Analytics and you

Google Analytics is a handy way to measure the success and effectiveness of your site. You can view many types of reports and track ad campaigns. AdWords customers have it easy. Google automatically sets up campaign goals for any bought AdWords in Analytics.

Using Analytics is a lot like experiencing the ocean. You can drift on the surface and enjoy many benefits, or dive deep for adventure and hidden treasure. Just as diving in the ocean requires special equipment, using the full potential of Analytics takes time and training. I was talking to my aunt yesterday, a former VP of Marketing for Autotrader.com. She mentioned to me that in Marketing it is important to specialize. If you are not an Advertising or Marketing person, or if this whole advertising thing is brand new to you, the advertising portion of Analytics can be confusing and intimidating. I'll be going into detail about goals, funnels, and campaigns as well as the various dashboards available for Analytics users over the next week.

Sidebar Trauma

I see a lot of posts in the Blogger Help Center about sidebar issues. Most of the templates have pretty narrow sidebars - about 240 pixels on average. If you know you want to host video unit ads or showcase large pictures without using default Blogger widgets, you will need to edit your template.

It is important to increase the overall width of the template and the sidebar. Sketch a little diagram of your template on paper with the measurements if you are a visual person like me. Check the properties of the images or video players to discover the minimum width the sidebar should be to display them effectively. Then subtract that number from your current sidebar width to find out how much to increase the overall size of your template by.

Login to your blog and click layout or navigate to the Template tab. Click Edit HTML then save a backup copy of your template. Now you're ready to experiment. Increase the overall template width and sidebar width by the result of subtracting the current sidebar width from the desired sidebar width. Save the template then view your blog in Firefox and other browsers, and at different browser widths. Try uploading one of those pictures that did not fit before. Now you have a custom fit for your sidebar content.

Changing the email address on your blog

It's actually fairly easy to change the email address assigned to your blog. Whatever you do don't delete the blog. It will take some pleading with Blogger employees to get them to restore the blog for you.

Here's what you need to do: Login to your blog with your current email address, then click on Settings in the dashboard or from the admin page. Click on the permissions menu item. Add your other email account as an author. Give them admin access, then logout and log in as the other email address. Go back to the permissions page and delete the original user.

New Year, New Blog?

Did you start the year off with a resolution to share more stories with friends or get more news out to your customers with a company blog? Keeping a blog only takes a few minutes a day, but being consistent with it is tough. I just came off of a long break myself. I spent the time working on the Blogger book from Packt due out this Spring, working on a few hobbies, and even spending quality time with the kids.

This week I'm working on a chapter about bringing in additional revenue with your blog. I'll walk you through how to set up Google Adsense with your blog, give you tips on setting up the ads for maximum impact, and provide resources for additional revenue opportunities.

Open ID makes commenting easy

Now you can comment on other Blogger blogs using Open ID. No longer will your visitors need to jump through a bunch of hoops to leave a comment on your site. This is a big step forward to making Blogger a more attractive platform for bloggers.

Feed me, Blogger

I think Blogger could do a better job with feeds. There is no setting to turn on a familiar orange feed icon, and the site feed settings are confusing for most new bloggers. There is a page element widget for adding external feeds, but it also does not display a helpful icon.

Now I know most modern browsers automatically detect feeds, and many people use sophisticated feed readers, but this is all about turning visitors into regular readers. They expect to see a feed link or icon on the blog.

Ways Blogger could make it easier:

• A radio or checkbox on the feed widget to select the feed of the blog
• feed icons on the site feed page to choose from.
  
• Giving the blog writer choices on displaying their blog feeds by label in site feeds
  
• A real feed management area

Google did aquire Feedburner recently, so I expect a lot of things to change pretty soon. I'm hopeful anyway. Until then, it gives me a lot to cover in the Syndication chapter of the book.

Google gadgets for Blogger in Draft

Some of you may already know this. Adding Google gadgets to Blogger blogs is officially in test. Many of the gadgets will not be useful to most bloggers, but there are so many of the things we will have plenty to choose from.

To test them out, visit http://draft.blogger.com to login to the draft/test version of your blog. When you visit the layout area under the tempalte tab, you can add a new page element and will see any new page element widgets. Choose the Google Gadgets widget, and you will be taken to a more elaborate, web page like screen where you can search, scroll, or view gadgets by category. After choosing a widget, click the preview button to see it in action.

The widget you chose may not work properly. Remember, this is only a test. Take it for a spin and be sure to let the Blogger team know what you think.