Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Use Blog List Page Element To Make Featured Post Widget

blog list

Magazine Style Templates

Magazine style templates are all the rage in the blogosphere. If you're a wordpress user, you're in luck because wordpress has many available designs. If you use blogger like I do, the choices are limited and few.

One of the elements that I'm most jealous of is having a Featured Post widget. A Featured Post widget is a page element that automatically updates and highlights a 'featured' or 'recent' post. The widget usually contains an image from the featured post and a short preview of the text. In the past, there was no real way of doing this, but with blogger's new Blog List gadget, you too can create this awesome widget!


Featured Post widget in second part of the post...

Instructions



1. Go to your layout menu and choose the page element tab.

2. Select where you want to add your Featured Post Widget and click 'Add Gadget'. You can add this widget any place that you can add a gadget. On my food blog, OVER THE HILL AND ON A ROLL, I added the widget above the posts on the left hand side.

3. Scroll down the list of gadgets and select 'Blog List'

4. A new window will open with many variables. First add a title. Using "Featured Post" or "Recent Post" as a title is a good idea.

5. Second leave 'most recently updated' selected in the SORT section. Leave 'all blogs' selected in the SHOW section. Next un-check the 'icon' box and check the 'title of most recent', 'snippet of most recent' and 'thumbnail of most recent' box.

6. Next, click the 'add a blog to your list' link and add your blog URL.

7. Lastly, when you are done adding your url an option to 'rename' the link will appear on the right hand side. Click 'rename' and change the name of your blog to "Featured Post". Click save.

Now every time you publish a new post the widget will automatically update with an image and small preview of the text. This widget is a great way to highlight your recent post and hopefully increase your pageviews.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!



2 comments:

  1. It works okay. But i'd prefer something where I could choose which post should be featured.

    ReplyDelete