The top commentators can also be set to change every month. Like the one in this blog sidebar (see, Top Ten Blogrolls for Being top commentators of the Month).

Download here for free!

Setting screenshot: See the screenshot below to customize the plugins after you install and activate it.

STEP 1

1. Login to your CO.CC account, if you already have. If you don’t, create one here first.

2. In the CO.CC admin, click Manage Domains -> Set Up.
3. In the Host write your CO.CC domain. Example www.fatih-syuhud.co.cc
4. In the TTL choose 1D
5. In the “Type” choose CNAME
6. In the Value write “ghs.google.com”
7. Click “Set Up”. Done. See picture 1.

STEP 2: Now go to your blogger.com

1. Login to your blogger.com account
2. Click Setting -> Publishing -> Custom Domain
3. Click “Switch to advanced settings”
4. Enter your CZ.CC domain in Your Domain box.
5. Enter word verification and click Save Settings. Done. See picture 2

PICTURE 1

PICTURE  2

fatihsyuhud.com

Creating sitemap for self-hosted WordPress is easy. You just need to install Google Sitemap Plugins which you can download for free.

Make no mistake, creating a sitemap for blogger.com / blogspot is even easier if you only know how. Basically creating sitemap need two steps: (i) Verification, to verify that you own the blog and (ii) Submitting Sitemap, to tell the search engine about your blog and every articles you have written. In return, Google search will tell the world about them (your blog and the contents) after the two procedures are done.

Now, follow these simple steps if you run a blog in blogger.com / blogspot:

First step: Verification

• Login to your blogger.com account.
• Scroll-down and find out  “Webmaster Tools” -> click it. If you coudn’t find it, click here (remeber to click this link after login to your account).
• Now, you have verified your blog. Congrats!

Second step: Submit the sitemap

• You now have entered into Webmaster tools area. Find your blog URL there and click it. Example,  I clcik -> mysite.blogspot.com
• In the Dashboard click “Site Configuration -> Sitemaps -> click “Submit a Sitemap”
• There will be your blog address like http://mysite.blogspot.com/–blankboxhere–
• Copy and paste this code in the blankbox -> atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100
• Click “Submit Sitemaps”. Done.

Congratulations! Now you have told Google search about the first 100 posts of your blog contents.

Important: If you have more than 100 articles, say 200, repeat the second step and submit another Sitemap by changing the number into 101 and 200 like this one: atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=101&max-results=200

Likewise, if you have 300 articles in your blog, you have to submit three sitemaps. The third sitemaps should be like this: atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=201&max-results=300

Repeat the process and submit more sitemaps if you have hundreds of articles or even thousands of postings.

Wish you luck!

But oftentimes we see a very good quality content blog just does not get enough traffic it deserves.

In another words, apart from a good content, we also need a good tips & tricks to make our blog good and crowdy.

Here are the excerptise advices from a few international prominent blogger:

Seth Godin

Seth Godin, the best selling marketing books author and prominent blogger, gives us 56 tips to follow for any blogger who wants to increaste his/her traffic. The most important of which are:

• Learn enough to become the expert in your field
• Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
• Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
• Write short, pithy posts.
• Write long, definitive posts.
• Be patient.
• Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
• Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
• Write in English.
• Don’t be boring.
• Write stuff that people want to read and share.
• Read more advice from Seth Godin here.

Meanwhile Rand Fish of Seomoz.org offers 21 tips & trick to increase your blog traffics. The excerpt:

• Participate at Related Forums & Blogs

Whatever industry or niche you’re in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that’s already active.

• Tag Your Content. Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts.
• Link Intelligently

… quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etiquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It’s almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous.

• Invite Guest Bloggers

Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog.

• Eschew Advertising (Until You’re Popular)
• Go Beyond Text in Your Posts

Add images, interactive elements, the occasional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs.

• Build a Brand. Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building.
• Read more Rand Fish tips here.

Wish you luck!

Favicon (pronounced fav-ai-kon) is short for ‘Favorites Icon.’ A Favicon is a multi-resolution image included on nearly all professional developed sites. Within Internet Explorer and Firefox the Favicon is displayed on the Address line and in the Favorites menu. The Favicon allows the webmaster to further promote their site, and to create a more customized appearance within a visitor’s browser. Often, the Favicon reflects the look and feel of the web site or the organization’s logo. See for example the Favicon of this website where I use my own picture.

.. to create Favicon is simple in a self-hosted blog by adding the following two line of codes:
<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>

The question is can favicon be installed to blogger.com / blogspot and if yes, how?

We can use the same method as we do to a self-hosted blog / website.

Follow this simple tutorial:

1. Create Favicon first at http://www.iconj.com/ by (a) clicking BROWSE and put the image you want to faviconize; (b) Click Upload Now

2. At “Host it at Iconj.com:(Direct Link)” -> Copy the given code

Example: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.iconj.com/ico/l/k/lkssmv0x3a.ico” />

3. Put the following code at the head of blogger template ->
<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
along with the code given by Iconj.com (see sample at no. 2)

So, the two line of code I put below the &lt; head&gt; are:

<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.iconj.com/ico/l/k/lkssmv0x3a.ico" />


4. Save. Done.

See the LIVE DEMO in a Newborn Baby Blog here (note, You need to use Firefox browser).

