Everything Typepad

Featured Blog: Between The Pages

Celebrating their 5 millionth page view, Between The Pages is a yummy blog about creative cakes and cookies. Where pop culture and food meet, you can see the amazing culinary talents from around the web in one place. You will want to have a party just so you can have one of these marvelous masterpieces. This blog is a great pick me up to any rough day, just sit back and enjoy the creativity. 

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Add A Scroll Bar To Large Tables

Sometimes you need to provide a lot of information in a table format. Large tables can be hard to read when they are shrunk down on mobile devices. You can quickly add a piece of code to your table to give it a horizontal scroll bar. When mobile readers view your blog, they can scroll through the table. 

First you will need to add your table. Click on the Table drop down and select Table. Highlight how many cells you will need. 

After you have inserted your table you can customize it by adding your content and changing the properties. 

Once your table is complete, click on the HTML tab on the top right of the compose page. Find the table in the HTML. The table starts with <table> and ends with </table>.  A great way to help block out this code is to put a space before and after the table code.  

Here is how it looks before you enter the code:

Above your <table> tag, add the following code: 

<div style="overflow-x:auto;">

After <\table> add the following code:

</div>

Here is how it looks after you add the code

Save/Publish your changes, then click on the Rich Text tab to see your table. You may not see the horizontal scroll bar on the compose page, so preview or publish your post to see the scroll bar.

Check out the horizontal scroll bar in action. We have added it to the table below. You may need to reduce the size of your browser window or view this post on a mobile device to see the scroll bar at the bottom of the table.

	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade	Grade
Eric	75%	80%	100%	94%	87%	100%	79%	86%	92%	86%
June	95%	78%	100%	86%	73%	96%	97%	92%	86%	94%

When creating any post you need to make sure you keep your mobile readers in mind. When the table is viewed on a mobile device your readers will be able to horizontally scroll through all your columns and easily read your table. Make sure you are using one of our mobile themes so your blogs looks flawless on mobile devices. 

Go to your account now to get started!

Featured Blog: Mexico Cooks!

Mexico Cooks! is about exploring Mexican culture through its delicious food. Author Cristina Potters has lived in Mexico for 30 years, which gives her the insider perspective on life, cultures, and cuisines from this complex and glorious country. If you have questions about a particular herb found in Mexico, regional dishes, or seasonal meals, check out her blog today.

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2018: An Early Guide To The Shopping Holidays

The holidays are coming. While you are getting your home ready for friends and family, think about your plans for your blog. You can give your blog a new look for the holidays and start planning your holiday promotions. Being prepared will make the holidays go by smoother. 

Dates

The main shopping holidays to start planning for: 

Halloween Tuesday, Oct 31st
Thanksgiving Thursday, Nov 22nd
Black Friday, Nov 23rd
Small Business Saturday, Nov 24th
Cyber Monday, Nov 26thth
Giving Tuesday, Nov 27th
Hanukkah Begins Tuesday, Dec 2th
Hanukkah Ends Wednesday, Dec 10th
Christmas Eve Sunday, Dec 24th
Christmas Day Monday, Dec 25th
New Year's Day Sunday, Jan 1st

These are the main holidays that US customers expect to find promotions for. Use that to your advantage. These holidays encourage people to purchase gifts for their loved ones. 

You should have a plan for an overall promotion and each shopping holiday should have its own version of the promotion. If you are blogging for business, we recommend you take the time to think out a Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday strategy. These are the main shopping days readers plan for. Letting readers know you will be providing deals during these holidays will help them plan their shopping strategy.

Organizations to help you prepare

This is a one stop post to help you get started on your strategy. We did the research for you and prepared a list of places to start. Their websites are full of information that can help guide your holiday strategy. 

Small Business Saturday	Giving Tuesday
Create Material for your Small Business Saturday Promotions Get your Community together for Small Business Saturday	Giving Tuesday Blog Giving Tuesday's Tool Kit
Typepad	Constant Contact
Call To Action Button Pre-Schedule Posts Prepare for Small Business Saturday Prepare for Cyber Monday Prepare for Giving Tuesday	Constant Contacts Holiday Blog Constant Contact Holiday Planning

Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to get found through social media. We have gathered a list of all the hashtags we could find for each of the shopping holidays and put them in an easy to read infographic for you to use! Use them along with your branded hashtags to help  promote your blog and deals. 

You will feel relieved after all the planning is done and you can sit back and relax during this holiday season. What promotion strategies have worked for you in the past? What has not worked? What is your go to source to help get ideas for the coming shopping holidays? Share with your fellow Typepad Bloggers in the comments below! 

 

IFTTT Applets And Your RSS Feed

Readers do not want to travel to different URLs to get all the information they find interesting. If only there was a way for readers to read all their blogs in one place???

This is where IFTTT and your RSS Feed can be used! IFTTT (pronounced like "Gift" without the "G") is a free platform that helps different services easily speak with each other. You can find an applet that brings a lot of services together. Today we are going to focus on applets that work with your RSS Feed. With a Pocket, Tumblr, LinkedIn, or Pinterest applet, your posts will automatically appear in their feeds after you publish. (Just like our Twitter integrations!) These are available for you and your readers to use. Set up once and forget it!

How to find your RSS Feed

When you first start a blog, the Subscribe link is automatically added to your navigation bar. Click on the subscribe link to get the RSS Feed URL. You may also have the Subscribe module on your sidebar. That is another place to get the RSS Feed URL. 

If you removed these you can get the RSS Feed URL from the source code of your blog. The source code will give you the atom.xml, rss.xml, and index.rdf. For IFTTT you will want the atom.xml. To learn more about how to find your RSS Feed URL check out Typepad 101: What Is My RSS Feed URL? on Everything Typepad. 

Use an IFTTT Applet

Once you have your RSS Feed you can now add it to any IFTTT RSS applet. There are many applets you can use make sure your posts show automatically on different platforms. Here are a few we like. 

Pocket

Pocket is a platform that saves interesting articles for your enjoyment later. When a reader uses the Pocket applet all your posts will show up in their Pocket. Provide your readers with your RSS Feed URL and they can use this applet to have your post automatically  show up in their pocket!

 

 

Tumblr

Tumblr is a microblogging and a social networking site. Using the Tumblr applet, you can make sure any new blog posts show up on your Tumblr feed. If your readers follow you on Tumblr they will see it too! Don’t have a Tumblr account, no worries. Readers that are active on Tumblr can use this applet to connect your RSS Feed to their Tumblr account. They will never miss a post!

 

 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is for professionals to network. If your blog is professional in nature, we recommend you use it to promote your blog. This applet allows you to share your blog posts on your LinkedIn feed. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, your readers can use it to make sure your posts show up in their feed. Great for that busy professional!

 

 

Pinterest

Use the Pinterest applet to automatically share your posts on one of your Pinterest boards. This applet also lets you add a customize image that will be shared along with your post.  You and your readers can use this applet to make sure your posts show up on any board you want.

Quick Tip: Use the File Manager to get an image URL for you to use. Easily upload the a custom image to your File Manager then copy the image URL. You can use this as the Photo URL. Use Picmonkey or Canva to create a great image that shows everyone that is looking at your board, what it is about.

Explore IFTTT today to see what all you can do!!! Share this post with your readers so they can see all the great ways to read your blog.