Sunday, March 2

Public Service Announcement 1.07: Cleaning Up Your Sidebar

I revealed the "secret" to cleaning up a sidebar a while ago in comments, but I figured it was worth revisiting. If you are interested in a blogroll that doesn't take up your entire sidebar, this is the way to go.

First of all, all those pictures in my sidebar do nothing more than go to a blog post. Yup, I created a post for my blogroll, about page, etc. The posts are backdated to a time before time so that they are easy to find when I need to edit them. So, that's step one. Create a blog post for the new page you want.

Next, you need to add a link to the page in your sidebar. You can do it with a text link or an image link. For a text link:

1. Log into Blogger.
2. Go to Layout.
3. In the box that represents your sidebar, click the Add a Page Element link.
4. Click the Add to Blog button under Link List.
5. Enter the url of the blog post (not your entire blog, just the post) in the New Site URL field.
6. Type the appropriate words in the New Site Name field. Whatever you type in that field will be what is visible in your sidebar. (All other fields on that screen are optional.)
7. Click the Save Changes button.

If you would rather use an image for the link:
1. Create the image.
2. Upload the image to a photo hosting service such as Photobucket, Flickr, or Image Shack. Most photo hosting services are free on a limited basis (BTW, I've been using Photobucket for over a year and have yet to have had to pay a dime. Obviously, the number of photos you can store there is pretty high.)
3. Log into Blogger.
4. Go to Layout.
3. In the box that represents your sidebar, click the Add a Page Element link.
4. Click the Add to Blog button under HTML/Javascript.
5. Enter the following information in the Content field:


Note: Insert your own information where indicated. Additionally, you may need to modify the width the width and height to fit in your sidebar.
6. Click the Save Changes button.

And there you go. Just don't anybody ask me how I made my template a 3-column, because I have no idea what I did. I started out with these instructions, then had to do 20 other things that I can't remember.

11 comments:

  1. You, girl, are a life saver. All this will take time, mind you, but I'll have my blog looking snappy eventually. Thanks!

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  2. I'm glad you told me about the three columns, because I was going to ask you that. You should start charging for these tips. Never mind, I didn't say that!! Please don't. Thank you for all the tips!

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  3. Girl, when do you sleep? I cannot keep up with the massive blogliferation of posts! And now you are giving lessons, too?? Amazing. Utterly Amazing! LOL!

    Oh, and THANKS! They are great lessons.

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  4. I love your blog tip posts! Well, of course, your kiddo posts are always pretty damn cute as well!!!

    Thanks SO much!

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  5. This is why I have Justin...so that I don't have to think. Instead, I putz around like I'm trying, then whine "I can't do it...can you help?" and viola! it's done! :D

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  6. This is so weird because I was laying in bed last night thinking about you...in a "just friends" kinda way (I don't want to cause any problems with AFF)...because I was trying to figure out how to do my blogroll like you did because I just eliminated mine secondary to out-of-date and largeness, but if I update it will be much larger...so you, genius, have read my mind. Thanks!

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  7. Thank you so much. Now I just have to find the time to do it :)

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  8. I know. I know I need to clean up Mom, I just haven't had time. I'll do it this weekend. Honest.

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  9. I just went to 3 columns too. Now what I'm hoping to do is, since I made my categories into pictures, I wish I could get it to show the pictures at the end of the post and not the word for it. Can't seem to find that code anywhere, *sigh*

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  10. I really need to do some spring cleaning on my site! Thanks for the tips!

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