How to makea blog into a realwebsite|Blogger-Hints-and-Tips

More Next Blog»alphauseblog@ gmail.com Dashboard Sign Out Subscribe: Home What's New Handy Tools Topic Index Recommended Help-sites About Monday, November 19, 2012 How to make a blog into a real website Labels: Article, Blog structures, Overview articles, Website management This article explains how you can use Blogger to make a site that looks just like any other website and why you might, sometimes, want to do this. Blogs vs Websites Some people are very happy to use Blogger to make a blog, that is, website that looks like a diary or journal that they write in regularly. But a common question is "how to I make my blog into a real website, just like "someone" has done over at "this website"? This isn't easy to answer: Not everyone means the same thing when they say "real website". "Someone" might have just changed the background image, installed a third-party template, changed a few settings - or re-written the entire Blogger template! They may have just made the blog look more professional than the basic templates do - or maybe they've removing all "blog" features so that the site is like a regular brochure website. The bottom-line is that, even with no changes a blog is a "real website", because it's got: *.An url( www.your-blog-name.blogspot.com) *.A space on the internetthat's dedicated just to it. (For Blogger users, that space is inside Google's servers - we don't have to pay for our own hosting). *.Web-pages, made in HTML, which visitors can look at using a web-browser (eg Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc) And there are some sites which arenot at all ashamed to look like blogs, for example: *. www.IkeaHackers.net/- a site for sharing clever ways of repurposing kitset furniture *. www.DarkRoastedBlend.com- a site about coffee - notice their About pageis really just a post from 2005! *. www.HowAboutOrange.blogspot.com- a very stylish crafts website *. www.RUStling.org- a site listing all the songs in a large folk-song book *. www.TableQuizHelper.com- a site providing templates etc pub quiz-organizers *. http://www.trendmatcher.nl/- a Dutch-language site about technology trends. This articlefrom Blogger Buster lists a 100 others - and I'm sure that there are plenty of popular non-English language sites that look like blogs, too. But there are many other sites that have hadsome or all of their Blogger features hidden, for example *. www.GalwayTransport.info- a local public transport information site *. www.ConcentricsRestaurants.com/- a promotional site for a company that builds restaurants *. www.RenewPilates.com- the site for a Pilates studio You need to do more work to make the second type of site - and even then, if a knowledgeable visitor looks at the source-code for a page, they can still tell that you're using Blogger. So, usually, I'd recommend that youfocus on what you want to achieve with the site, rather than "getting rid of blogger". That said, here is a lit of things that you may want to to do to "turn your blog into a website". They are in, roughly, the order that I recommend doing them to have the maximum effect. Initial steps to reduce the "bloggy" feeling 1) Get a custom domain This is a website address like www.mySite.com or www.yourBlog.org - or whatever available name that you choose. Using a custom domain means that your address will not have " blogspot.com" in it. You can do this either: *.Using Blogger'sSettings > Basic > Blog Address > Add a Custom Domainfunction, or *. By using an URL that you buy directly from a domain registrar- you might need to do this if the address you want isn't available through the Blogger function (eg I recently needed a co.nz address for a site) or if you do not have a credit card. This step isessential if you don't want the site to be perceived as blog, because the address is what people see when they first find the site in search-engine results. If you are going to get a custom-domain, then I strongly recommenddoing it at the very beginningof setting up your blog, so all the later steps are based on the custom-domain name rather than re-directions. This is is A Good Thing for SEO - and even if SEO doesn't matter for your bloginitially it may become important later on. 2) Turn off the navBar, and remove the space where it used to be 3) Show only 1 post on the main page. 4)Hide the "blog-specific" values from posts,on theLayout > Blog post (edit)tab. At a minimum the things to turn off are: *.Post-date *.Posted-by *.Post-time *.Comments *.Links to this post *.Labels *.Reactions *.Email post links *.Post sharing 5) Make a home page- ideally using the custom-redirect option 6) Remove the