Everything Typepad

Mobile Themes Rolling Out Of Beta

Users spend on average 69% of their media time on smartphones. (Source) 

A mobile responsive site looks professional and shows you care about your reader's experience on your site. Also, Google loves mobile responsive sites. So much so, they are prioritizing sites that are mobile responsive sites in search results.

We are excited to announce we are rolling out our Nimble Themes (mobile responsive themes) from Beta! They will now be available for everyone. We have 19 Nimble Themes for you to make your own. If you do not see the themes right away, you can join our Beta Team! 

Create A Test Blog

We know you are excited to get started and we've made it as easy as possible to get going. Before you jump in feet first for your main blog, we recommend you create a Test Blog. This will allow you to personalize one of our Nimble Themes before you apply it to your blog. Take your time with all the cool features and apply it when you are ready. No rush!

View Our Nimble Themes

Click on the Blogs tab, then the name of the blog. Click on the Design tab, then Choose Theme. On the left, click on Design Lab (Responsive). Here you will see all our Nimble Themes. Select the one that works best for your blog, then click on Choose.

Nimble Themes

Scroll through all our Nimble Themes! Choose the one that is best for you.

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Customize Your Theme

Click on a tab to customize

After you have selected your Nimble Theme, click on the Style tab. Here you can customize your blog with your brand colors and fonts. There are many things you change about the design. When you select a color or font it will automatically apply to the preview design of your blog. 

What it looks like when you change the background colors.

 

After you personalize your blog, click on Save Changes.

Apply To Your Main Blog

Once your theme design is complete you can apply it easily to your main blog. Click on the Blogs tab, then click on the name of the blog you want to add the design to. Click on the Design tab. Under Your Design, find the design for your test blog. Click on Actions, then click Apply. Your new design will instantly be applied to your blog. Click on View Blog to see your new mobile responsive blog.

Resources

Below are resources from Everything Typepad and our Knowledge Base.

Make your blog mobile with these great templates! What Mobile Designs Exist For Me to Use? How Do I Switch to a Mobile Design? 25 Mobile Design Principles from Google Design Lab: Adding Custom Fonts Design Lab: Adding A Banner

Design Lab: Navigation Bar Design Lab: Posts and Sidebar Design Lab: Blog Footer and Background Design Lab: View Collections

Nimble On Different Devices

 After you have updated your blog to our new Nimble Themes, post a link in the comments! We would love to see what you have done! 

 

#GivingTuesday, Give The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Typepad loves our non-profits.

Use #GivingTuesday to give back!

This blog is about dogs and cats. It is also the home of Winnie’s Wish Cat Rescue & Shelter. Discover the pictures of the Winnie’s Wish cats and kittens available for adoption. If you cannot adopt a pet, they have an Amazon Holiday Wish List to help you donate today!

Moms Against Hunger provides food for children, as well as care for families who are in poverty around the world. Over 65 million meals have been shipped through the years through Moms Against Hunger to many different countries. They focus on inspiring mothers to become involved in feeding the children and needy within their own countries.

 

Johnny Brooks and his wife, Kate, live in Kasambara, Kenya. They are working towards providing hopeful futures to orphaned and/or abandoned children. Helping those they could, they let 9 girls move in with their family. School is not free and they do what they can to keep everyone in school. Your support can help them give children in Kenya an education.

 

Do you have a non-profit site that is hosted by Typepad? Let us know and we would be happy to add you to our Shop Typepad Site that features Typepad businesses and non-profits.  

 

Here are some Cyber Monday deals to blog about!

Cyber Monday Typepad discounts!

Save 25% when you prepay for one year!
Use discount code CYBERPADYEAR17 and receive 25% off when you pay for one year. Valid until Friday, Dec 1st, 2017.

Save 50% for 3 months when you pay monthly!
Use discount code CYBERPADMONTH17 and receive 50% off your next 3 months. Valid until Friday, Dec 1st, 2017.

How To Apply Your Discount?

From your dashboard, click on  the Account tab, then click on Billing Info. Click on Update Payment Method and put in your discount code. This will apply the discount to your next yearly or monthly bill.

Sharing Is Caring

Share this post with all your followers! Give the gift that enables them to share their passions through a Typepad blog. We made it easy by providing you with tweets/posts you can use! Click on the social icon you want to share to. 

@Typepad is having their #CyberMonday Sale. Start blogging today! 

I love blogging with @Typepad and you will too! Check out their #CyberMonday Sale. 

Blog about your passion with @Typepad. They have a great #CyberMonday Sale going on now!  

