How to add a blog badge to your blog

I'm not sure I'm going to discuss how to make a blog badge (because that's quite technical and varies a lot depending on what you want your blog badge to look like). I'm happy to do it for you (it takes seconds for me really) - obviously I'll do it for free!

But I thought, I could do a tutorial on how to add a blog badge to your blog.

Let's imagine you wanted to add my badge to your blog to show your readers my blog is worth reading. You can do this for any blog badge, really.

It's really easy, just follow the steps below.

How to add a blog badge to your blog

Alternative to Commenting - Disqus

Have you ever wanted to reply to someone's comment directly so that they get notified automatically? You've probably seen it on blogs that use Wordpress. This also works for Wordpress, but I dont really see the point of having it for that, because Wordpress already has a great commenting functionality.

While Blogger/Blogspot allows general commenting, it doesn't allow for direct responses to specific comments and therefore limits the communication between people (not just commenter and blog owner).

But there are a couple of alternatives that you can include in your blog really easily and seamlessly that allow your readers to comment and respond to each other! Cue Disqus.

Disqus is an external commenting service that can be included under each blog post as widget, so it's really easy to install and super seamless.

Here's how to install it, how to import comments from Blogger and how to remove it.

Please note, you will have to moderate your comments via the Disqus website!

How to have Pages

So the lovely Farrah Grey asked me how she can have multiple pages (like 'About', 'Disclaimer', etc) in her blog. Having pages is really convenient, as you can put specific information on each of these pages that can be there permanently and you don't have to blog about it. In Wordpress this is done easily, but with Blogger/Blogspot, it requires some extra work.

Now there are various solutions to this - an automated one; a manual one and a mix of both. And they all have different conditions for them to work. And this can be difficult to explain.

While generally speaking: Pages is a Blogger widget,  I still recommend inserting it manually to guarantee correct placement.

Here's how to do that

Buying a domain

There are two different options of buying a domain:

Option 1: Redirecting/Forwarding
1st you can buy one and have it redirect to your blog address. Imagine it as having a postbox and all your mail gets sent there, but then forwarded to your personal address. It's like that and the domain address hides your other address :-) It's considered a bit more professional.

With this option your blog remains with Wordpress or Blogspot/Blogger. It lives there and you just forward your visitors to its address via the domain address.

Option 2: Hosting
This 2nd option generally costs you a bit more and normally also involves a lot more manual work, which can be iffy (even I stay away from it because I just cant be bothered and I know my stuff!). With this you buy webspace and move your blog there away from Wordpress and Blogspot/Blogger. You basically buy your blog a new house and need to move it there.

I dont recommend this option. It's complicated and unless you actually run a business and/or understand all the proper tech-stuff. I don't mean this in a mean way, but it's just not necessary when you only want to write about beauty and stuff.

Blogging on the go (via Email!)

Did you know you can blog on the go via eMail (assuming you have an email program on your phone and internet acces and all that)?

It's really useful when you just want to post an update and you can even attach pictures if you want! How convenient, eh?

And you can set it so that they are only saved as drafts - very useful if you have ideas for blogposts!

YouTube Subscription Box

Lots of people recently asked me where I got the little YouTube subscription box from that I have here in my blog on the right in the sidebar. You can see how many subscribers I have, etc.

I actually found this by accident on YouTube's website as it is an official widget of theirs. But for some reason they seem to have kept it quiet. And I can't actually find where it is on YouTube's website, but someone has already written a tutorial on how to get that cute box.... The good thing is that it also tells you how to do this in Wordpress - another blogging platform (with which I unfortunately can't help)

Unfortunately they have written it in tech language, which I want to avoid here.

So here's the tutorial of how to do it on Blogger (there is also a WordPress version, but I have no clue of WordPress as I've never worked with it)

Blogger to Twitter & Facebook - Solution 1

Recently I've been helping out loads of different lovely twitterers with their various blog issues, and I've now been encouraged to share stuff on here. I hope for those who aren't interested, it's not the biggest deal that I still share? There's a million and two things I could explain, but for this series I'm assuming you already have a blog.

Do you find yourself constantly sharing your blogpost to twitter or posting the link on your facebook page or profile? It gets very manual, eh? When I started my blog I really wanted as many people to know about my blog posts, so I consta)ntly, manually 'shared' it. But I thought to myself that there must be a solution to automate this entire procedure! AND I FOUND 2 SOLUTIONS! YAY! And I actually use both for doubling 'exposure' LOL.