Dummies Guide to Google Blogger Beta

I think everyone knows by now that in the New Blogger Label is the new Category. Labels are used to tag posts so that all posts with one label can be brought up immediately for viewing. Labels can also be used to increase traffic to your blog as they double up as Technorati tags. However, many are still confused how to apply or delete labels from posts................

APPLY LABELS

Labels are applied in the bottom frame of the post editor while creating a post. Login to Dashboard and click on +New Post. The post editor opens and after you have finished typing your post add each Label separated by comas in the bottom frame and then publish the post.



To apply a label to many posts at once login to Dashboard and click on Posts. This will bring up the list of posts. Check the box of the posts to which you want to add the label and click on the drop down arrow next to "Label Actions" in the top frame of the list. Select New label under Apply label. Type in the name of the label and OK it. It will be instantly added to all the posts you have chosen. See picture below :

REMOVE LABELS

To remove a label login to Dashboard and click on Posts to bring up the posts list as before. Check the boxes of the posts you wish to remove the label from and click the down arrow next to Label Actions and then click label name under Remove Label.
See picture below

OPTIMIZING LABELS

You can label your posts with any name you want. However to increase traffic to your blog I suggest three important factors :


1. APPLY RELEVANT LABELS : The Label name should correspond with the content of the post. For instance I could label this post "Youtube" since it is one of the top tags at Technorati and hope to get a lot of traffic from there. But that would be spamming and the traffic will never return after being disappointed on getting no information on Youtube!


2. RESEARCH YOUR LABELS : Before applying the label name see the posts trend on the label. For this you can use Technorati Charts to see how the the number of posts varies over a time period on a tag. Look at this chart for the label : "Labels" over the last 360 days :


You can see the increase in posts with this word ever since the New Blogger debuted in August 2006 and introduced the designation 'labels' for Categories. To bring up the chart for any label copy and paste the following URL in your browser :



Change 'LABEL_NAME' and '360' days to whatever you want. Let us look at the chart for 'Anna Nicole Smith' :


See how the interest zoomed at the time of her death and has then waned. In sharp contrast look at the chart for posts tagged 'Paris Hilton' in the last 360 days :


If you make a post on Anna Nicole Smith today you will not get as much traffic as interest in her has decreased while if you make one about how Paris is going to spend her days in jail you will get traffic but you will also be competing with a lot of other posts.


3. NUMBER OF LABELS : Too many labels cause duplication of content and pages and there is more danger of landing on Google's Supplementary Index. I would suggest to apply only one or two labels per post to get around this problem.

LABELS ON FTP BLOGS

FTP blogs do not have access to the new Layouts template due to the new dynamic publishing technique used by the New Blogger. There are other users who prefer to stay with the Classic Template. In both these cases labels when applied will appear below your posts but you will have to add label links to the sidebar manually .


To add Label Links in the sidebar click on your label below your posts. This will open the label page in the browser. Copy down the link from the address bar. Then login to Dashboard of Blogger and click on Template. In the Edit Html tab paste the following code in the sidebar section :

<h2 class="sidebar-title">Labels</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL1">LABEL 1</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL2">LABEL 2</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL3">LABEL 3</a></li>
</ul>

Replace the CAPS with the links to each label and their corresponding label names. Save Template.

HIDE LABELS

Do you have too many labels? Perhaps they are making your sidebar extend too long. Here is the remedy to create an expansion drop-down box.

CLASSIFY LABELS

Perhaps you would like to group your labels? To do this login to Dashboard and click on layout. Then click on Add Page element link in sidebar and in popup window choose Html/Javascript option. Paste the following code in it :

<h2 class="sidebar-title">Labels</h2>
<h3>CATEGORY A</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL1">LABEL 1</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL2">LABEL 2</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL3">LABEL 3</a></li>
</ul>

<h3>CATEGORY B</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL4">LABEL 4</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL5">LABEL 5</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL6">LABEL 6</a></li>
</ul>

<h3>CATEGORY C</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL7">LABEL 7</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL8">LABEL 8</a></li>
<li><a href="LINK OF LABEL9">LABEL 9</a></li>
</ul>

Replace 'CATEGORY A' etc. with relevant category of the labels grouped under it. Save Page Element
.