takes a few short minutes and requires only a small snippet of code to be added to your template. Provided the instructions are followed anyone can do this including beginners and new bloggers. Interestingly it is not widely known or written about in technical blogs that a subtitle can be added to your Blogger Blogspot blog posts yet the advantages are considerable.

1. Log in to Blogger and navigate to Design > Edit HTML

2. Find the </b:skin> tag in your template. If you are have difficulty finding it use CTRL + F to bring up the Blogger toolbar at the bottom of your blog and enter the tag </b:skin> into the search box on the toolbar

3. Copy and paste the code below into your template making sure that it appears before the </b:skin> closing tag.

.subtitle{
font-family:Trebuchet MS',Verdana,Arial,Sans-serif;
font-size:15px;
color: #ca1717;
line-height:20px;
}

Update November 14, 2010. This code inserts a subtitle in red. You will need to change this color to match your template. See later in this post for information on how to add styling or change the color of the subtitle. If you wish to use a known variable as shown in the above image you can. color: $dateheadercolor; could be used for example provided this variable had already been declared in the variables section of the template.

4. Save Template

5. Go to the post you wish to add a subtitle to by clicking on the Posting tab and then the Edit Posts link.

6. Copy and paste the following code into your post ahead of any other text.

<div class="subtitle">Subtitle Text. Please Substitute for your own text</div>

7. Substitute your own text between the <div> tags

8. Navigate to Settings > Formatting and under the last option Post Template enter the following into the box:

<div class="subtitle"></div>

This will mean that every time you create a post you will have the tags appear automatically. All you need do is place the text of your subtitle between the tags. If you don't want to use a subtitle for a particular post just delete the tags.

9. Save Changes to Post and click on View Blog to admire your new subtitle.



Customizing the CSS Styling of a Blogger Subtitle
It is easy to customize your subtitle for a different font type, color and size. Just change the code you added before the </b:skin> tag. If you want a specific color for instance you could change the color I have chosen for another color, increase the font size, and change the font face to Times Roman for instance. Thus your code would become something like this:


.subtitle{

font-family:Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size:16px;
color:#ff6600;
line-height:20px;

This Blogger tutorial has shown you how to add a subtitle to your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) quickly and easily. I have discussed the benefits of inserting a subtitle feature on a Blogger blog including how this might assist search engines to correctly index your blog articles. I have also shown you how to customize your subtitle to your own individual requirements using CSS styling

Add Meta Tags to Blogger for Better SEO

In this Blogger tutorial I will show you the best way to add meta tags to your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) to improve the SEO of your blog and work around the limitations of the Blogger platform.

I have observed that there are many Blogger help blogs out there telling you to just add meta tags however this will very likely achieve the opposite result from the one you are after. Whether you are yet to add meta tags or you have added meta tags already make sure you read and follow the methods contained in this article to get the best results.

What are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are HTML tags that provide additional information about your blog that is unseen by visitors but available to search engines. The meta description tag, for example, provides a short summary of the page content. The keyword meta tags show the keywords and keyword phrases a visitor might use to find your blog. Because of abuse of meta tags search engines have become smarter and most no longer place emphasis on keywords to establish page ranking however keyword meta tags are still used by some search engines so it is a good idea to include them.

Limitations of Blogger and SEO
One of the disappointing aspects of Blogger is that it is not properly optimized for SEO. Meta descriptions and keywords are not supported by blogger.com by default. Title tags are also not optimized. This means that you will miss valuable opportunities to attract visitors to your blog.

However meta tags and meta descriptions can be inserted into your Blogger template (Blogspot template) to good effect. Fortunately these work arounds will go a long way to improving the placement of your blog in search engine results. Please refer to adjust Blogger title tags for improved SEO for help with title tags.

Simply placing a meta tag description in your Blogger template is problematic because Blogger will use the same meta tags for all pages in your blog. This means that every entry that Google has for your site will show in search results with the same description. This solution would result in reduced traffic rather than increased traffic. However there is a way to add meta tags to the home page of your blog only which will not affect post pages in your blog. In this way visitors will find the home page of your blog in search engines by the use of appropriate keywords and a site description.

