How to add tabs in Blogger using the links list gadget

Since I've had several people ask me, in the past week, I am going to give step by step instructions on how to add tabs to the top of your Blogger blog (yes, my blog is a Blogger blog).  It's very easy to do and will make your blog much more user friendly for your readers.

Note:  I highly recommend creating a test blog.  You can experiment with it before actually updating your own blog.  Simply "create a blog" by using whatever name works.  It will always be there for you to try new gadgets and design templates.

There are actually several ways to add tabs.  In this video, I will show you how to add tabs by using the list gadget in Blogger.



If you have any questions, just let me know.  I'm always happy to help.

Ask Candy: Inserting Videos in a Blog Post

Hey there, it's Candy! This week we have another question comes from Angela Flicker from The Artists' House. She's a quilter and the gal behind the month long blog hop called "A Crafty Holiday". She's just assembled a whole bunch of last minute shopping specials from lots of fantastic online makers!

I'm new to wordpress and often the littlest things take me forever to figure out. Like how do you post a video?

Ah, this is a pretty simple one Angela! Posting videos can add so much to your site...where else can you find a video of you, Linda and myself, all dressed up like elves?

Now, both Blogger and Wordpress have a button that allows you to upload your personal videos to your site, like you would a picture, but I've never tried it. Frankly, I worry about bandwidth and storage on my site, plus hosting the video on YouTube or Vimeo gets you the extra traffic from folks surfing around those sites as well. So if it's my own video, I'll 1st upload it to YouTube or Vimeo. And of course, there's all sorts of fun videos ripe for sharing on those sites that are a great way to liven up your blog.

When I 1st tried to post videos on my wordpress site I had a bit of trouble, and found that the solution depended upon whether it was a video hosted on You Tube, Vimeo or what have you, but it's pretty easy now. I'll also talk about posting videos on Blogger as well, for all the blogger folks out there.

Wordpress

For YouTube videos (and this fun Elf Yourself Video) somewhere on the page is a button that says "Embed This". It'll look something like this (circled in green) on YouTube

and this is how it looked on the Elf Yourself page.

So, once you've found the "embed this" button, you click on it you'll get a big hunk of html code....copy it all and then come back to your post composing screen. Click on the html tab (circled in green below)

and paste that whole bit of code in there. Then click back over to the visual editor and you'll see a big square - when you preview your post, voila -there's your movie!

Now, vimeo makes it really easy. Go to the page and grab the web address, it'll be "http://vimeo.com/4869960" (of course, the number will be different) and paste that where you'd like your movie - in the post visual editor, not the html.

Blogger

For Blogger blogs, you'll always just get the HTML embed code and paste it into the post using the edit HTML tab.

Here's some words of wisdom from Linda about the width of videos:

People may have issues with the width of the video on their blogs (I do). If you delete the height=” “ and then simply change the width number, the size should change in proportion. Otherwise, you’d have to mess with both numbers which is more difficult.

OK, hope that demystifies the posting of videos on your site...I can't wait to see what video you post first...perhaps some singing elves? ;-)

[Candy lives in California with her husband, 2 boys, and dog. Aside from being wife, mom, teacher, crafter, web guru and all around doer extraordinaire she manages her own business, Candied Fabrics. You can read her blog here.]

Adding a PDF to Your Blog - Ask Candy

This weeks question comes from Lindy of Crafted by Lindy.

Hello! Please help. I've wanted to do this for a long time. You know those blog posts where the person posting offers up a pdf for their readers to download and use, like tags, labels, etc. How do they do that? I mean I know how to make a pdf but how do they link it in their blog post so that readers can click and the pdf comes up and then they can print out the tags? Here's a link to exactly what I want to know how to do! How About Orange Printable Jar Labels

Hi Lindy! I know exactly how frustrating it is when you see something on someone else's blog/website that you'd like to do and you don't know how - my biggest problem is not knowing what the thing is called in the first place! Now, the example you sent me from How About Orange (a fabulous, fun site) the PDF isn't actually hosted on her blogger blog: if you look in the address bar of the PDF itself you'll see that it is located on her website. That's because you can't upload PDFs to blogger blogs! But have no fear, I've figured out a workaround for you, and I thought I'd try to make this post useful for lots of people, so I'm going to give instructions for Wordpress & Typepad Folks too! (Please note! I'm just providing info the way I see it - I'm sure there are other ways to do things!)

