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February 2018

Posts from January 2018

Featured Blog: The Book Shopper

The Book Shopper

The Book Shopper Blog began in 2008 as a companion blog for Murray Browne’s collection of essays about books, The Book Shopper: A Life in Review, published by Paul Dry Books. Over the years, it has morphed into a blog about books and book culture. You can read about The Unabomber's Library, book art, reviews about baseball and history books, and short pieces about author appearances. Murray has published another book, Down & Outbound: A Mass Transit Satire.

The Book Shoppers Blog recently celebrated it's 400th post–congrats, Murray!

 Follow on: Typepad | Facebook | Murray Browne Facebook | Down and Outbound Facebook

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Design Lab: Posts and Sidebar

Design Lab_ Posts and Sidebar

How do you like our new Design Lab? Enjoying all the customization options it has to offer? We have more to come!

We are continuing our series on our new Design Lab. Previously we wrote about how to customize your fonts, how to add a banner, and modifying your navigation bar. Now we are going to go over all the options you have for the body of the post and your sidebar. There are a ton of ways to mix and match settings to fit your brand.

PostsPosts

Click on the Blogs tab, then click on the name of the blog. Click on the Design tab, then click on Style. On the right, click on Posts. Here you can customize the posts for your blog. You can change the design to match your business branding. There are many combinations you can use by changing the color, font and size of your Post Title, Dates, Text, and Footer. You can also change the background color and the link color.

There are four different alignment types for you to choose from: left, right, center or justified. You can customize the line spacing to be tight, normal, or loose.

The last cool feature is to add a border to your blog. You can add a border to one side or all the sides. Click on Border to view all the options. First, click on Change to customize the border (color, width, line type) then click on the X to close the window. After you design the line type you can choose where to place it (left, right, top, bottom).

Sidebar

The Sidebar works very similar to the Posts. When you click on Sidebar on the right of the Style page you can customize the fonts, size and color of the Header, Links, and Text. You can change the background, text alignment, and add a border. It has two extra settings for you to choose from: Fill Column Height and Collapse Margins.

If you select Yes for Fill Column Height it will expand the background color you choose from the sidebar past the last module to the bottom of the blog. If you select no, the background will end after the last module (default setting).

Collapse Margins controls the space between the Posts and the Sidebar. If you select Yes, it will remove the margin between them. By default it will have the space between the Posts and Sidebar.

Sidebar Option

As you make changes to the Posts and the Sidebar you can see the changes reflected in the preview window.

How have you customized your blog using the Design Lab? Link to your blog in the comments and let us know how you like using the new Design Lab so far. We will approve it and post your comment. 


Featured Blog: The Feminist Grandma

Feminist Grandma

Elizabeth is the writer behind The Feminist Grandma. She has been blogging for the last 6 years, carefully crafting her writing. Her posts are intimate, kind, humorous, frequently sardonic, sometimes poignant. Being retired, she also writes fiction, works with homeless people, and volunteers at a school. Read more about her musings at The Feminist Grandma.

Follow: Typepad | Facebook | Twitter

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Rolling Out of Beta: Sidebar Carousel

Last week we began rolling the Post Carousel out of Beta, the start of our releasing several Beta features to non-Beta subscribers.  This week, we've started rolling the Sidebar Carousel out of Beta as well.

If you're not familiar with the Sidebar Carousel, it places a slideshow of the images from one category of posts to your blog's sidebar. These pictures will then rotate, based on the various settings you can choose.  It's a great way to highlight specific categories or images on your blog in an eye-catching way. You can even add more than one Sidebar Carousel if you'd like.

Postcarouseltheme
Example of the Sidebar Carousel in action.

To add the Sidebar Carousel to your blog, simply go to Design > Content, find the Carousel option under Widgets, select the options you'd like to use, and save your changes.  Easy as pie! Our Knowledge Base article has more information on this topic.

As of right now, this is out to 25% of our non-Beta subscribers, but everyone else should see it over the upcoming weeks.

Want to give the Post Carousel a go but aren't a member of our Beta Team?  It's easy to join!  Just go to the Account tab, check the Beta Team option, and save your changes.


Featured Blog: Ten Minas

Ten Minas Logo

Tenminas is part motivation, part reflection on what is going on in the world, part personal experience. The blog is written by Greg Kieszkowski, who was inspired by Seth Godin's blog. He started his blog with Typepad and revived his passion for writing. Recently he was a Typepad guest author and helped bust the myth of Writer's Block.  Take the weekend and read what is going on in his world.

Follow: Typepad | Facebook | Instagram

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Design Lab: Navigation Bar

Design Lab_ Navigation Bar

Thanks for joining us again as we explore more features in our new Design Lab. Previously we showed you how to customize fonts and add a banner to your blog. Now let's focus on the navigation bar. 

Your blog should be easy to navigate. There is nothing worse than getting lost trying to find information. Great blogs make it easy for readers to find information no matter how they came to the blog. Our Design Lab is here to make it easy to customize your navigation bar so readers can easily find the correct information.