Start your blog today! Take advantage of Typepad's #CyberMonday deals!

 

If you have any trouble, please submit a ticket through your account and we would be happy to apply the code. To submit a ticket, click on the Help tab after you log in then click on New Ticket. You can also contact us through our Contact Form. 

Out of Beta: Easily Add and Upload YouTube Videos to Posts and Pages

We are so thrilled to announce that all Typepad subscribers should see the new option to add and upload YouTube videos directly to their post.  With the brand new Image Gallery's recent release, that's two great new Typeapad features in just a few weeks!

To recap, this lets you both upload your videos directly to your own YouTube channel and add them to the post and also search YouTube to add other videos to your posts.

First we'll cover uploading your own videos.

To start, click the Upload Video to YouTube button to switch to upload mode.  You should see it here:

You're on your way to uploading your video!

If you are not already signed in to a YouTube account, you will be prompted to sign in to Google. You will also be asked to choose which YouTube account to use if you have multiple YouTube accounts associated with your Google account.

After doing that, simply click the Browse or Choose File button to locate the video file on your device and open the file. YouTube supports the following video formats: .MOV, .MPEG4, MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, WebM

Now just click the Upload Video button. It may take some time for the video to finish uploading. Once done, the progress bar will reach 100% and the video thumbnail will appear when the video upload is complete. You can now add a Title and Description which will display at YouTube.

Click Insert and Close to embed the video in your post or page after the upload is complete. Easy as pie!

Now we're going to show you how to search for videos and add them directly that way. Here's the section where you do this:

Finding a video for your post.

To search for your own YouTube videos, click My Videos, select the video you wish to embed, enter a title, and click Insert and Close.

To search for any public YouTube video to embed, enter the search terms, select the video to embed, edit the title (optional), and click Insert and Close.

What do you think of this new feature?  Is there anything else you'd wish we had included or done differently?

Have any questions, want to give us some feedback, or need more help? As always, the Typepad Support team is here for you!

Tweet this! Using Share Link Generator to embed custom tweets

We read blogs to be entertained and/or educated. When you read something funny, enlightening or disturbing you want to share it right away. With the holiday shopping season coming up, you want to make it easy for your readers to share your message/deals with their Twitter followers.

People are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend. (source) Tweet This

ShareLinkGenerator.com enables you to create a Tweet This link your readers can use to easily share to Twitter right away. o0pThis also gives you some control of the message that is tweeted about your post. You can use this to further share an interesting fact or great promotion. 

First, you will need to get the permalink from your blog post. The permalink is generated from your title, make sure you are done changing the title and permalink before you copy the URL.

Copy the permalink and then go to Bitly and shorten your permalink. Copy the Shorten URL.

Go to ShareLinkGenerator.com to generate the link/code to add to the body of your blog post. Under Twitter, enter the text you want your readers to share (an interesting fact or information about a sale), and the URL from Bitly. Then click Create The Link. You will then be given a URL and code to add to the body of your blog.

Grab the URL and then go back to your blog post. Type in the same twitter message (without the Bitly URL) and then type Tweet This. Highlight the text “Tweet This” and then click on the Insert/Edit URL button. Paste in the URL and select to open in new window. Click ok and then Publish your draft. Below is how it will look. 

Love learning new tips for my Typepad Blog. Tweet This

Super easy to use!

Your readers will be able to tweet out interesting facts or information to their Twitter followers from the body of your post. This gives you some control of the message that is sent out from your post. ShareLinkGenerator.com also creates links for other social media sites. Play around and see which one works best for you.

Do not forget to add the share links at the bottom of your blog post by configuring the post/page footer. Give your readers more options to share!

Share in the comments other ways you encourage your readers to share your message. 

There is no such thing as Writer’s Block

As a writer, you are presented with two choices, to either write well or perhaps not so well. The choice not to write is not a choice at all. The decision to lay your pen on the block is simply incomprehensible.

There is no blockage. No hurdle. No chains, holding you back in the damp, dingy darkness of Plato’s cave. Your creative arteries are fine, but your decision to write is real. Your life and your dreams depend on it.

When you write nothing, you use the melodramatic excuse of the amateur.

A professional writer, on the other hand, has the courage and distinguishes themselves by writing every day. They write their blog daily, and they write with great tenacity and purpose.

Their writing is different.

Their words do not strike the same shallow chord as the sporadic, sharply tuned tongue, of the venomous keyboard warrior. They write with purpose. They compose their words with meaning.

