Share your tips for using TypePad
May 14, 2007
When we browse your blogs and read your feedback, we’re constantly impressed with the neat tricks and tips for using TypePad you’ve discovered and developed. Now we want to give you the chance to share those tips with other TypePad members! Whether it’s a tip about how you brought new readers to your blog, how you use a third party service to enhance your blog’s content, or any other way you’ve found to make your TypePad blog better, we want to hear it.
So leave your tips in the comments. We'll feature great tips here on the blog and in our monthly email newsletter. (Yes, we still do email! Are you subscribed?) Oh, and there's a bribe! If we feature your tip we'll spotlight your blog alongside it, and send you one of our limited edition, ultra-stylish, not-available-in-stores TypePad t-shirts. What could be better than that?
May not be new but I wanted a "podcast jukebox" for The Engaging Brand site. So I added a page and then got a free bigcontent.com feed and posted it on the new page. On my main page I then added a photo and link over to it....thought it was quite a neat idea. You can see it at
http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com
Posted by: Anna Farmery | May 15, 2007 at 12:29 PM
One of the biggest issues I have is trying to write content that people are looking for within my market segment. Something I do is use google adwords- keyword suggestions or even nichebot, and try to find a 'hole' in the market where there are more searchers than information. That way, not only will I be able to fill a gap in the market, but I know exactly how to use keywords and tags to have people find my blog.
Posted by: Kirsten Farris | May 15, 2007 at 03:14 PM
Here's one: when using the default Advanced Templates on a growing site, you have to copy/ paste navigation changes in the header or new info in the footer into the five essential template modules (Main, Category, Individual, Database, and Archive). This can lead to a lot of maintenance.
Luckily, the solution is built right in to TypePad. It allows for the creation of new “modules”, or code pieces, that can be “included” in each template with a simple line of code. The sidebars in the default TypePad templates already use this method-- all you have to do is change your sidebar.inc and the changes show up on every page of your site.
To have this same simple method for the header and footer, create a “header.inc” and a “footer.inc.” module, put the code for each of these pieces in the proper module, call for them properly in each template, and you have a more streamlined code base that is easier to maintain.
See example here: http://reusablebags.typepad.com/
Posted by: Queen of Angels | May 16, 2007 at 12:04 AM
I've found TypePad & FeedBurner to be good partners. This post shows how some FeedBurner features can be used on your blog for a landing page, "inter-blog navigation" and publicity without requiring advanced templates.
See: http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/2007/06/tips_for_using_.html
Posted by: RobiNZ | June 05, 2007 at 09:24 AM
Not sure that this is exactly new but we wanted to add some flash content to the introductory page of the blog to make it "come alive" a bit. We did this by downloading some code from Picture Trail - you can see the result by following the link.
http://www.eclipse.blogs.com/turkey/
Posted by: A Twitter User | June 08, 2007 at 05:09 AM