Friday, February 13, 2009

Video tutorial: Creating a Blog List with Blogger



Transcript of Video Tutorial: Creating a Blog List with Blogger

Creating a blog list with Blogger. You might be asking yourself, what is a blog list? At its most basic, a blog list, also known as a blog roll, is a list of links to your favorite blogs in your sidebar. In addition, a blog list can also show you the date of each blog last update, or even the title and snippets of its most recent post.

It's really easy to add a blog list. First, log into your Blogger account and click the LAYOUT link. If you don't see a LAYOUT, you probably is using a old Blogger classic template, in which case you will see a TEMPLATE link. If this is the case, you'll have to upgrade to LAYOUT in order to use the blog list feature. You can do so by clicking CUSTOMIZE DESIGN from within your TEMPLATE tab. You will then be prompted to upgrade your template.

From your DASHBOARD, click the LAYOUT link. Then click ADD A PAGE ELEMENT (now called ADD A GADGET). Next, select BLOG LIST. You can then name your blog list and decide how you would like to sort and whether or not you would like a snippet of each blog lastest post to appear. You can always come back to change your settings later. Finally, click ADD A BLOG TO YOUR LIST to begin building your blog list. If you use Google Reader, an option will appear to import your subscription to your blog directly. Otherwise, enter the URL of the blog you like to link to. Keep in mind that you aren't limited to just blogs. You can add a link to any webpage to your blog list. However, please note that snippets will only appear for webpages with a valid RSS feed. If snippets aren't appearing, try adding the URL of the RSS feed directly. That's it, enjoy your blog list.

11 comments:

Sarah said...

Peter, I have a question that might be unrelated to this post. I just started a new blog today, and have the Subscribe To widget at the top. I am trying to get people from my old blog to this new one, but when they try to subscribe it says "not available" or unable to be found". I have FULL set in my enable blog feeds setting. Also, my address shows up with no www. in front of it, although you can find it by going to www.memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com.
Can you help me?

Anonymous said...

hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....

Amanda said...

I'm trying to find a way to customize my bloglist. I would like to only show the top 5 current blogs on my blog list with a SHOW ALL link so that someone can expand the link list. This blog does this: http://www.multiplesandmore.blogspot.com/ but I can't figure out how to get MY blog to do it! txtwins.blogspot.com. Thanks for your help!!

Peter @ Enviroman said...

That most likely is done with a widget, but I don't know where to find them. If you ever find out how to do it, will appreciate some feedback.

g_yean_i said...

What if i want to remain as old classic template? Is there any way that I'm able to add my friend's bloglist with their updates into my blog? Thanks!

Peter @ Enviroman said...

With the old classic template you would not have LAYOUT and thus no Add a Gadget. Without that I do not see a way to get this blog list. You would have to get by with just a list of active hyperlinks

g_yean_i said...

Thanks for that information! hehe..

Sylvie Leu said...

Hi there...
i have problem with my blog list, my blog at my friend's blog doesnt seem to update automatically as it used to... i update quite frequently but it shows my previous blogs.i dont know whats wrong with it? any solution that can be done for my problem? please help me... thanks

Peter @ Enviroman said...

Sylvie, post your problem at Blogger Help Forum and let us have the thread URL.

Carrie said...

Is there a way to make my blogroll a seperate page (to list in a nav bar) instead of a list on my sidebar?

Peter @ Enviroman said...

You will have to do it manually using HTML hyperlink tags in a static page