attribution gadget(the bit where it says "Powered by Blogger") 7) Remove the "subscribe to posts (atom)" link 8) Add an RSS-subscription gadget using Feedburner. Some people say this is optional - but I believe thatall "proper" websites offer an RSS feedandshow that they do soby using a feedburner-style RSS chiclet. If you just add Blogger's Subscribe gadget instead, it gives the Atom - ie blog-style feed. Banishing the Blogger look for goodThese next steps really go together: if you do one, you need to do the others too. They are needed if you totally want to remove the blog-ish-ness: 9) Remove allgadgets that show a list of posts. These include the Archive, Labels. This is simply the reverse of the add-a-gadget procedure- edit the existing gadget, and click Remove. 10) Remove the "older posts / home / newer posts" links. 11) Set up your ownnavigation system: every post or pageneeds to be able to be accessed from either a button or a link that is in either a gadget or another post/page. It's temping to think about navigation from the home page. But first-timevisitors who come to your site from search-results will not arrive at the home page. They might not even think to look at the home page. Ideally your navigation system should offer several routes to get to every piece of information, and should include both logical links between postsand a search-based option. Tools that you might use to help with this: *.Summary posts, with links to detail pages about the topic. (Eg my public-transport site has a "city buses details" page, which links to individual route maps) *.A menu barwith links to the most-important summary posts. NB If you use the Pages gadgetfor this, it is automatically included if you give the site a mobile templatewhich is an important step if you want the site to be responsive. *.Linked-List gadgetsto show summary posts, or lists of related detail posts, in the sidebar or footer. An alternative to your own navigation system is to use categories to put your posts into pages. This doesn't fully reduce the bloggy feeling, since someone who looks at a page sees a list of posts (with just post-summaries if you've used jump-links). However changing the the status message (the grey box that says "showing all posts with labelwhatever") can make this acceptable in some sites (ie ones where the line between blog and website is blurred). What you (currently) cannot doYou cannot remove the post-date values from the URL of blog posts. If your entire site could be done with 20 or fewer screens, you could use Pages for everything - but IMHO this isn't necessary, visitors don't seem to be overly spooked by URLs with numbers in them. You cannot use a dynamic template If you want your site to look like a website, not a blog: you need to use a Designer, or possibly a Layout, template. Other things that you might doYou might want your blog tostand out in the seach results in order to get more visitors - see Getting Started with SEO. You might want to link it to the social networks- remember that there are wide range of possible links, and you need a strategy about how the site relates to each social medium that you use. Have I missed anything?I wrote this article while I was setting up a site on which I want to minimise the "blog" look-and-feel, and I've tried to capture all the steps that I did. But maybe I've missed some things? Maybe there are features that work differently on other templates. What else would you do? Links for sharing this article: URL:http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.in/2012/11/use-blogger-to-make-a-website.html HTML link code:How to make a blog into a real website BB (forum) link code:[url=http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.in/2012/11/use-blogger-to-make-a-website.html]How to make a blog into a real website[/url] 8 comments: Becky Roehrs March 8, 2013 at 8:25 PM Great tips-thanks for such a thorough job! Reply hollyday March 9, 2013 at 8:33 PM How can I go about getting rid of the status message (the grey box that says "showing all posts with label whatever")? Thanks for all your tips, they are helping me massively! Reply Abu Rayhan June 24, 2013 at 7:59 AM I want to get my blog indexed by search engines as website, not blog. When some one search for blog, my blog shown at first, but not for web. How to fix it? Reply Replies Mary Curtin July 1, 2013 at 10:26 PM A blog is a website. If your blog is good enough, it get treated as equivalent to any other website. Reply Manohar reddy July 13, 2013 at 8:55 AM sir present i have blog with adsense hosted account its i want chage new domain its required to new approval from adsense? pls help Reply Sevi September 4, 2013 at 