Traditionally, setting up a web site is a lot of work.
You have to setup the infrastructure of the website, and you have to provide content for your readers to view. Setting up a blog is a lot easier, but a blog gives you the structure of an online journal, and will include details which may distract your readers.
Sometimes, you want to take a Blogger blog, and setup a web site. A blog is a web site with a dynamic home page ("main page"). Make the home page static, and you have a web site.
Using a blog, as a website, is easier than you would think - just identify the individual tasks involved.
This is setting up the structure of the pages, which complements the attractiveness, and the content, of the pages. Just take it one step at a time - do what you can now, that's obvious to you now. When you get additional inspiration later, do that when it's convenient.
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You have to setup the infrastructure of the website, and you have to provide content for your readers to view. Setting up a blog is a lot easier, but a blog gives you the structure of an online journal, and will include details which may distract your readers.
Sometimes, you want to take a Blogger blog, and setup a web site. A blog is a web site with a dynamic home page ("main page"). Make the home page static, and you have a web site.
Using a blog, as a website, is easier than you would think - just identify the individual tasks involved.
- In Settings - Formatting, set Main Page size to "Show 1 Post".
- In the Blog Posts gadget, disable date, timestamp, and other features that make a blog post look like a blog post. Use your judgment here - this is your web site.
- Make a post for the home page. Publish it normally, then edit it and change the post date, to fall far in the future, and above any other posts.
- You can make a blog within your website, using a combination of custom redirects, and static pages.
- Publish some static pages, maybe using the new Blogger static pages editor. This is the essential step in getting a reputation for your blog or web site - publish interesting and relevant content for your readers.
- Link all of your posts in various ways. Here, you use your imagination.
- Have images and text in the posts, and add hyperlinks in the images and text.
- Setup a linklist, as an index, in the sidebar.
- Assign labels to the posts, and have a Labels index in the sidebar. If you use labels, you don't have to make it obvious.
- Setup a section index - a menu bar in the page header.
- Combine the above concepts. A section index, linked to various labels, lets you combine posts dynamically, in ways that you can't do with a plain old web site. You could even put images in the section index, with links in the images.
- And, you now have a web site. But you'll never be done, because you have a web site that uses Blogger One Button Publishing, and you'll always find something to work on. I know that I do. This post isn't done, nor will it ever be done.
This is setting up the structure of the pages, which complements the attractiveness, and the content, of the pages. Just take it one step at a time - do what you can now, that's obvious to you now. When you get additional inspiration later, do that when it's convenient.
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Comments
In setting up pages for a "website", can you comment about the setting of the archives, meaning, should it be set at "never", "a month", or does it matter?
Secondly, if one does not wish the archives section to be visible on the blog's sidebar, can you delete it and keep pages linked through the visible Link-List?
Thank you.
Nadine
www.nadinezanow.blogspot.com
Two very intriguing questions, and probably each is worth a separate article some day.
Since the archive index is how many blog posts are located, archive frequency directly affects the granular size of any index listing, and how quickly you can find an individual article. So, it's a personal choice, based upon the desired results with respect to how often you intend to publish.
You are not required to keep an archive ndex. Some folks index their blogs using Labels, others don't index at all. With the layouts template, and the extended main page view, the readers can read the entire blog, sequentially (if backwards).
Want to discuss this at length, in a forum conversation?
More frequent posting increases the chance of more random traffic. You get more search engine reputation, and better SEO, by attracting more repeat traffic.
Turning your blog into a web site might work against SEO if the nature of your readers makes them prefer a blog rather than a web site.
Some people feel that a web site would fit their needs, others prefer a blog. It's your decision, based upon what you want and what you think your readers will want.
Is it possible for me to change the layout/ ads etc on each individual page of my blog?
I want to make each page different.
Thanks
If you want a separate URL, setup a separate blog, or maybe a custom domain blog cluster.
If I'm misunderstanding you, why not post a question in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, or in Nitecruzr Dot Net - Blogging? Peer advice may be what you need.
But I have some more difficulties - for example, I am not able to get rid of the 'older posts' link. Then though I tried to edit the html code directly I don't know how to change the font size of any of my page elements (like Blog Title) or adjust the size of 'Blog Title picture', make the links in 'Link List' un-underlined etc.
It would need more tiny detailed pointers here how to polish the page completely from the blog look for beginners like me. This is my so far un-public page www.oodleforkids.com, if you have any special advice.
Regards, Jitka
The limit is 10 Static Pages / blog - and I'm not expecting that will ever change. My 14 tabs above include one link to a static page, one link to the Home page, and 12 links to other blogs and various miscellaneous links.
What you see is a simple linklist, which replaced the Pages gadget.
Your client can do the same - use a simple linklist with 50 label searches - 1 label search / state tab. The only limitation there will be how many tabs can you cram into the blog width?
You can link any static pages selectively, from the Pages gadget, and / or from other static pages, as you wish. So yes, using some static pages as "parent" and others as "child" pages should work just fine.
Am wondering if static pages can be changed into dynamic ones? And if so, how? I'm not clear on how to go about this. I've recently converted my blog into a site and I'd like my pages to have posts that show up on the home page as well. Is this possible and how?