Tech T.I.P. 2/24/11

Blog Bytes
Denise Barrett Olson

One reason blogs are so popular is their ease of use. This edition of Tech T.I.P. offers some tasty bytes that will improve your blogging skills while making your blog more search-friendly and protecting your work.

Let's start with the editor. Most blog editing screens offer a visual editor and an HTML editor. In the example below, you are looking at the visual editor. You see a toolbar of buttons offering various formatting options and the text appears in the writing area with the format settings you've selected.


You'll also notice a "Labels" field at the bottom of the screen. Blogger calls it Labels, but other platforms use the term "Tags". These are keywords describing the post content and are used by search engines to help others find your articles. The few minutes you spend adding these keywords to your post will reward you with additional traffic and possibly help a researcher find the information they need. I always include a surname tag (surname:Smith or surname:Jones for example) in my gravestone posts.


Here is the same content displayed using the Edit HTML view. Notice that the toolbar is much smaller and that you actually see the HTML instructions - called tags - in the editor. Each tag has an opening and closing element surrounding the text it is affecting. The "strong" tag you see here will add emphasis to the word "all" on the site. When you read the published post, you'll see the word in bold print, but if the page is being read to you (like the screen reader applications used by the blind) it triggers a change in the tone of voice to provide emphasis. That's why the tag is called "strong" instead of "bold".

While it's not necessary to know HTML to blog, there are some times when a bit of HTML goes a long way. One good example is special characters. As you know, there's no key on your keyboard for the ¢ sign or the ° symbol, but as you can see here, they're out there somewhere. There are simple codes to display a whole range of special characters.


Notice there are two codes - the Entity Number and the Entity Name. Although not every symbol has a name, the most common ones do. It's a lot easier to remember © than © for the copyright symbol. You'll find the complete chart and a lot more HTML tutorials at w3schools.com. One thing to remember . . . you have to be in the HTML editor screen to add these symbol codes to your post content.

Now, let's see about expanding your blog's reach a bit. Yes, adding keywords to each post will help your searchability, but it doesn't hurt to do a bit of promotion on your own. It's quite easy to set yourself up so that every time you publish a post on your blog, it's automatically announced via your Twitter feed and Facebook updates. First, you'll need user accounts at these sites. Then you need the address for your blog's feed. Now, go to Twitter Feed, set up an account and use the wizard to get your blog set up to post to Twitter, Facebook or both. It's a free service.

One last byte - backup. Get in the habit of backing up your blog on a regular basis. WordPress, Blogger and TypePad all offer an export option that saves your blog content in some kind of XML format. The result won't be pretty, but it will be possible to rebuild you site should the worse happen. Look for the export function in your settings area. It's also a good idea to review your blog's help files to see exactly what is included in the export file. Some will include uploaded images and files while others do not. If yours does not, you may want to set up an image archive on your desktop and keep your copies there. You'll find more information on backing up your blog at the Moultrie Creek Gazette.

It doesn't take much to increase your visibility and add some pizzaz to your blog. These blog bytes will get you started, but stay tuned . . . there's more to come!