How to Add Meta Tags to a Blogger Blogspot Blog Home Page
1. Login to Blogger if not already logged in

2. Navigate to Design > Edit HTML

3. Back up your template as a precaution by downloading full template to your computer.

4. Check the Expand Widget Templates box

5. Find these lines which will be near the top of your template:

<head>
<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

6. Paste the following code immediately below <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='Place your blog description here' name='description'/>
<meta content='Place your blog keywords here(separated by commas)'
name='keywords'/>
</b:if>

7. Enter your blog description between the single quote marks under description. Maximum 150 characters

8. Enter the keywords of your blog between the single quote marks under keywords. Ensure you separate each keyword or keyword phrase by a comma. Make sure your keywords do not exceed 200 characters

By way of example here are the meta tags I use for the home page of Blog Know How:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='Find tips,tricks,tutorials,walkthroughs to customize your Blogger Blogspot blog.SEO,Banners,Adsense,gadgets,fixes,feeds,rss,help for beginner bloggers' name='description'/>
<meta content='blog,blogger,blogger.com,blogspot.com,blogspot,blogging,tutorials,tips,blogger help,customize blogger,SEO,make money,gadgets,Google Adsense,banners, feeds,analytics,solutions'
name='keywords'/>
</b:if>

9. Click on the Save Template button

10. To see your description in action you can either navigate to your blog's home page and click on view source in your browser. In Internet Explorer you will find this option in the view menu. A text document will appear which you can scroll through. You will see your description near the top of the document. Alternatively you can check your description in a free Meta Tag Analyzer tool such as Submit Express or SEO Centro


How to Add Meta Tags to a Blogger Blogspot Blog Individual Post
1. Follow steps 1 to 4 as for adding meta tags to the Home Page

2. Add the following in the <head> section of your Blogger template. Enter this code below the Home Page code above you have just entered:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://url of your post"'>
<meta content='keywords pertaining to your post' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='crafted description of your post' name='description'/>
</b:if>

Here is an example of optimized meta tags for this post:


<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/05/add-meta-tags-to-blogger-for-better-seo.html"'>
<meta content='meta tags,optimize blogger,blogger SEO,search engine optimization, blogspot,blogger,blogspot.com,blogger.com,blogging,blog' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='Improve SEO by adding meta tags to your Blogger Blogspot blog. Step by step tutorial shows you how to add meta tags to the home page and a single post' name='description'/>
</b:if>

3. Add your post URL, keywords and description. To find the URL of your post navigate to the post's page and copy the link showing in the address bar of your browser including the http:// prefix

4. Click on the Save Template button

5. To check your description you can use the view source in your browser once you have navigated to the post page or a meta tag analyzer

Note: This method is suitable if you have a few key posts that you want to ensure you get maximum traffic on. If you have a lot of posts this manual method would be very tedious. I don't know of any automated method or script to add meta tags at this point but I am investigating it and will keep you posted.


Analyze Your Blogspot Blogger Meta Tags
Once you have added meta tags to your blog you can use tools to analyze them to ensure their relevance. Aim for meta tag relevancy to page content of above 90%. To check this you can use a free meta tag analyzer tool such as Submit Express or SEO Centro


Troubleshooting and Tips

• Observe Character Limits
  To avoid problems ensure that you keep within the maximum character limits:
  
  

  Title Tag - Maximum Characters is 60
  Site Description - Maximum Characters is 150
  Keywords - Maximum Characters is 200

• Title Tag Tweak
  If you have inserted the title tag tweak and it is highly recommended that you do so then you will need to add the code above after the title tag adjustment in the <head> section of your template. Read more about adjusting title tags
  
• Keywords
  Although some search engines no longer place too much emphasis on keywords some still do so it is worth adding keywords. Avoid using the same keyword more than 3 times. The maximum number of keywords recommended to be robot friendly is around 20.
  