4:19 PM Hi, Mary. In the end of your article you've asked "What else would you do?" well, I think we can't forget the useful conditional tags. Using conditional tags I made my homepage without the need of custom-redirect. Also the html5 and css3 can make wonders to the design and function of a blog/website, I'm recently using just them and avoiding Javascript. I created a one page website for myself in blogger, unfortunately the slider in the front page works fine in Mozilla, but not in Chrome, I'm gonna fix it soon if possible. Reply retrobikini September 27, 2013 at 11:00 PM This is an amazing article what I was looking for...Thank you for sharing, pal! Reply EmeLyNE cHaN November 13, 2013 at 2:30 PM hi im a complete newbie.i have a question here. i've bought a domain name n had it registered but no web host. can i use blogger s my web host? do i hv to pay to blogger? Reply Add comment Comment as: Sign out Notify mePublishPreview Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Blogger-HAT on Google+ Labels Account management Adsense Advertising AdWords Amazon Associates Analytics Attribution Blog formatting Blog layout Blog structures Blogger Basics Blogger Help Forum Buttons Chitika Copyright Creative Kit CSE CSS Custom Domains Design Docs Documentation Dynamic templates Email Excel Facebook Feedburner File hosting File management Following Gadgets Getting Started Google Affiliate Network Google Apps Google Custom Search Google Docs Google Drive Google Plus Google Reader Google+ Google+ Pages Help Home page HTML Labels Mail2Post Managing blogs Maps Meta-tags Mobile New interface basics Pages Picasa Pictures Pinterest Post Editor PowerPoint PowerPoint. Presentations Privacy RSS search Searching Security and Permissions SEO Site announcements Slideshows Social Networking Social networks Statistics Tables Takeout Template Designer Template editing Templates Twitter Video Webmaster Tools Website management Word YouTube Use Picasa-web-albums About this link The Blogger-HAT Community: Follow on Google+ Follow by email: Go Enter your email address: FeedBurnerwill send a confirmation message. Click theverify linkin it to start your subscription. Make a file in Google Drive: Document Spreadsheet Presentation Get this gadget for your blog Translate Blog Archive Google+ Followers Recent comments Yuckky Abbohorance wrote: Thank you, it would be too good if you add facebook share option also. Merika wrote: Oh, I didn't explain my problem well.. When I upload a photo in/to my blog, it... Continue >> Mary Curtin wrote: Just to go Picasa web albums ( https://picasaweb.google.com /lh/myphotos?noredirect=1) and... Continue >> Sandy Hancock wrote: Just changed my blogger account to a google +. It's a private blog but more than 100... Continue >> Paula wrote: Hi guys, is there anyway to link presentations to my Blog. For example a gadget that... Continue >> Followers Popular Posts: Introducing Weekly Blogger Tips: A new type of post from Blogger-HAT How to put put Posts into your Pages in Blogger The "follow by email" gadget: an easy way to add an email subscription to your blog Putting a Facebook "like", "send" or "share" button on your blog Linking Blogs and Websites How to make a blog into a real website Adding an RSS feed icon to your blog, using Feedburner Using Labels to categorize your Blogger Posts Giving your Blog a Home Page How to use Picasa-web-albums, without being re-directed to Google+ Photos [image] Random Posts How to install Facebook's Open Graph tags into Blogger Where to get the HTML code for popular gadgets in Blogger Blocking categories of AdSense ads from your Blog Putting a Facebook "like", "send" or "share" button on your blog Giving your blog an attribution (ie credits) gadget AdSense Troubleshooting: Javascript Introducing Quick-Tips: notes about interesting changes in other blogging tools How to rename picture files in Picasa Setting up Google Analytics so it gets AdSense data from more than one blog or website How to find free pictures for your blog, using Creative-Commons search Powered By Blogger Gadgets [image] HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from the Ground Up- from Google Code University SitePoint's CSS, HTML and Javascript reference pages Mozilla Developer Network - doc centre Privacy Policy About Blogger-hints-and-tips: Blogger-hints-and-tips is dedicated to helping you get the best results from Blogger, Google's website-tool for the rest of us ... read more Subscribe: Subscribe Or enter your email address: FeedBurnerwill send a confirmation message. Click theverify linkin it to start your subscription. Apply to be a Chitika Publisher! Template images by centauria. Powered by Blogger.