Keep It Simple: Create About and Contact Pages

The Pages feature in TypePad makes it easy for you to supplement your blog with static website pages which can provide information to your readers. About and Contact pages are seen on most sites, and we’ve provided tips below on how to create and link the pages on your blog.

Create a New Page

To create a Page, open the Compose drop-down menu and select New Page. Composing a Page is similar to writing a Post but a Page is not dated or included in your blog’s feed. Pages are great for creating static website pages. Besides About and Contact pages, some other ideas for pages are Resources, Authors, Shop, and Portfolio.

The About Page can include details on the author(s) of the blog, the purpose of the blog, and anything else you want to tell readers about your site. You could also include information on the  blog’s comment policy and subscription options.

Although TypePad provides you with an About Me Page for your entire account, you may prefer to create a separate page for each blog.

The Contact Page can be designed to include a contact form. A contact form will give readers of your blog a private way to contact you, instead of comments, and you don’t need to display an email address on your blog. There are a lot of free and paid contact form tools available. Google Docs has a built in form creator--Jotform.com and Formstack are two other quick and easy contact form creators--and it’s free.

The form generators provide you with the tools to create a form specific to your needs. Add name, email address, and comment fields to your form. You can also add checkboxes and select options in addition to the other fields. Instructions specific to using Google Docs are available in the Knowledge Base article on how to add a form.

After configuring your form, you’ll be provided with the embed code which can be added to the Body of your Page. From the Compose page in TypePad, click the HTML tab and paste in the form code. The Rich Text editor can not be used when adding the HTML code for the form. To see how the form will appear on your blog, click the Preview button.

When finished creating your page, click Publish. Click the View Page link to open the newly published page in a new window. Copy the URLs for both Pages as you’ll need the URLs to add a link to the pages as described below.

Link to the Pages

To highlight the newly created Pages, you can add a link to each Page in the Navigation Bar. Links in the Navigation Bar display below the banner on each page of your site.

At Design > Content, click the pencil icon next to the Navigation Bar to edit it. Enter the Title and URL for each Page in the pop-up box and click OK. Finally, click Save Changes to update your blog.

Now you have added helpful information to your blog which is easy to find by new visitors to your site!

Spread the word, reap the reward: Join TypePad's Affiliate Program!

As bloggers, we all know that blogging is fun, easy, and makes for a great creative outlet (or a wise business decision). While we all may write about very different topics, from parenting to process, there's one thing we all share in common: TypePad. There are so many blogs popping up every day that it seems there's a new blog born every minute. While that may have been true in 2006, today there are many, many more. In fact, 63,718 blogs have been created in the last 24 hours alone (BlogPulse.com), with no signs of slowing down any time soon. Despite, or perhaps because of, the popularity of Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, blogging is stronger than ever.

As the popularity of blogging continues to increase, so does the opportunity. Many bloggers run ads, some sell products, and still others write sponsored posts - all methods which take a fair amount of effort, and in order to pay off, a high number of monthly hits.

What does all of this mean to you, you ask? That's easy - as a TypePad blogger, not only do you have award-winning blogging products at your fingertips, you also have the opportunity to kick back and be rewarded just for blogging - no extra effort required. The key to this is one of TypePad's best kept secrets - our Affiliate Program.

Here's the Deal

TypePad's Affiliate Program is a thriving metropolis of bloggers who enjoy making a little extra cash simply by referring their readers to TypePad. After you send them to us, we help them start a blog of their own, and you reap the benefits - it's that easy.

Just sign up for TypePad's Affiliate Program and place a link or banner on your blog. New potential bloggers click the link and we take it from there. For every person who ends up starting a TypePad blog, we'll send you a cool $5 - no strings attached. What better way to use your blog to make some extra spending money than by helping to promote TypePad?

Ready to get on board? Just click here to sign up, fill out your information, and start adding banners and links to your blog.

Talk it Up

Once you're signed up to the Affiliate program, the best way to get your readers excited about signing up for a TypePad blog themselves is to write about your own positive experience with blogging. Take a few posts to explain what blogging has meant to you and why you chose, and continue to choose, TypePad. That, more than anything, will help turn your readers into writers. Often your community members are just itching to start a blog but unsure how to start. They will look to you for guidance and suggestions. By steering them to TypePad you can help unlock their potential. Be sure to share your posts far and wide by hooking your blog up to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ - this is clearly a great idea for building your audience and to help influence those closest to you to join TypePad and give voice to their own passions.