• Problems Reading the Code
  Some readers have reported problems with their browser reading this code. Try this document form of the article if this happens to you

In this Blogger meta tag tutorial I have discussed the best way to add meta tags to a Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) to improve search engine results given the limitations of the Blogger platform. In this article you have learned to add both meta tags for keywords and descriptions to the home page. You have also learned how to add meta tags to an individual post. To optimize your meta tags I have included links to free meta tag analyzer tools.

Blogger Blogspot SEO Tips and Tricks

Want to improve SEO on a Blogspot Blogger blog? This tutorial discusses how bloggers can optimize their blog using SEO techniques to improve indexing of their Blogger Blogspot blog and achieve a better ranking in search engine results.

In this article I will be discussing the following Blogger help tips for SEO:

• Adding Your Blogger Blog to Major Search Engines
• Optimizing Blogger Post Titles
• Utilising Meta Keywords and a Meta Description
• Using Keywords in Alt Tags and Image Titles
• Using Target Keywords in Your Post Content
• Optimizing Blogger Title Tags
• Optimizing Your Blogger Permalinks
• Making Use of HTML Heading Tags Within Posts and Post Titles
• Adding Breadcrumb Navigation to your Blogger Blog

Get Your Blog Listed by Major Search Engines
Getting listed in the major search engines is a must if you want to get traffic from search engines. I have written several in depth articles about how to add a sitemap to major search engines and how to add your blog to Google, Yahoo and MSN so I will not repeat myself. Follow these articles for step by step walkthroughs

Optimize Your Blogger Post Titles
Major search engines lend a lot of weight to titles so it is important that you craft your post titles carefully. To optimize your post titles make them keyword rich and ensure the title clearly explains what the blog post is about. Try to put your keywords at the beginning of your title for best results and avoid repeating your keywords within the title. Avoid long titles as Google only displays about 65 characters in the search results anyway.

Title tags are important if your Blogger blog is to attract traffic and rank in search engine results. On your blog home page the blog title appears between the title tags while on each individual post page it is the name of the article itself. While the title tags themselves are unseen by the visitor to your blog they are read when search engines crawl your blog.

Search engines use title tags to display your post title as a headline in search engine results. Search engines also display a description of the article either by extracting it from the post content usually by picking up the first 150 characters of your post or by reading the meta description of the post if one exists.

Meta descriptions can be crafted for individual posts in Blogger to good effect. Make descriptions unique for each post and ensure they contain your target keywords and keyword phrases to encourage search engines to extract snippets from them. To find out more about adding a meta description to an individual post please see my article Adding Meta Tags to Blogger Blogspot Blog for Better SEO


Add Meta Tags and Blog Description to Blogger
Adding meta keywords and a blog description to your Blogger Blogspot blog can boost your rankings by helping visitors locate your blog using keyword and keyword phrases. To find out the best method of inserting these into your Blogger blog please refer to my article about Adding Meta Tags to Blogger Blogspot Blog for Better SEO


Use Keywords in Alt Tags and Image Titles
Optimize the images used on your blog by making use of the alt tags and image titles. For some tips on SEO and images please refer to 10 Tips to Build Site Traffic for a Blogspot Blog


Use Target Keywords in Your Post Content
Make sure you know your targeted keywords and use them within your post content. One of the factors in determining rankings is the relevance of the targeted keywords in relationship to the text that appears in the post content.


Change the Order of Post Title and Blog Title for Better SEO
One key change you can make to Blogger that will markedly improve the SEO of your blog is to adjust the title tags.

