Everything Typepad

Favorite Blogs: Real Pie Media

Real Pie Media is a very cool, socially aware creative agency, using their TypePad blog as a way to showcase their latest and greatest work. TypePad makes handling content from their projects a breeze. Real Pie shows a great example of how to think outside of the blogging box.  I asked their creative director, Kirk Skodis, what he liked the best about Typepad.

"Since 2004, Real Pie has used a TypePad blog as the portfolio site for our digital creative agency. It shows our commitment to social media and can be updated easier than any CMS we might build. Being a blog also lets our clients subscribe to our RSS feed, so they'll always be updated immediately with our latest work = Priceless."

 

Visit Real Pie Media.

Search: Add the Lijit Widget

We're excited about another widget that we like a lot, from our friends at Lijit. You can add a Lijit search box to your blog to index your own blog content. It can also index stuff from your social networking profiles, like Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us bookmarks, and others. This can help your blog get more page views and helps you to increase your reach online. If you're someone making money with your blog from ads, you'll have the option to promote ads on Lijit search results pages.

Lijit also offers performance and traffic analytics for cool things like geo-location and keyword searches. Adding Lijit to your blog is easy - just click here to get started.

Add Your Other Blog to Your Sidebar

Lots of us have more than one blog. Here's how the most recent posts of your other blog to the sidebar of your main one:

First you need the feed address of your other blog.

• For TypePad, users it'll be http://yourname.typepad.com/blog-folder/atom.xml
• For Blogger, http://yourname.blogspot.com/default/feeds/posts
• For WordPress, http://yourname.wordpress.com/feed/ or for self-hosting WordPress.org blogs: http://yourblogsdomain.com/feed/
• If you are using a different platform reference your help documentation to find your other blog's feed address.

Then:

1. Highlight and Edit > Copy your other blog's feed address.
2. Login to TypePad and go to your main blog then Design > Content.
3. Find the module called RSS/Atom Feed and click Add Module.
4. A pop-up displays asking you for the feed URL. Paste the feed address of your other blog into this field and click Save.
5. Next you can specify a title for this module. You can also decide if you want to show the most recent five or ten entries. Click Save.
6. Drag-and-drop the module where you'd like it to appear in your sidebars and then click Save Changes
7. View your main blog and you should see your most recent posts from your other blog in your sidebar.

Here's the relevant documentation for feed widgets from the Knowledge Base as well as instructions for users of Advanced Templates.

SEO improvements, Upgrades, and Post Preview

It's that time again - we released another great update to TypePad for you with some very cool features and lots of fixes. We're going to highlight some particular elements of this release this week, starting with my favorite feature: enhanced post preview. This means that when you (or I) click preview for a post, the blog design is also part of the previewed post. Here's an example of my preview window for this post:

Here's just a little bit about some more of the work we did for this release:

Vote for TypePad in the Webware 100 Awards

 TypePad has once again been selected as a finalist in the 2009 Webware 100 Awards! Webware 100 is CNET's prestigious yearly award where users nominate and then the public votes for their favorite Web 2.0 apps and sites.

TypePad is nominated in the "Social Networking and Publishing" category. Voting is open to anyone!

Click to cast your vote for TypePad now.

Quick Tip: Changing A Post's URL

Did you know that you can change the URL of your post, instead of having it just take the words from your post title? For instance, if you make a spelling error, or want your URL to be more SEO-friendly? Here's how:

Click on "display options" on the right hand side of your compose window.
Check the box next to "filename".
Now, your URL should come up in the right hand side. Feel free to change away!
The post will now display as example.typepad.com/your-new-title.html.

Got a quick tip for TypePad that you want to share? Let us know in the comments.

Reminder: Free TypePad Basics Blogging Class Tomorrow

Just a reminder that we're doing the TypePad Basics call tomorrow (Wednesday) at 2pm EST, 11am PST. Here's the full details and link to the webcast.

LinkWithin Widget

One of our fabulous support team members, just discovered a great new widget called LinkWithin. and it adds link below each of your posts to other related posts.  Zalary posts:

"I know lots of TypePad subscribers have been asking about this type of functionality, so I was very excited to try this widget and find it works so well!"

Try it out for yourself today.

Tuning Up Your Blog

Our services department in TypePad One just finished up yet another successful tune-up. Richard Snowdon of Nonprofit Hearts was so pleased, we asked him to do a write-up about his experience.

"The TypeTechs of TuneUp just finished upgrading my site and I wanted to say thank you. With a handful of small changes they made a very big difference.
 
And I wanted to tell you I'm in this TypePad relationship for the long term. My last website provider was a nightmare. Talk about high maintenance!
 
All I wanted to do was make a web-book. Not an e-book that people download, but a free book right there on the site with lots of links between chapters and frequent updates.
 

When I finally got myself to TypePad, with one click I had a homepage. Then I turned the TypeLists into navigation bars and I was in business.
 
My site is called Nonprofit Hearts. I didn't want to use explicit heart graphics because that would be a touch too cute. But you've got a template that's deep red with curving lines and the subliminal feeling of hearts. Perfect!"

Want a tune-up of your own? Just click to sign up.