Of course, TypePad has a management team dedicated to answering any questions that you might have about our Affiliate Program. We want to help you succeed, so reach out! To contact us, just send an email to typepad@lqaffiliates.com We hope that you'll join the program and that your readers will join our growing TypePad family!

Happy Blogging!

From the SAY blog: Real Fans Watch

via blog.saymedia.com

First of all, did you all watch the Women's World Cup?! Thrilling!

Over at the SAY blog this week we're talking about how social media is making "appointment television" a real thing again. If you're a Real Fan then you watch live so you can share with your friends and other fans via Facebook, Twitter and a new class of apps like GetGlue and Clicker. Click over to the SAY blog for the full read or tell us what you think in the comments...

How do you connect with the shows and events you love?

When do you watch live or just DVR it for later?

Weekend Project: Eye-Catching Sidebar Menus

TypePad's Pages feature is pretty nifty - compose your Pages with the info you want to include, drop a  module into your sidebar that lists them all out nicely, and voila - instant menu. But why stop there? You can use CSS to fancy it up and draw attention to that important information.

Let's turn this:

Into this:

If you're unfamiliar with TypePad's Custom CSS feature, this will be a good way to get your feet wet. First, let's hide the "Pages" header.

.module-archives .module-header { display: none; }

Next, we'll style the links so they're black with no underline:

.module-archives .module-list-item a {
color: #000;
text-decoration: none;
}

Finally, we'll style each list-item. I've made mine very simple and sleek, so they stand out but aren't too distracting:

.module-archives .module-list-item {
margin: 0 0 2px 0;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 14px;
background-color: #EFEFEF;
border-right: 1px solid #ddd;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
}

See how the subtle borders make the links look almost like buttons? That's CSS magic! Of course, you can use any colors you want.

Seymour Library Makes the Move to TypePad

The Seymour Public Library in New York wanted to launch a blog and integrate their website so that everything was in one place. They chose TypePad and, to help them get started, connected with our Services team for a Power Launch service.

Working together with Barbara from the Library, we helped them organize and link to their most important content, as well as set up recommended TypePad features. In addition, we created a lovely banner image using a photo they provided of the Library and redirected their domain from the old website to their TypePad blog.

Need some extra help getting started too? Contact our Services team to learn more about our Power Launch and other services. And be sure to visit Seymour Library if you're interested in books, or are curious about how a library uses TypePad for both their website and their blog.

P.S. You can view this and many other great blogs in our portfolio.

Did You Know?: Adding Google Analytics

While TypePad offers its own stats program built in, some times you just need more details.

A good way to get that kind of information is with Google Analytics. While some places may require you to paste in complex code to use Google Analytics, with TypePad, it’s as simple as going to Settings > Add-Ons and entering your UA-Number.

To find your UA-Number, within your Google Analytics account, the UA number is listed in the Website Profiles table under Name. If you see a display name or the URL to your blog instead, then you will need to click into the specific account to view the UA number.

You can read more about Google Analytics and how to add this to your blog here.

We hope you found this useful! Check back every other week for more "Did You Know?" tips to help make your blog even better!

Featured Friday: Get Your Weekend Started!

Over the past couple of weeks, our Featured Blog has been full of eye catching, engaging blogs, ranging in subject from personal history to tea to design, crafting and parenting! We've picked the best of the best on TypePad to inspire you and introduce you to your next favorite read. What better way to kick off a relaxing weekend than with a new blog to wile away the idle hours? We suggest starting here:

 

Chotie Darling

Teaspoons & Petals

 

Bloom Blog

 

enJOY it

 

Mommy Shorts

 

What are your favorite TypePad blogs? We'd love to know! Tell us in the comments, or by suggesting a blog in our Featured sidebar!

Keep It Simple: Speed Up Your Blog

What’s your attention span when waiting for a website to load? This is a question to keep in mind when designing your blog. With some small changes to how you arrange content, you can speed up the load time of your blog.

Before making changes to your blog, get an idea of how quickly your blog loads using Stopwatch or Pingdom.

