Top 30 Blogger Hacks Ever [Part 1]

Don't get bitter or envious of your Wordpress using blogger friends. They think they're so good, when most of them don't even know half about what's going on with their site's design and backend. Everything that spices up a WP blog is done through automated software that's very easy to add. WP blogs are so open to hacking because every enhancement is done outside of the blogger's control. But still, many bloggers prefer this setup because of the convenience and the huge amount of time that it saves them.

Unfortunately, this kind of setup is only available to Wordpress users, who pay for their own domain name and hosting, among other things. So even though the blog add-ons (called plug-ins) that enhance WP blogs are free, you'll still have to pay for them by way of ditching the yourname.wordpress.com domain and settling for your own custom one and paying for hosting.

So does this mean that Blogger users like you can never have the same functionality with your blogs? Of course not. In fact, I think Blogger users have an advantage over Wordpress users in terms of freedom and flexibility with their add-ons. So again, can Blogger blogs have the same functionality as Wordpress blogs? The short answer, yes. The long answer, this: The Top 30 Blogger Hacks Ever.

Blogger Design Hacks

1. How to remove the Blogger navbar - The first thing that I do whenever I create a new blog is to remove the Blogger navbar. It makes blogs look more streamlined and professional. Other web sites don't have navbars, so you should yours do? [Instructions]

2. How to remove borders from the header and images - This one will be a matter of taste, but removing the borders could be worth the effort. Borderless images will appear more clean, while a header without borders is a catchy tagline will blend easier with your blog's design.

To remove borders, simply go to Layout> Edit HTML> and find the CSS code for borders on your blog. This would be easier if you're using Firefox. But also possible with Internet Explorer. To find the CSS Code for border on your blog and remove them, just hold the CTRL button and press F (CTRL+F), type "border:", then highlight and delete the line where it appears. Click the image above for a sample. Do this until you can no longer find any lines with the term "border:".

3. Stop Blogger from turning all your text into CAPITALS - Is it just me, or do words in uppercase letter on a blog look fugly? Blogger makes your post footer, blog footer, profile widget and header text turn out in uppercase letters by default, and this of course, sucks like a black hole for some (I know it does for me). To remedy this, just do the same procedure as with eliminating borders (see above) but instead of searching for "border:", search for "text-transform:" and eliminate every instance of it.

4. How to show an Add Page Element option on other parts of your Blogger blog - Ever wonder why some bloggers can add page elements or widgets to some parts of their blog while you can't? That's because you don't have an Add Page Element option active on some parts of your blog by default, like over and under your blog header and over and under your blog posts.

To show an Add Page Element option on other parts of your blog, do the same procedure as the previous tip again, and this time change the search-for text to "showadd". This will bring up lines in your Blogger template code that will look like this:

<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>

All you have to do is change the word 'no' into 'yes' to change this. You may also want to change the number indicated in the maxwidgets part like I did, because this controls how many page elements or widgets you can add in your blog. The resulting line would look something like this:

<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='5' showaddelement='yes'>

Blogger Social Networking Hacks

5. How to add an Addthis Button for Blogger - Before AddThis came into existence, it used to be so hard to promote blogs with social networking web sites. Now, you can with their awesome social bookmarking widget, that's free for life and very easy to add. [Instructions]

6. How to add a Twitter badge for Blogger - Because you need to answer the question "What are you doing?" and proudly display it in your blog sidebar, Twitter was kind enough to fashion a Twitter badge that does that just for you. [Instructions]

7. How to add a FriendFeed widget for Blogger - While Twitter has good intentions, sometimes a little twit just cannot cut it when trying to tell people exactly what you're doing. 160 characters just isn't enough to say what you've been doing online for 12 hours, right? So if you're like me who's doing a lot of things on the Web at any given day, you'd appreciate what FriendFeed is trying to do out here for you. I think it answers the question "What are you doing?" better too. [Instructions]

8. How to add a Flickr badge for Blogger - A clever way to show off the latest photos from your Flickr stream. [Instructions] (Log in to view)

Blogger Analytics Hacks

9. Measure site metrics with Statcounter - Statcounter is a free Web service that measures your site's metrics without adding any fancy graphics to your site and they do their thing entirely for free. That's because there are ads on their own site, which you log-on to and check your stats from everyday. And that's how they make money. There's a clear enough installation guide on the Statcounter site itself, but if you want a more verbose guide, it's your life. [Instructions]

10. Measure and track on-site and off-site clicks with MyBlogLog - MyBlogLog offers a free three-day trial of their amazing click tracking service to users, and a reasonable price for an upgraded pro version is available in case you want to continue using their service. This will be your only chance of being able to defend your case once the Google AdSense team sends you a love letter saying that there have been some "fraudulent clicks" registered from your web site. Don't risk it and track your clicks with MyBlogLog. [Instructions]

Blogger Comment Hacks

You don't need to be a design guru to learn that Blogger's default commenting system sucks a##. So the best option for you would be to install a third-party commenting service that will take care of the miserable comment system in your blog. And while you've probably already heard of HaloScan, you should know that this commenting system actually sucks far worse than Blogger, because not only is it fugly, it also shows ads on top of the comment boxes. They're crazy. My preferred third-party commenting system is called Disqus, whose name is so-classy I could only have learned it through Fake Steve Jobs.



Sign-up for a Disqus.com account to get these three Blogger Hacks:

11. Recent Comments widget for Blogger
12. Top Commenters widget for Blogger
13. Popular Posts widget for Blogger (based on number comments)

Just sign-up for an account, log-in, and go to disqus.com/extras to get started.

Blogger Posts Hacks

14. Recent Posts / Latest Articles widget for Blogger

The Recent Comments widget for Blogger technically isn't really a widget; it's more of a workaround in my opinion. To display your most recent posts, make sure that you have RSS Feeds turned on and do the following.

Go to Layout > Page Elements in your blog and click on Add Page Element where you want your widget to appear (for example, in a sidebar). You should add a Feed widget and display your own feed in the widget to show the five most recent posts. You can do this by adding your URL in the box like this (see image):



After this, hit continue and you should be able to see your 5 most recent blog entries. You can modify this widget to display anywhere from 1 to 5 of your most recent blog posts, and also whether or not it will show item dates and sources/authors beside each title. See the following image for a sample.



Click on Save Changes and you'll be good to go!

15. Future/ scheduled posts for Blogger

Initially, Blogger did not have the future-post feature, which other blog platforms (even Multiply) already had since the beginning. Well, recently Blogger succumbed (or just finished writing the code for this function, whatever) to the reader's pleas for a scheduled post option and is now offering it to users via their Blogger counterpart to Google Labs, Blogger in Draft. All you have to do to post entries in the future is to go log in and write a post to your blog using the blogger in draft web site, change the date of your post via the Post Options tab, and you're all set. The last time I checked, I think this feature still has a few bugs. But I've used it myself recently and find it to be working perfectly. This should be handy if you plan on going on a vacation, especially since it's summer. [Instructions]

Wow, this post turned out quite longer than expected. I'll do some further researching and come back later to post the remaining fifteen top Blogger hacks. I hope you liked this post! And if you did, please don't forget to share it with your friends and of course, digg it. :) Thanks!