Susan Gunelius Author, professional blogger, and President of KeySplash Creative, Inc. Learn to: • Sign up for a Google Blogger account • Choose a blog topic and write content with Google Blogger • Enhance your blog with addons and templates • Monetize and market your blog Google Blogger ™ Making Everything Easier!™ Open the book and find: • How to choose a blog topic and personalize your blog • What you should know about moderating comments • How to maintain your blog with tools like Blog This! and Quick Edit • Simple search engine optimization techniques • Tips for tracking your blog traffic • Where to find cool free templates • How to make money from your blog • Ten useful social networking sites Susan Gunelius is President and CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a full- service marketing communications provider. She is also a professional blogger and seasoned marketing and branding expert with two other 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, WomenOnBusiness.com and KeySplashCreative.com. $24.99 US / $29.99 CN / £16.99 UK ISBN 978-0-470-40742-4 Internet/Web Page Design Go to dummies.com® for more! Here’s what you need to know to get started with Google Blogger Want to share your opinions, promote your business, network with others, and maybe pick up a few extra dollars, all without learning to program? Millions of people are doing it with Google Blogger, and you can too. This book helps you create a Blogger account, write compelling content, build an audience, make money from your blog, and more! • What’s a blog, and what’s Blogger? — learn the parts of a blog, what Blogger does, and how to choose goals and blog topics • Nuts and bolts — choose a domain name, learn to use the dashboard, pick a template, and configure settings • Blog effectively — learn blogosphere etiquette and some secrets for long-term success • Fun bells and whistles — dress up your blog with templates (lots of them are free!) • Does making dollars make sense? — explore options for Google Adsense®, contextual and text link ads, paid posts, and merchandising with CafePress™ • Spread the word — promote your blog through search engines and social networking sites • A family of blogs — set up multi-user blogs or branch into mobile blogging, podcasting, or video blogging • Get more Google — use Picasa®, YouTube™, Feedburner, and more Google Blogger ™ Gunelius spine=.768” 01_196113-ffirs.qxp 12/12/08 10:46 PM Page ii Google Blogger TM FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_407424-ffirs.indd i 01_407424-ffirs.indd i 12/23/08 7:54:07 PM 12/23/08 7:54:07 PM 01_407424-ffirs.indd ii 01_407424-ffirs.indd ii 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM by Susan Gunelius Google Blogger TM FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_407424-ffirs.indd iii 01_407424-ffirs.indd iii 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM Google Blogger TM 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. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITH- OUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. 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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 01_407424-ffirs.indd iv 01_407424-ffirs.indd iv 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 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). 01_407424-ffirs.indd v 01_407424-ffirs.indd v 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 01_407424-ffirs.indd vi 01_407424-ffirs.indd vi 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 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. 01_407424-ffirs.indd vii 01_407424-ffirs.indd vii 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 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 Project Editor: Nicole Sholly Acquisitions Editor: Amy Fandrei Copy Editors: Rebecca Whitney, Brian Walls Technical Editor: Roberta Rosenberg Editorial Managers: Kevin Kirschner, Jodi Jensen Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com) Composition Services Project Coordinator: Erin Smith Layout and Graphics: Reuben W. Davis, Melissa K. Jester, Ronald Terry, Christine Williams Proofreaders: Evelyn W. Gibson, John Greenough Indexer: Sharon Shock Special Help: Colleen Totz-Diamond, Mark Enochs 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 01_407424-ffirs.indd viii 01_407424-ffirs.indd viii 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM 12/23/08 7:54:08 PM