NOTE: If it doesn’t work or there’s an error report from blogger.com, change any code < into &lt; and change any code > into &gt; Then SAVE and it’s DONE.

More details on How to create FAVICON see here.

If you’re lazy enough to create your own favicon, don’t worry. I’ve created for you (it’s a red-and-whie Indonesian flag). Just copy/paste the following code into your blogspot header:


<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.iconj.com/ico/m/3/m3vo0uc2z5.ico" />


Wish you luck!

Related Posts:

• How to create Favicon
• Creating Favicon for WordPress.com
• Comprehensive blogger / wordpress Tutorial

1. Just go to http://www.linkwithin.com/

2. Enter your blog URL address in the given box

3. Choose your platform, i.e. Blogger

4. Click “Get Widget” and follow the simple steps further.

Note: It can be used for other blogging platform as well like wordpress or blogsome.com or blogs.ie

***

Some intro about linkwithin.com related posts / entries service:

LinkWithin is a widget that links to related stories from your archive under each story on your blog.
Don’t Let Your Past Stories Go to Waste!

We retrieve and index all stories from your blog archive, not just recent stories, making them accessible to new or casual readers of your blog who would not otherwise encounter them.
Increase Pageviews, Keep Readers Engaged

The widget links to stories that are relevant and interesting to readers of a particular story, keeping them engaged with your blog, and increasing your traffic.
Elegant, Unobtrusive Design

Our widget is minimally styled and blends in with your site design.
Free and Easy to Install

The widget is free and ad-free. It takes a minute to get the widget up and running on your blog, no signup required!

Related posts:

• Related Posts for Blogger / Blogspot
• Related Post widget for Blogger Blogspot

Here’s a brief tutorial:

1. After login to your blogger.com account -> layout -> edit HTML -> click Expand Widget Template
2. Find the following code inside the template (shortcut tips: press CTRL+F and search “post-body” in the search box).

<div class=’post-body’>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<div style=’clear: both;’/> <!– clear for photos floats –>
</div>

3. a. Put the following embedded code ABOVE the <div class='post-body'> if you want to place the Adsense code at the beginning of your post (at the left side).

3.b. Put the following embedded code BELOW <div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
</div> if you want to place it at the end of your blog post (at the left side).

<div style='float:left;'>
--- AdSense Code here ---
</div>

4. If you want to put the embedded AdSense on the right side, just change the ‘float:left’ into ‘float:right’
5. Click SAVE. Done. See the LIVE DEMO here.

Important Note:

In case you fail to put the AdSense code within the blogger / blogspot template, don’t panic!
Just follow these simple steps:

1. Change any code like this < into &lt;
2. Change any code like this > into &gt;

Is it ok with AdSense TOS? Yes, it’s.

Wish you luck.

A. Adding RSS (feed) aggregator application. There are many feeds aggregator apps which can be integrated into Facebook. One of them are RSS Social Application.

Installation:

1. After login to your Facebook account, visit RSS Social in this link

2. Click “Allow” or you can just click this link.

3. Enter upto five RSS / Feed of your blogs in the given box.

4. Click “Update” and Done.

Note:

Form of RSS Feed: if you are a really newbie blogger and are having no clue of what RSS / feed is here’s the common form of RSS/FEED in major blog platform:

i. Blogger.com / blogspot RSS FEED:
Example: http://farzanesfandiar.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Change “farzanesfandiar” into your blog address name.

ii. WordPress.com RSS FEED
Example: http://afatih.wordpress.com/feed/
Change “afatih” into your blog address name.

iii. Feedburner RSS FEED
Example: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/farzanesfandiar
Change “farzanesfandiar” into your feed name.

iv. Self-hosted blog with worpress platform
Example: http://fatihsyuhud.com/feed/
Change “fatihsyuhud.com” into your own blog address.

v. Custom domain blogger.com / blogspot
Example: http://www.beasiswas.com/feeds/posts/default
Change “beasiswas” into your blog address name.

Now if you’ve done placing your RSS Feed, put RSS Social apps on the Profile Tab so that everyone see the latest updates from your blogs.

Wish you luck.

Related posts:

• Facebook for What?
  
• Promoting Blog with Facebook RSS Apps
• Facebook Pages: How to Create
• Facebook Usernames
• Other blogging tips

Author of plugins: Rob Marsh

Functionality: Popular Posts displays a list of your blog’s most-viewed posts. The output can be customised.

Requirements: This plugin requires the latest version of the Post-Plugin Library: download it now.

Download it here.

Installation Instruction:

# Go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin.
# Put <?php popular_posts(); ?> at the place in your template where you want the list to appear or use the plugin as a widget.
# Use the Options/Settings page to adjust the behaviour of the plugin.

Complete instruction can be found here.

These are some do-follow plugins available currently, use one of them:

1. DoFollow Plugins by Semiologic

• Minimum Requirements: WordPress 2.0
• Download here.

2. Lucia’s Linky Love Plugins

• Download here.

3.  DoFollow 4.0 WP Plugins by Kimmo

• Download it here
• Read the instruction here.

That’s all and wish you luck!

Related:

• Setting DoFollow Comments for Blogger Blogspot
• Complete list of blogging tips