Thinking about starting a linky party or blog hop?

If you are thinking of starting a linky party or blog hop, this article by Fluster Buster will be useful.

Did you know that your post's SEO is improved every time someone clicks the Google Plus 1 button?

I have just learned that if you click on the Google Plus 1 button at the bottom of posts you are enjoying that you are actually helping that posts SEO?   So from now on I am going to do that when I like posts whether I have time to comment or not - just a little way to pay forward the respect I have for everyone's hard work in putting up great posts.

Why don't you give this a go, too?

An article that sets out to explain Google+

I have just found a site Serendipity and Spice that has all sorts of helpful advice for bloggers.  Here is a link to an article about Google+ - which I haven't been able to figure out at all until now.  I think you will find it interesting.

Why it's important to name your images

Here's an article link for you today.  Snack Cups and Smiles has posted about Why it's important to name your images

I have only started to be conscientious about this recently.  In addition to you being able to search for your own posts, I understand that your posts will be more effective from an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) point of view.

Creating a Table for your Link Ups page

I have found a table generator that made it easier to put linky buttons into neat rows and columns.  I found it on 2 Create a Website

It was free and relatively easy to use.  Once you have got your table set up you can just enter each button code into the relevant place.

The settings I chose were Border Size 1, Width of Table 95%, 3 columns

You also have to choose a colour for your border (which I recommend you have because I tried it without and it looked funny) and for your background colour – I chose a grey initially but will probably change that.

It is worth fiddling around to get the table settings right before starting to put the buttons in because otherwise you have to search round in the morass of code to find what you want to change – and I don't know about you but html coding makes me nervous.

Once you have your table set up, all you do to put a code in is go to html and then paste the code over the column no and row no which will look something like this "row 1, column 1".

Good luck!  It took me a bit of time but the result is much better than the haphazard page I started with.

I have one remaining problem that I need to work out how to fix without redoing the whole page.  Right up til almost the last the width of the table fitted nicely into my page and then suddenly it expanded to cover my sidebar … sigh

 [Update – I have temporarily almost fixed it by taking out the buttons that were too big – I now need to work out how to shrink them so they can go back in]

[further update – this post by The Scrap Shoppe told me how to shrink blog buttons … phew!]

OMG – now I find the page displays perfectly on Google Chrome but all wonky on Internet Explorer!   If this page is not displaying properly in Internet Explorer ie the columns are bleeding over the sidebar, you can fix this by hitting F12 and then selecting Internet Explorer 9 (or whatever number you are ) Compatibility View and Internet Explorer 9 (or whatever) standards.  This fixed it for me.

PS:  One final tip - I suggest you save the table format code and all the button codes in a Word document so you can re-create your page if it all goes wrong - I didn't the first time round and had to start again from scratch.  I also suggest you decide in your Word document what order you want your buttons in, I started trying to drag and drop them and it completely mucked up the page - that's why I had to start over

Can you help?

This post is looking for some assistance.  I have made a page on my main blog, Carole's Chatter for the buttons from link ups that I participate in.  But when I copy the code in the buttons go all over the place and don't look very nice.  Does anyone know how to put them in neat rows and columns?

I guess the other option I have is to put links to the blog in instead - rather than the buttons - but that wouldn't look so good either - although it would take up less space.  Your thoughts???

Dealing to being a no reply Blogger in Blogger and Google+

Here's a good article from Fluster Buster on how to fix being a no reply blogger - she covers both Blogger and Google +

Some very good advice from Diana of Diana Rambles

The wonderful Diana, from Diana Rambles has done a great post about sending email invites out for linky parties.  Please do pop over and have a squiz - this is the link

Pinning is now so easy ...

I am probably the last person on the planet to work this out ... but just in case.  Up til now I have been pinning stuff by either using the blog's pin it buttons in their posts, if they have one, or by manually adding a pin in Pinterest.

And today, by accident, while I was reading a comment I suddenly realised you could put a Pin It button onto your browser toolbar.  I Googled Pinterest toolbar button and got to this Pinterest page.  I am incredibly embarrassed by how easy it was to do - and how much quicker I can now pin entries to Food on Friday etc....

As you will see if you follow the link, all you have to do is right click the image, push add to Favourites, Favourites Bar and there it will be.  Easy peasy.