Friday, October 14, 2005

Blogads and layouts

Just to reveal how "newbie-ish" I am...I'm hoping someone can help me with two questions...first of all, I've noticed that most food blogs have a much nicer layout than mine - or at least has a proper masthead (as opposed to the standard blogger masthead). They're also able to organize topics in more detail (beyond simply archiving them by month or listing "recent posts"). I've been messing around with my template on blogger but the results vary from pure disruption to chaos and I have to put it all back. I know part of this will resolve itself as I learn more html but can anyone make suggestions? I built my own work website using Frontpage and Dreamweaver - is there any way to build something for my blog and then transfer it (and still have all the archiving etc. from blogger work properly)?
Second, I've also noticed several blogs running blogads on their sites - how does one acquire blogads and how do you get that set up? Do you have to reach a certain number of hits to make that happen?
Thanks very much everyone - I would appreciate any help at all!
Emma




6 comments:

Sam said...

Emma - for starters - put the word template in the google search box (in the right column) and it will bring up lots of previous discussions on this board about changing blogger template. Try the word blogger too.

As I don't have advertising, I don't know much about the other part of your question, so I hope someone else will answer it.

Anonymous said...

One thing to keep in mind is that the sites that allow more organization (categories, for instance) don't use Blogger. They might use Movable Type (or Typepad, the online equivalent) or Wordpress. Blogger is lame in this regard.

SaltShaker said...

I'll second the above comment on using a different interface, I use wordpress and find it very easy to make changes to formatting, etc.

As to advertising, there are lots of different ways, I use google's adsense just because it's easy to add, doesn't cost anything, and makes me a small amount of money - basically at this point just enough to offset the cost of my hosting plan each month - but hey, it means I get to blog for free! You can go to the main google page and then under their "more" section, find all the details on adsense.

Mona said...

One thing I did was start a separate blog to distinguish categories. I have a restaurant theme (gone a little awry lately) and I started a blog (bycuisine.blogspot) where I could organize restaurants by category and by neighborhood.

Owen said...

to sign up to use google ads you go to www.google.com/adsense nd register and follow all the directions. I find it just about pays hosting fees (about $60 per year) but that obviously varies. FOr those who want to know how to seriously make money check out www.problogger.com - he apparently makes six figures off his blogs but also works at it 80 hours a week.

emma said...

Thanks everyone! I've got adsense going so that's a start. I don't think I want to put 80 hours a week into this but I was curious about how some people managed to get ads on their site - so I appreciate the insight (in site? couldn't resist). Anyway - I'll focus on the writing for now! And I'm exploring wordpress and moveable type options...(I also like the secondary blog concept, too!)