• Use a two column right or three column right layout. By placing the sidebars to the right of the main content column, your new posts will load quickly and be the first thing visitors to your site see.
• Keep widgets to a minimum. Widgets are cool but take more time to load on your site. Only use widgets which you feel enhance the content of your blog and place the widgets in the far right column. See our list of recommended widgets.
• Add a page break to longer posts. The split extended entry feature allows you to break up your content and display an introduction followed by a Continue reading… link to view the full post. Place images and videos below the fold for quicker loading of your front page.
• Insert image thumbnails. Large images take longer to load, but you can insert smaller thumbnail images in your posts which link to the full size image in a pop-up window. Also check out the thumbnail gallery feature available in beta.
• Reduce the number of posts displaying per page. At Settings > Posts, you can limit the number of posts displaying on the front page of your blog.

If you do see your blog loading slowly out of the blue, pay attention to the content not loading on your blog when the page is seemingly stalled. A third-party script or image may not be responding preventing your blog from loading completely. You can watch the status bar in your browser to see what website is showing as “Waiting…” for a long time. Also check which module should display after the last item to load and remove it at Design > Content.

For more tips, see the article in the Knowledge Base on improving your blog’s load time.

After updating your blog, go back to Stopwatch or Pingdom to compare the load time. Even an improvement of a second can keep someone from navigating away from your blog.

From the SAY blog: Interview with Grace Bonney

Readers talk about ads all the time, which is both good and bad.

Grace Bonney, Founder of Design*Sponge

It's a great time to run for shelter on the Internet. At a time when traditional home magazines such as House & Garden, Met Home, and Blueprint, have vanished, a new generation of media properties with a cult-like following are taking their place. Yes, design blogs and digital shelter magazines are hot – and nobody knows that better than Grace Bonney, founder of Design*Sponge. Originally launched in 2004, Design*Sponge has grown from the founder's personal passion into one of the most influential home design sites on the Web. Grace recently joined the SAY Media Voices program and is part of an army of content creators who reach a better educated, more affluent audience with more social connections than the average Internet user.

We caught up with Grace and asked her what her readers tell her about ads on her site, her advice for marketers – and what's hot in design right now.

via blog.saymedia.com

Grace dishes about ads on blogs, what's hot in design and talks about what influences her. Read all about it.

Weekend Project: Displaying Recent Photos in Advanced Templates

Warning: geekery ahead! If you're an Advanced Template user and want to add even more fun stuff to your blog, this post is for you. If you're a Basic Templates user and want to display the photos recently added to your blog all in one spot, you already have this functionality available as part of our Mixed Media layouts.

When you add an image in a post in TypePad, the backend generates a whole slew of image thumbnails that you can access via special TypePad tags. In this tutorial, we're going to use those tags to display a small gallery of image thumbnails in the sidebar of a blog. The special tags will generate a squared thumbnail of the first image inserted into each post, which link back to the associated post's individual archive URL. Below is an example on a live blog:

The last image in this example is a placeholder that links to a post that doesn't have an image associated with it. Your placeholder image can be anything you'd like, you'll just want to make sure it's the same dimensions as the thumbnails you're generating.

The code for the above example:

<h2 class="module-header">Recent Photos</h2>
        <ul class="sidebar-thumbnails">
            <MTEntries lastn="10">
<MTEntryPhoto>
<li class="thumb"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><img src="<$MTEntryPhotoURL spec="115si"$>" alt="<$MTEntryTitle$>" title="<$MTEntryTitle$>"></a></li>

<MTElse>
<!-- Posts without images show a placeholder -->
<li class="thumb"><a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><img src="http://example.typepad.com/noimage.gif" alt="<$MTEntryTitle$>" title="<$MTEntryTitle$>"></a></li>
</MTElse>
</MTEntryPhoto>
            </MTEntries>
        </ul>

And the CSS used to style the thumbnails:

.sidebar-thumbnails {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
list-style: none;
}

.thumb img {
margin: 0 5px 5px 0;
border: 1px solid #000;
float: left;
}

You can, of course, use CSS to style the images however you wish. The thumbnail size is determined by the <$MTEntryPhotoURL spec="115si"$> tag. In this case, the thumbnail is 115 pixels wide and 115 pixels in height. There are eight different thumbnail sizes available so you should be able to find one that fits your blog's design.