Spice Up Your Blog...For Free!

Some of you may have noticed that I've been playing around with my blog elements a little bit. With some help from some bloggy friends and my husband, I've been able to do it all myself and for free!

One thing I added is the LinkWithin boxes under each post that say "You might also like" and it lists three related posts. If you'd like to add this to your blog posts, just go to the LinkWithin website, enter your email and blog addresses and your blog platform (blogger, wordpress, etc.) and it will walk you through the process. It literally took me only a couple of minutes. Thanks so much Amber!

I also learned how to make my own button with the help of my husband. This one takes several steps, so bear with me!

• We looked at other people's buttons and learned the template should be about 150x150 pixels. Use some photo editing software to make your button, then save it (I saved mine as a .gif because I saw that others did, but I don't know if it matters).
  
• On your blog's layout page, add a picture gadget, upload your saved button, add your blog's address in the line above it (this makes it so people can click on your button and go straight to your blog), and save.
  
• Now view your blog, right click on the button and go to "properties". Copy the location of the picture (looks like a long web address).
  
• Now go back to the layout page and add an html gadget. Name it "Grab my button" or whatever you'd like, then copy the code below, removing the blog address and image location areas and replacing with what it asks for, leaving in the quotation marks:

<a href="your blog address"><img src="your image location" /></a><textarea rows="3" cols="15" name="text"><a href="your blog address"><img src="your image location" /></a>
And you will need to add another (/textarea), with carrots<> instead of parentheses, at the end. (sorry, I had some problems with posting the html code in a blog post, so this is the closest workaround I could figure out, not being a computer programmer!)

• Now click save and view your blog. Now you should have two buttons, one with a text area with html below it. Go back to your layout page and delete the picture element box (click edit and delete). Save and refresh your blog, and now you should just have one button, the one in the html element box with a text area and code below it, and it should be clickable.
  

Clear as mud, right? ;-)

Adding my button to your blog's sidebar is much easier. Copy the code in the text box under my button. Then on your blog's layout page, add an html gadget and paste in my button's code. Save and voila! My clickable button will appear on your sidebar.

Or if you prefer, you can add my blog to your blogroll. On your blog's layout page, add a blog list gadget. Then type in my blog's address and any other blogs you'd like listed. Blogger will automatically update your blog roll to show the latest post on each blog and when it was posted.

There are a lot of other gadgets you can add to your sidebar, so play around with it! Have fun!