Click on the Design tab, then click on Style. On the right, click on Navigation. Here you will be able to customize your navigation bar.

Display Type

We have three options to display your navigation links: Text, Icon, or None.

Text

Make it clear for your readers where they can go in the navigation bar. This will display the text you used when creating the navigation links. When you select the text option, you can change the font, color, and alignment of the text. You can show the name of the blog in the navigation bar or pin the navigation bar to the top of your blog.

Text Navigation Bar

Icons

When you select Icons from the drop down, you will remove the text and have icons on both sides of your blog. On the left there will be a Pancake (yes, that is a technical term, lol). When you click on the Pancake it will show a drop down of all the links in your navigation bar. On the right, will be all your social media sites. Click on Yes/No to add or remove the blog’s name from the navigation bar. You can also pin the navigation bar to the top of your blog.

 

Icon Navigation Bar
The three bars on the top left is a Pancake icon.

None

You can select None if you want to put links on your sidebar. We offer many different sidebar modules for you to add to your blog. The Page Module allows you to link to pages created in Typepad. You can also add a Link Typelist to share other sites you love.

Display Position

The navigation bar position will depend on what type of banner you select. If you have a text banner, you can select to have the navigation bar above or below the banner image. With an image banner, you can only have the banner above the image.

Tip: You can add links to your blog by clicking on the Content tab, then click on the pencil next to Navigation Bar. This will open a window to let you put the text in and the URL. 

Make sure to check back with us for more information about our new Design Lab. Stay in contact through our RSS feed or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

 


Rolling Out of Beta: Post Carousel

It's the new year, but that doesn't mean that we here at Typepad are done giving out gifts! We're releasing several features out of Beta over the next month and this week we started with the Post Carousel.

You may be asking yourself what exactly is a Post Carousel and why should you add it to your blog? Let us tell you!

The Post Carousel adds a slideshow of the latest posts to the top of your blog. Photos from the most recent posts will rotate through the carousel.  It's a great way to catch your reader's eye as they visit your blog.

Slider-example-3
You can see a live demo of the Post Carousel hard at work here.

The Post Carousel can be customized in many ways. You can set the maximum number of posts to display and restrict it to just a specific category.  You can choose the title position, automatic start, add a pause button, and much, much more.

To add the Post Carousel to your blog, simply go to Design > Content, check the box for Post Carousel, select the options you'd like to use, and save your changes.  We have more information on this in the Knowledge Base.

As of right now, this is out to 25% of our non-Beta subscribers, but everyone else should see it over the upcoming weeks.

Want to give the Post Carousel a go but aren't a member of our Beta Team?  It's easy to join!  Just go to the Account tab, check the Beta Team option, and save your changes.


5 Things To Do For Your Blog in 2018

5 Things To Do For Your Blog in 2018

It is a new year and everyone is thinking about what to improve. You can improve many things, but we recommend you focus on your blog. We complied a list of five things you can do to take your blogging to the next level!

Go Mobile

In 2018 more and more people will be on their phones (they are pretty amazing after all). You want to make sure your blog is easy to read on a mobile device. Typepad is here to make it easy to switch over to a mobile theme. You can use our new Design Lab to customize one of our mobile templates. We recommend you create a test blog and design a new mobile theme. Once your design is complete, you can apply it to your main blog.

Custom Domain

A domain should be simple and easy for your readers to remember. You want a domain that tells your reader exactly what your blog is about. Typepad lets you purchase a unique domain and map it to your blog. To purchase a domain, click on the Accounts tab, then Domain Mapping. Under Domain Mapping, type in your domain and click on Check Availability. If your domain is available you can purchase it and apply it to your blog.

Blog Goals

Goals can  give you focus for the year. Create three goals for your blog; one short term goal, one intermediate goal, and one long term goal. Creating the goals may be the easy part. The next, and maybe the hardest part, is breaking the goal down into steps that you can keep track of. The steps should have measurable results and a time frame. Our best advice for you is to write down your goals and your steps. Use a program like Wunderlist to keep track of your progress.

Learn New Things

When you are comfortable with your blog that is when complacency kicks in. It is important to learn new things to help grow and get out of our comfort zone. Learn something new about your blogging subject or learn something new about blogging (like adding an image gallery to your blog posts or create a YouTube channel and start posting videos through Typepad). Use what you have learned and share it with your readers. Show them you are an expert and they can trust your blog.

Read A Book

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” -Stephen King

When you read you increase your vocabulary and cognitive skills. Reading books will greatly influence your writing. You can read a book about writing, blogging, or whatever you want. The point is to read. Reading helps you get inspiration for your own writing. After you read something you gain knowledge you can use in your own writing. Two great books that come highly recommend to help with writing are Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Everybody Writes by Ann Handley.

What is on your 2018 checklist for your blog? Share in the comments to inspire others!