spine=.768” Internet/Web Page Design Making Everything Easier!™ Here’s what you need to know to get started with Google Blogger Open the book and find: G Want to share your opinions, promote your business, (cid:127) How to choose a blog topic and o G o o g l e B l o g g e r ™ network with others, and maybe pick up a few extra dollars, personalize your blog o all without learning to program? Millions of people are (cid:127) What you should know about doing it with Google Blogger, and you can too. This book g moderating comments helps you create a Blogger account, write compelling l (cid:127) How to maintain your blog with content, build an audience, make money from your blog, e tools like Blog This! and Quick Edit and more! (cid:127) Simple search engine optimization B (cid:127) What’s a blog, and what’s Blogger? — learn the parts of a blog, techniques what Blogger does, and how to choose goals and blog topics l (cid:127) T ips for tracking your blog traffic o (cid:127) Nuts and bolts — choose a domain name, learn to use the dashboard, pick a template, and configure settings (cid:127) Where to find cool free templates g (cid:127) Blog effectively — learn blogosphere etiquette and some secrets (cid:127) How to make money from your g for long-term success blog e (cid:127) Fun bells and whistles — dress up your blog with templates (lots (cid:127) T en useful social networking sites of them are free!) r (cid:127) Does making dollars make sense? — explore options for ™ Google Adsense®, contextual and text link ads, paid posts, and merchandising with CafePress ™ Learn to: (cid:127) Spread the word — promote your blog through search engines and social networking sites Go to dummies.com® (cid:127) Sign up for a Google Blogger account for more! (cid:127) A family of blogs — set up multi-user blogs or branch into mobile blogging, podcasting, or video blogging (cid:127) Choose a blog topic and write content with Google Blogger (cid:127) Get more Google — use Picasa®, YouTube™, Feedburner, and more (cid:127) Enhance your blog with addons and templates (cid:127) Monetize and market your blog $24.99 US / $29.99 CN / £16.99 UK Susan Gunelius is President and CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a full- service marketing communications provider. She is also a professional ISBN 978-0-470-40742-4 blogger and seasoned marketing and branding expert with two other Susan Gunelius books to her credit. In addition to being the Guide to Web Logs for About. com, she authors blogs for a variety of clients as well as her own blogs, Author, professional blogger, and WomenOnBusiness.com and KeySplashCreative.com. Gunelius President of KeySplash Creative, Inc. 01_196113-ffirs.qxp 12/12/08 10:46 PM Page ii Google Blogger TM FOR DUMmIES ‰ 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd ii 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0077 PPMM 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiii 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM Google Blogger TM FOR DUMmIES ‰ by Susan Gunelius 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiiiii 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM Google BloggerTM For Dummies® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permit- ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http:// www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/ or its affi liates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Blogger is a trademark of Google, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. 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THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FUR- THER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFOR- MATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2008943499 ISBN: 978-0-470-40742-4 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd iivv 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM About the Author Susan Gunelius is a marketing expert who added blogging to her skill set as an extension of her career as an author and a freelance writer. Her marketing background and writing experience allowed her to quickly learn and lever- age the blogosphere as a tool for personal and professional growth. Today, Susan is a professional blogger authoring several blogs for various small and large companies. Additionally, she writes her company blog at www. KeySplashCreative.com/category/blog and a personal blog at www. WomenOnBusiness.com, and she is the Guide to Web Logs for About.com, a New York Times company (http://weblogs.about.com). Susan spent the fi rst decade of her career managing and executing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC Bank. In 2004, she left the corporate world and, shortly thereafter, began a freelance career as a writer, a copywriter, an author, a professional blogger, and a marketing and branding consultant. In 2008, she opened KeySplash Creative, Inc. (www.KeySplashCreative.com), and as its president, offers marketing and writing services to clients around the world. Susan’s marketing-related articles have appeared on Web sites such as Entrepreneur.com, MSNBC.com, FoxBusiness.com, WashingtonPost.com, TheStreet.com, SmartMoney.com, Yahoo! Small Business, and Yahoo! Finance. Additionally, she is the author of Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon (Palgrave Macmillan) and Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps (Entrepreneur Press). 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd vv 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd vvii 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM Dedication To my husband, Scott, who encourages me to pursue my goals and makes countless sacrifi ces to help me reach them. Author’s Acknowledgments First, I have to acknowledge my husband, Scott, for making sure our home keeps running while I write, and my children — Brynn, Daniel, and Ryan — for continuing to thrive despite my absence while I write. I also want to thank my parents, Bill and Carol Ann Henry, for their constant support and help while I write. I want to thank my acquisitions editor at Wiley, Amy Fandrei, for asking me to write this book, and Tiffany Ma, Mark Enochs, and Nicole Sholly at Wiley for helping to make the book a reality. A big thank-you also goes to my technical editor, Roberta Rosenberg. My agent, Bob Diforio, also deserves a thank-you for staying on top of all the ideas and opportunities I bring to him and working with my best interests in mind. Finally, I want to acknowledge every person who reads my blogs and say “Thank you” for being interested in reading what I have to say and for joining the conversation. 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd vviiii 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial Composition Services Project Editor: Nicole Sholly Project Coordinator: Erin Smith Acquisitions Editor: Amy Fandrei Layout and Graphics: Reuben W. Davis, Melissa K. Jester, Ronald Terry, Copy Editors: Rebecca Whitney, Brian Walls Christine Williams Technical Editor: Roberta Rosenberg Proofreaders: Evelyn W. Gibson, Editorial Managers: Kevin Kirschner, John Greenough Jodi Jensen Indexer: Sharon Shock Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Special Help: Colleen Totz-Diamond, Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Mark Enochs Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com) Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services 0011__440077442244--ffffiirrss..iinndddd vviiiiii 1122//2233//0088 77::5544::0088 PPMM