When New Blogger 2006 was rolled out in January 2006, one of the first shiny new features provided was the Welcome Post. Bloggers had been asking for the ability to add a welcome post, that is a text object that would sit at the top of the blog, and show up on every page displayed, long before 2006. That addition, one of my first customisations of my new blog, made the blog more friendly (so I hoped).
The Real Blogger Status: Custom Domains Using 301 Redirect In DNS ...
Welcome to The Real Blogger Status, now addressed as "blogging.nitecruzr.net". See "About Us" for help using the site. I appreciate your comments - as do ...
Say what? Why should my SERP entries start with the welcome post?
My SERP entries should start with the beginning of the article!
The Real Blogger Status: Your Blog, Custom Domains, And Righteous ...
Your Blog, Custom Domains, And Righteous Solutions. A Google Custom Domain is very simple to setup, when you understand how rigidly simple it is. ...
Now, that's more like it! That's what my prospective readers need to see!!
But, how to get the second SERP entry, consistently? I've been spending some time every month, for the last year or so, thinking about that. Last week, I found a hint that lead to the answer.
Like many solutions, the actual implementation wasn't a 5 minute job. A quick 5 minute iframe gives you the result shown in my IFrame Test blog. See the Welcome post in the iframe? I don't think my readers will want that showing up on top of my blog!
So, what was needed was a second blog, with a thin template. Very thin.
To this, I added the Welcome "post" (now, simply an HTML phrase).
And that becomes the content of my new blog, Nitecruzr RBS Welcome.
Then, I changed the Welcome post text gadget, at the top of this blog, to a simple IFrame, with the source being Nitecruzr RBS Welcome.
Getting the thin template, the Welcome "post", and the Welcome post text gadget in this blog, all working together, with the necessary CSS style entries, involved a bit of experimentation, patience, and persistence. So look at the Welcome object at the top of the page - what do you think?
>> Top
Welcome to The Real Blogger Status. See "About Us" for help using the site. If you're reading an article, you find that you need more detail about what you're reading, and there's a link in the text there, click on the link.Not long after I added my new gadget, though, I noted a problem.
The Real Blogger Status: Custom Domains Using 301 Redirect In DNS ...
Welcome to The Real Blogger Status, now addressed as "blogging.nitecruzr.net". See "About Us" for help using the site. I appreciate your comments - as do ...
Say what? Why should my SERP entries start with the welcome post?
My SERP entries should start with the beginning of the article!
The Real Blogger Status: Your Blog, Custom Domains, And Righteous ...
Your Blog, Custom Domains, And Righteous Solutions. A Google Custom Domain is very simple to setup, when you understand how rigidly simple it is. ...
Now, that's more like it! That's what my prospective readers need to see!!
But, how to get the second SERP entry, consistently? I've been spending some time every month, for the last year or so, thinking about that. Last week, I found a hint that lead to the answer.
... the content of an IFrame won't be picked up by the search engines.And, the answer was obvious. Put the Welcome post inside an iframe.
Like many solutions, the actual implementation wasn't a 5 minute job. A quick 5 minute iframe gives you the result shown in my IFrame Test blog. See the Welcome post in the iframe? I don't think my readers will want that showing up on top of my blog!
So, what was needed was a second blog, with a thin template. Very thin.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="<$BlogLanguageDirection$>">
<head>
<style>
#navbar-iframe {height:0px;visibility:hidden;display:none;!Important;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
To this, I added the Welcome "post" (now, simply an HTML phrase).
<span style="color:rgb(255,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:80%;"><span style="font-size:160%;">W</span>elcome</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:80%;"> to The Real Blogger Status. See "<a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/About%20Us?max-results=100" target="_top">About Us</a>" for help using the site. I appreciate your comments - as do most bloggers - but please note the <a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2005/06/commenting-policy.html" target="_top">commenting policy</a> here. And always, if you're reading an article, you find that you need more detail about what you're reading, and there's a link in the text there, <a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2005/06/congratulations.html" target="_top">click on the link</a>.</span>
And that becomes the content of my new blog, Nitecruzr RBS Welcome.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="<$BlogLanguageDirection$>">
<head>
<style>
#navbar-iframe {height:0px;visibility:hidden;display:none;!Important;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<span style="color:rgb(255,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:80%;"><span style="font-size:160%;">W</span>elcome</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:80%;"> to The Real Blogger Status. See "<a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/About%20Us?max-results=100" target="_top">About Us</a>" for help using the site. I appreciate your comments - as do most bloggers - but please note the <a href="http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2005/06/commenting-policy.html" target="_top">commenting policy</a> here. And always, if you're reading an article, you find that you need more detail about what you're reading, and there's a link in the text there, <a href="http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/2005/06/congratulations.html" target="_top">click on the link</a>.</span>
</body>
</html>
Then, I changed the Welcome post text gadget, at the top of this blog, to a simple IFrame, with the source being Nitecruzr RBS Welcome.
<a name="Top"></a><iframe src="http://nitecruzr-rbs-welcome.blogspot.com/" width="100%" frameborder="0" height="100"></iframe>
Getting the thin template, the Welcome "post", and the Welcome post text gadget in this blog, all working together, with the necessary CSS style entries, involved a bit of experimentation, patience, and persistence. So look at the Welcome object at the top of the page - what do you think?
>> Top
Comments