How to follow a blog, even if there is no *follow* button

You can follow a blog even if there is no *follow* button. The advantages to following a blog, instead of just bookmarking it on your browser, is that it appears in your reading list at the bottom of your dashboard in Blogger, and you can get an email when a new post is posted.

If you see a blog that you like, for example this one, that doesn't have a *follow* button, just copy the URL and go to your dashboard. Down at the bottom is a Reading List. Click on ADD, insert the URL in the box that comes up, and click, you're following!

I don't have the *follow* widget on my blog, nor do I recommend it to my clients. There are several reasons for this, the most important one being how pathetic it looks when you just start out, having maybe 3 followers. You don't need to advertise that! And also, people are reluctant to follow if it means that they have to appear on your site. It makes some people feel like they are endorsing your site. Maybe they want to follow just to find out what NOT to do! And, the *follow* widget is way too 20th-century, number-of-hits, Facebook, MySpace. Doesn't look professional.

But that doesn't mean that you can't follow! In fact, you should.

 

 

How to make money from your blog 

The easiest way to make money from your blog is to allow ads. Google ads are pretty cool, as they customize to your content. That is, if you are writing about wiener dogs, the ads will be for dog food, dachshund rescue, etc. Look around at the ads on this blog. I write about technology, software, that sort of thing. There is probably an ad for Adobe Photoshop. Makes sense. It is surprisingly easy to put ads on your blog, but oddly enough, Google has hidden it away pretty cleverly. But I can tell you were it is.

From your dashboard, click on the word "Monetize". Yeah, I had never heard the word before, either. I think they made it up. From there, Google Blogger will ask you if you want to do it, say yes, go click, and you're done. The ads appear on your blog.

And then you can start planning that trip to Hawaii!

How to change the fonts in Google Blogger

One of the cool things about Google Blogger is that you can edit the template without messing with the CSS code. If you are a designer, you will particularly like being about to change the page text, the title text, the link text, etc. You can set them to any web color you want and any set of web fonts you want, just like CSS. And you just do it with a click. Here is how:

From the dashboard, click on the link that says "Template Designer"

From there, click on "Advanced", where you will see where you can change the font size, color, etc., in all of the categories you need.

And, as you see, you can also change a bunch of other things here, including the background, the width of your blog, and on and on. Take a look at it - it's kind of fun!