Inserting PDF's in Blogger Posts

Whenever you post something on your blog, you're uploading information that other folks are going to be accessing to a network of computers - they "host" your data. With Blogger blogs the hosting is controlled by Google, and because blogger is free, anyone using it has to accept that. So there are some limitations to what you can upload! Blogger only allows you to upload and store pictures and text. So what you need to do is find another place to host your PDF document.

There are many sites that let you do this (Scribd, Keep and Share are just 2, there are tons), but most often with these sites the user has to log on and create a profile, and sometimes that's a hurdle folks don't want to go through. So dear old Google comes through for us by letting us share PDF's using Google Docs!

1. Make your pdf and save it on your hard drive.
2. Head on over to Google Docs.
3. Upload the PDF (see the button circled in green):
4. Once the upload is complete, you'll see the name of your file as a link - click on the link. In the upper left hand corner is a button that says "Share" click on that and change the sharing settings to "public on the web".
5. Here's the counter intuitive step: go back to your Google docs page, you should see your document. Click on it, and this time when it comes up in your browser you'll see 2 helpful windows in the right hand side (circled in green):

6. Those are links you can use. The top "email" link will give you this result if you link to it, the bottom link will allow you to embed it in a page like this.

Please note, that the pictures look grainy and the text may look a bit wonky if you use a special font while being viewed on Google docs/your web page - but once the file is downloaded and opened on the computer everything looks hunky dory. (Test this before going live, I personally would have changed my fonts if I this had happened to me).

I sent these instructions to Lindy ahead of time and tested them out - and she was able to post a PDF to her blog, how exciting! Go check out what she did!

Inserting PDFs into Wordpress & Typepad blogs

Well, we Wordpress & Typepad folks have it easier! (I checked this out with Jan of Daisy Janie, who has a Typepad blog).

1. In the Wordpress create post window is a little button you press that says "add media" when you mouse over it, very close to the "add picture" button, I've circled it in green here:

2. When you do, you'll get the add media window - navigate to your file on your computer and select it, then add a title (the top circle) and press the button that says "file URL", this will give you a link to the file for the words you typed in the title box above.
3. 
4. Press "insert in post" and Bob's your Uncle, a link to a PDF! Easy Peasy!

And although the pix from Wordpress won't match up to you Typepad folk,s it ought to be something similiar. What I find fascinating is our inability to see something right in front of our face...I had been blogging way over a year before I wanted to attach a PDF and it took a bit of Googling before I realized that little button had been there all along!

And, I know that this answers Lindy's question - because she already tried this all out! Let's go see what PDF she posted!

Don't forget to send in your questions! Next week - now hold your excitement - sewing machine feet!

[Candy lives in California with her husband, 2 boys, and dog. Aside from being wife, mom, teacher, crafter, web guru and all around doer extraordinaire she manages her own business, Candied Fabrics. You can read her blog here.]

My marketing goals for 2009

One of my goals this year, is to manage my online marketing to the fullest. Like many, I'm all over the internet. Now, I want to target my audience and put my energy toward those networks that will serve me best. I have my own website and blog. I am on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Etsy (and several other buying/selling sites), blog network sites, various directories, ning, and countless others. They are all time consuming, albeit fun, and I need them to work for me.

I've recently signed up for a pro account on Flickr. For minimal cost it has allowed unlimited photo management which saves me a lot of time. Plus, it has its own networking community. I was able to create a slide show for my website which was a lot easier than creating my own html code.

Today, I updated my Facebook page and started my first ad campaign there. We will see how it goes. If you are on Facebook, please consider becoming a fan. Also, let me know if you are on FB, and I'll do the same.

I was also reading up on DIY SEO tips (do-it-yourself search optimization). I manage and code my own website which is very time consuming. I am a self taught computer geek with very little training. My guide has been internet searches, various blogs. the book Creating Web Sites - the missing Manual, and lots of trial and error. But, I've come this far. It is quite liberating. As I begin to implement some of my strategies, I will share them. Perhaps it will help or maybe you can stop me before I make a huge mistake!