By default Blogger title tags are not optimized for search engines. The name of the blog appears before the name of the article which is not search engine friendly. Since search engines read left to right and give preference to what appears first having your blog name display before your post title is significant. To improve SEO it pays to adjust the order of title tags so that the your post title appears first:

Blog Title | Post Title

to

Post Title | Blog Title

To find out how to adjust the title tags of a Blogger Blogspot blog please refer to my article Adjust Blogger Title Tags to Improve SEO


Optimize Your Blogger Permalinks
Hand in hand with a title tag is the permanent permalink that is created when a post is published. If the title of the post is more than about 35 characters long you will strike problems with Blogger because it will shorten the title to a 35-40 character permalink. Some very ugly results happen because of this factor. For instance imagine a permalink such as:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-create-improved-permalinks-for.html

A totally useless permalink results because the blogger keyword has been left off. Learn more about crafting titles and working around the limitations of Blogger permalinks in my article How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks



Improve SEO by Making Use of Headings for Post Titles
Heading tags are important for optimal SEO. Most Blogger.com templates use html header tags sized <h2> or <h3> for the post title. In the past major search engines like Google gave precedence to tags with <h1> ahead of anything else but how important <h1> tags are today is less certain. You could tweak the heading size of your post title if you wish however take care to ensure the look of your template isn't compromised. A bigger font will result and this may mean other parts of your blog will need to be adjusted to compensate. To find out what size your blog title is look for the following lines in your template.

<b:if cond='data:post.title'>
<h3 class='post-title entry-title'>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.link'>&t/a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'></a>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</h3>
</b:if>


As can be seen this template blog title is in <h3>. To change the size of the tags just substitute the appropriate header tag where <h3> appears


Improve SEO By Making Use of Heading Tags Within Posts
Heading tags can be used to good effect in your posts. Make sure you have only one <h1> heading per page if you have one at all and reserve this for your post title. Make use of <h2> and <h3> headings throughout your post to emphasize key points and targeted keywords. Major search engines do take notice of <h2> and <h3> headings when crawling your blog. To add emphasis to a heading within your blog simply enclose the heading in <h3> tags.


Add Breadcrumb Navigation to your Blogger Blog
There is a hack that can be used to add breadcrumb navigation to a Blogger Blogspot blog. Adding breadcrumb navigation can boost your SEO of your blog as well as improving how readers get around.


A breadcrumb provides text-based navigation by displaying the visitor's location within a blog. A breadcrumb provides shortcuts to enable visitors to quickly get around your blog and jump from one part of your blog to another. For example a breadcrumb for a post about meta tags would be Home > Meta Tags >Add Meta Tags to Blogger for Better SEO. An anchor text such as 'meta tags' tells search engines about the subject of the linked page. Search engines view a breadcrumb with a text link to relevant keywords in the post as important.

To find out how to add a breadcrumb navigation to your Blogger Blogspot blog please refer to my article Add Breadcrumb Navigation to a Blogger Blog


This article has focused on providing you with solid Blogger SEO advice, tips and tricks for the Blogspot Blogger. It will help you achieve good SEO results for your blog. Good luck. If you have time let me know about your experiences.

Add Breadcrumb Navigation to Blogger Blogspot

One way you can improve navigation of a Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) is to add breadcrumb navigation to your Blogger blog. There is also a SEO benefit of installing a breadcrumb as major search engines like Google treat anchor text links as important. In this Blogger tutorial I will guide you through the steps to add breadcrumb navigation to a Blogger blog (Blogspot blog).

Whether you are using a custom template or a default Blogger template breadcrumb navigation can be added. It is not difficult and I have updated these instructions on December 4, 2010 to take account of the new generation of default Blogger templates eg Simple.

What Will a Breadcrumb Do on My Blog?
Adding a breadcrumb to your blog provides a form of text-based navigation. A breadcrumb displays the visitor's location within a blog. The advantage of a breadcrumb is that it provides shortcuts to enable visitors to quickly get around your blog by jumping from one part of your blog to another.

To illustrate how adding a breadcrumb would work in your blog let's use an example. A breadcrumb for an individual post would follow this format:

Home > Label > Post Title

Using this post as an example a breadcrumb might be Home > Navigation > Add a Breadcrumb to Blogger Blogspot Blog. In cases where there is more than one label this hack uses the last label listed. If a visitor wanted to look at other posts about navigation all they need do is click on the "Navigation" link in the breadcrumb and they will be taken to a page which will show them all the posts with the "Navigation" label.


