How to add Follow by Email

Prologue: You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it people want to read your blog... SO LET THEM!! (Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley - SNL) This will be a series of posts on how to pimp your blog to make blogger work better for you and your readers.

Episode II: How to add Follow by Email

I really want to read your blog, I honestly do, but I'm lazy busy, so please make it easy for me and deliver your posts to my inbox. As it stands, every few weeks months I try to catch up on your blogs, searching to see who has posted something new and maybe reading a couple of your posts and maybe commenting if you have word verification off ;) BUT for those of you that offer "Follow by Email" (Mini*Aesthetics, Tiny Fixation, Neo-Mini, Very Little Humor, Welcome Home, Little Victorian, iseecerulean, Hommemaker) I read EVERY post as you come straight to my inbox without me having to go to you. (Okay, I'm still lazy and don't always comment, but I do enjoy reading all of your posts).

To add this feature go to your dashboard > Layout > click on "Add a Gadget"

A pop-up window will open on the "Basics" options, then select "Follow by email" (there are a bunch of other fun gadgets you can add but this one is an essential in my book).

You can customize the title... "hot new posts delivered in 30 minutes" "2, 4, 6, 8 my posts are really great" or just stick with "Follow by email". Then hit orange "Save" button.

After you save, you'll be back at the layout page. The "Follow by email" gadget will be on the top of the list. You can drag it to a different position, but I think it's most noticeable for your readers when it's right on top, easily accessible for readers to sign up. Click "Save arrangement" and you are all set.

Now when you publish new blog posts, all subscribers will automatically be sent an email notification with the new content and links back to the posts on your blog.

FeedBurner allows Follow by Email to track your subscription information, with more stats than you really need, but good ones like the number of subscribers and daily/weekly/monthly views. When on your blog, click on the tools icon under the email address and submit button, then in the pop-up window, click on "View stats and learn more." Then snoop away to find out more about your readers.


You can also add the "Subscribe" gadget, which I recommend, but I've noticed a higher increase in subscribers by using the "Follow by email" gadget. Do both so people can choose which method they prefer.

Happy blogging! (see all Pimp my blog posts)

Easy Comment Moderation

Prologue: I blog, you blog, let's all blog better. This will be a series of posts on how to pimp your blog to make blogger work better for you and your readers. (If you need a laugh, please watch this: Mom my Ride "Duct tape is the perfect way to say, sorry fellas this ladys got a man.")

Episode II: Easy Comment Moderation

Many of you already use this, but if you just disabled word verification (episode I) and are switching to comment moderation here is the quick and easy way to publish approved comments and delete spam.

On your dashboard click on "Comments" in the main left column navigation options. Then under "Published" you'll see every published comment; "Awaiting moderation" comments you need to approve to be published; "Spam" comments the anti-spam blocker filters that are not published on your blog.

In the "Spam" section, I usually scan the list and look for any comments that may have been filtered that are legitimate comments. If you find one click "Not spam" to publish the comment. Then you can click the top box to the left of the "Not spam" button, and it will select all messages, then "Delete" and spam be gone.

I used to have my comment moderation settings at "Never" and mostly got spam comments on older posts. Since switching to "Sometimes" at 20 days (see last post for details), I very rarely get spam.

Under "Awaiting moderation" you can quickly surf through comments and send any to spam that may have slipped by the filter, then click the top box to the left of "Publish" button to select all and then click Publish to approve all comments at once.

If you only get a one or two comments you can approve and publish or report as spam when you receive the email notification in your inbox, but the more comments you get, the faster it is to use dashboard to publish or delete comments.

Happy blogging! (see all Pimp my blog posts)

How to remove word verification

Prologue: I love my blog, but I hate some of the things about blogger. This will be the first of a series of posts on how to pimp your blog and make blogger work better for you and your readers. (I've been meaning to start this for awhile but Pepper's post reminded me it was time.)

Episode I: How to remove word verification (annoying captchas)

A not so long time ago, word verification on blogger was simple, easy to read words that you would type then click submit and voila your comment was posted. Easy peasy. Earlier this year blogger changed the word verification captchas to random, illegible letters and blurry pictures of numbers that leave me banging my head on my computer trying to decipher. Many people have become so discouraged that they've stopped commenting on blogs that use verification.

You may not even realize that your blog is the source of your reader's aggravation; when blogger rolled out the new word verification version, the default was for the captchas (Completely Automated Public Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) to be on "YES".

To show appreciation to your readers, you can disable word verification by going to

Settings > Posts and comments > Show word verification? and select No

To encourage more people to comment, make sure you have "Who can comment?" set to "Anyone - includes Anonymous Users"

What about spam? In all honesty I get only a couple of spam comments per MONTH. And most of those are automatically removed by blogger so when I go to delete them, they are already gone. I've found that most spammers seem to target older posts, so I switched to only approve comments on posts older than 20 days, and haven't been getting much spam since.

Under "Comment Moderation?" select "Sometimes" and add the number of days and email address to send requests to. If you start getting spam, change the number lower and see if that helps. I haven't figured out why yet, but if you do get a lot of spam like Shelly, change it to "Always" and you can keep tabs on all comments.

Make sure you click the orange "Save settings" button in the upper right, so your improved options will update benefitting your blog and your readers.

Happy blogging! (see all Pimp my blog posts)