Their writing has an aim. It is written with passion and is meant to make a difference.

It is composed daily, not episodically, when the mood strikes.

A professional writer is very different than their amateur counterpart. They set out every morning, to dutifully and unmistakably struggle with the task of writing. They wrestle and fight. They are determined to give their ideas a new life, no matter how premature, or perhaps overdue they might appear. They give birth to their thoughts, and moves on to the next entry.

Experiencing a writer’s block is a myth. It is a subtle sign of a diseased literary mind. A mind imprisoned by a doubt and crippled with fear.

When I was a little boy, I just loved to write. I wrote poems, performed plays, and shared joyfully with the world, or anyone that would stop to listen. I expected nothing in return.

When I grew older, I convinced myself that my work was worthless, unreadable, a mistake, and that my innermost thoughts didn’t really matter to anyone. I left the real work of writing to professionals. I grew into, a very unhappy amateur writer, but a solid technical writer, with writer’s block. I wrote very well, but only when an opportunity presented itself to pass the next academic course, or receive the next degree or diploma.

My passion for the joy of writing was released very recently.

I have been freed from bondage, right here on typepad.com.

It all started when I found Seth Godin’s blog and for more than a year now, I have remained a loyal reader. Seth’s words continue to remain a great source of inspiration.

Seth’s blog is like oxygen.

I take a deep breath every morning.

He is also the reason why I signed up here at typepad.com, in the first place. Typepad.com came highly recommended. I debated using other blog options, but decided that for the few cents that it costs a day, it might just be the difference that I needed.

And here I am.

I have published over two hundred entries and have written well over one hundred thousand words.

I write about the meaning of life, my dreams, childhood memories, and to encourage others to discover their tenacity and greatness, in a culture which sometimes is a little numb to recognize the beauty and wonderment that surrounds us.

I write to remind myself to not be afraid. To seize the day, and avoid living a life of quiet desperation. I write so that no one needlessly approaches their deathbed with their song still in them.

I write every day, to avoid being an amateur. I write so I don’t become a person who struts his stuff upon the stage, and signifying nothing, is heard no more.

I believe you and I, merit an opportunity to be heard.

So I write for you.

Without a writer’s block.

I hope you’ll write for me.

 

This  was written by Guest Blogger Greg Kieszkowski from Ten Minas. Thank you for sharing with us. 

To learn more about being a guest blogger for Typepad, check out Be a Guest Blogger for Typepad.

Out of Beta: A Brand New Image Gallery

We're so very excited to announce that the brand new Image Gallery has rolled out of Beta and is now available to all of our subscribers!

To quickly recap, with this feature you can now add image galleries to you posts and Pages.  There are several options for the galleries, like adding a description and choosing row and column sizes, that allow you to find the perfect way to showcase your photos.

Create your own by going to the Compose editor and clicking the Insert Image button.  You can read more about using the Image Gallery in our Knowledge Base.

We hope you love this feature as much as we do!  Please let us know any feedback you may have either in the comments section here or by opening a help ticket.

Rolling Out of Beta: Easily Add and Upload YouTube Videos to Posts and Pages

A month ago today, we released to our Beta Team a brand new feature making it a snap to add and upload YouTube videos to your blog post.

We're happy to announce that this has started to be released to all of our subscribers. Some of you will already see this feature on your Compose page.  Just look for the little YouTube icon.

As a quick reminder, you'll now be able to search for your own and any other YouTube videos and add it to your post with just a click of your mouse.  You can also upload your own videos from your computer to YouTube and then add them to your post. You can read more about these features here.

We'll be continuing to roll it out to our members, so you should see it in your own options soon, if you don't already.  If you'd rather not wait, you can join our Beta Team now.

We hope you love this feature as much as we do!  Please let us know any feedback you may have either in the comments section here or by opening a help ticket.

Featured Blog: Clearly and Simply

Clearly and Simply is written by Robert Mundigl from Munich Germany. The name is taken from a quote by the Austrian/British Philosopher Sir Karl Popper:

Anyone who cannot speak clearly and simply should say nothing and continue to work until he can do so.

He has been writing about data analysis and data visualization with Microsoft Excel and Tableau Software since 2009. He addresses advanced topics in Excel and Tableau and provides information for experienced, maybe even expert users of these applications. Clearly and Simply focuses on intelligent data analysis and showcases tools and techniques to help turn your data into useful information. Alexa.com rates Clearly and Simply in the category Computers>Spreadsheets among the top 20 websites worldwide (rank 20, Source).

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