SEO Benefits of a Breadcrumb
Apart from improving the navigation of your Blogger blog adding a breadcrumb also has SEO benefits. Anchor text such as labels tells search engines about the subject of the linked page. Search engines view a breadcrumb with a text link to relevant keywords in the post as important. Read more about SEO try the following articles:

Blogger Blogspot SEO Tips and Tricks
Add Meta Tags to Blogger for Better SEO

How to Add a Breadcrumb Navigation to your Blogger Blog
It is not difficult to add a breadcrumb to your blog but it does involve adding a snippet of code to your template. Below is a step by step walkthrough which I have aimed at beginners so that anyone reading my blog will be able to follow the instructions. Credit to Hoctro for this hack.

1. Login in to Blogger if you are not already logged in

2. Navigate to Design > Edit HTML

3. Back up your blog using Download Full Template as a precaution in case you accidently overwrite some code and are not able to retrieve it.

4. Check the Expand Widget Template box

5. Add the following CSS code above this line ]]></b:skin>

.breadcrumbs {float: left;width: 590px;font-size: 11px;margin: 5px 10px 20px 10px;padding: 0px 0px 3px 0px;border-bottom: double #EAEAEA;}

Once your breadcrumb is working modify this if you need to so that it blends with the look and style of your template.

6. Find this line of code <b:includable id='main' var='top'>

7. Older XML Blogger templates and custom templates replace the entire block of code below. If you are using the new generation of Blogger templates such as Simple look for alternative instructions further down in this Step)

<b:includable id='main' var='top'>
<!-- posts -->
<div class='blog-posts hfeed'>
<b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>
<data:adStart/>

with

<b:includable id='main' var='top'>
<!-- posts -->
<div class='blog-posts hfeed'>
<!-- disable default status message
<b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>default status message disabled -->
<b:include data='posts' name='breadcrumb'/><data:adStart/>

Update 4 December 2010. Note: if you are using the new generation of Blogger templates eg Simple then do the following instead

Find this code block and add the code in red between <div class='blog-posts hfeed'> and <data:defaultAdStart/>

<b:includable id='main' var='top'>
<b:if cond='data:top.showPlusOne'>
<script expr:src='data:top.plusOneJsUrl'/gt;
</b:if>
<!-- posts -->
<div class='blog-posts hfeed'>
<!--Breadcrumb Hack - disable default status message
<b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>default status message disabled -->
<b:include data='posts' name='breadcrumb'/>
<data:defaultAdStart/>

8. Now immediately before <b:includable id='main' var='top'> paste the following large block of code:

<b:includable id='breadcrumb' var='posts'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.homepageUrl == data:blog.url'>
<!-- No breadcrumb on front page -->
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<div class='breadcrumbs'>
Browse » <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' rel='tag'>Home</a>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast == "true"'> » <a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a> </b:if> </b:loop>
» <span><data:post.title/></span> </b:if> </b:loop> </div>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'>
<div class='breadcrumbs'>
Browse » <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Archives for <data:blog.pageName/> </div> <b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<div class='breadcrumbs'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageName == ""'>
Browse » <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » All posts <b:else/>
Browse » <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> »
Posts filed under <data:blog.pageName/>
</b:if> </div> </b:if> </b:if> </b:if>
</b:if>
</b:includable>

9. Click on Save Template button

10. Click View Blog and navigate to any post page to see your new breadcrumb in action

Add a Breadcrumb Based on Archives
Follow this hack provided by Purple Moggy if you would like to add a breadcrumb based on year and month. Likely format would be: Home > Year > Month > Blog Title

Tips and Troubleshooting
Some browsers have problems displaying the code above. If experience any issue then use the code in this link Add Breadcrumb Navigation to a Blogger Blog


In this Blogger tutorial you have learned how to add breadcrumb navigation to your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) to improve SEO and site navigation. Please let me know how you get on. Good luck!