Monday 2 August 2010

The Penny Drops.....Well, Sometimes

I often amaze myself at how untechnical I am. It's not for want of trying; more for lack of time, patience and a rather dramatic habit of lowering my forehead onto the keyboard when things get a little too, well, technical.

A few months ago, I started to "follow" as many of the blogs I read as possible. I should really display them on my blog sidebar but I haven't figured that one out yet. It even took me a while to learn how to follow blogs that aren't Blogger blogs. They don't always have that easy "follow me" widget you see. (You'll notice I have however, managed to display all the lovely readers who follow me. Mwa ha ha. - Actually, Blogger makes that very easy.)

Anyways, at CyberMummy, I decided I was going to educate myself a bit, so attended the presentation about SEOs. (That's Search Engine Optimization, for anyone even more useless than me.) Unfortunately, the presentation assumed a little more knowledge that I possessed, and despite leaning over and trying to copy Lulu's notes, (she was as clueless as me), I'm not sure it sank in. Perhaps Lulu and I should merge our notes and see if any of it made sense.

You'll be happy to know that I made one amazing breakthrough this past weekend. I found, and saw the point of, Google reader. I'd heard of it before, and even heard other bloggers raving about how easy it made it to follow all the blogs.  "Well, I can see all the blogs I follow in my Blogger Dashboard, how can it be easier than that?" had been my opinion.

Ah but it is. In the Blogger Dashboard you can only see a few lines, and you have to do a few clicky things to read more. With Google Reader, you can read the entire post right there on your screen without having to lift a finger. Fabulous. If you have a Google account, it's all there for you. Go. Have a look.

Full disclosure, lest you're impressed at my efforts this weekend, - my real mission was Google Analytics, and it was an epic fail.  I got the code thing I'm supposed to copy and paste, but where? And how?  It says "On each page" but I gave up in the end.

See, I told you.

And I've also managed to separate my "followers" into "friends", of which I only seem to have 5. Not sure how I did that or why they are friends and others or not, especially when I wasn't even participating.
Oh and...I started following myself.
Sigh....
.

24 comments:

  1. ha ha ha, oh this all sounds so familiar! If I remember correctly to get google analytics to work you need to add code to the blog template somewhere. i reckon if you google 'add google analytics to blogger' some kind soul out there will have written a step by step guide.

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  2. Oh Thank you! you've just made me feel better about myself! this blogging lark is a work in progress with me....

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  3. I know I should get to know much of this stuff....but I can't be arsed.

    My instinct is that if I exert more effort than "glance at explanations, scratch head, feel stupid, give up" and really get to grips with the seriously technical stuff blogging will start to feel like a job instead of a lovely hobby and then I won't want to do it anymore cos I have enough "job" in my life.

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  4. Add the code to the footer section of your templates, that way it'll appear on every page.

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  5. Of course, my standard answer to any tech questions is just 'ask your father'...

    Not quite sure it works here.

    LCM x

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  6. I'm useless too. I haven't worked out Google Reader, I just click through from my blog roll. (Ironic really, seeing as I sometimes write articles on digital media and marketing....it's amazing what you can get away with now knowing.)

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  7. Google analytics rocks. Heather is so right. Just google it. Warning though, it is horribly addictive and makes you (that is me) even more paranoid. might be better just not to know.

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  8. I had no idea what they were talking about really in that seminar. I've been trying to defect to (whisper it) wordpress but it's too hard at the moment. blogger is kinder. I can use my google reader but analytics...no way jose.

    hope you figure it out!

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  9. Unfortunately Google analytics doesn't seem to work with a wordpress.com blog, but google reader is great. It allows me to follow blogs a lot quicker than previously.

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  10. Gentle readers (or at least the ones who are kindly saying "Just.....") you have no idea of the depths of my inadequacy. I was on all the help pages and everything. When it said "Add it to every page" I was lost.
    Does that mean use the "Add a gadget" thing on Blogger? If so, I think I can manage that. I suppose I should have just done it and previewed the result.

    @ Deer baby - even the techie bloggers admit that Wordpress is not for the faint of heart. Blogger is easy in comparison apparently,

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  11. Oh God, I don't think anyone can possibly be as non-technical as I am. Then again, my mother doesn't know what a mobile phone is, so maybe I'm saved a little there ...

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  12. I feel so much better now, I too keep hearing about this googlereader and even though I like to think I am uite tecnologically savvy (well maybe I'm not and the IT geek I am married to is really the driving fore behind that), I have no idea how to go about using it. You've inspired me to give it a go (when I get a spare moment that is). Thanks

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  13. Google Reader is the best!

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  14. I'm completely rubbish too but I had worked out Google Reader! I'm terrible at putting my blog posts into Categories - and now they're all under the Category of England, which makes no sense at all.

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  15. Here I thought everyone was techno savy but me, so glad to know I'm not the only one.

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  16. I have Google Reader as well. It's great - but I do click through on most good posts, because otherwise it may feel to the writers like they didn't get any visitors. (Mine don't register on my counter if they don't click through.)

    Can't believe it took you this long!!! Next thing you need Firefox with Firegestures.

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  17. Well, at least you made some progress. I didn't even understand what you were talking about!

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  18. Hi expatmum,

    Agree with you there. I need to get into Facebook and Twitter. We got our website guy to add the code to my blog but as soon as I changed my template it dropped off and that's probably why I'm depressed that I have no readers. Tee hee.

    Can someone dream up how I can make about 40 comments on different blogs in the space of five minutes? That would be divine. ;)

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  19. ha ha! this came at the right time (for me) I have been going insane in the last few days trying to work exactly these things out (fairly unsuccessfully). I never really got (and still don't) why we need to follow as opposed to just have your blog list in the sidebar? As for RSS or RRS feeds, feedburners and all that lingo, I JUST DON'T GET IT. But reading your post, i have actually learnt something, so thank you!

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  20. I think I've got google reader but it is only for a handful of those I follow and, now that I've madly clicked on Follow to so many great blogs, it would take me all day every day to keep up....I can't be arsed to sort out analytics and am pleased to read I'm not the only one!!

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  21. thought for me....l just do and visit them each time, l love the ambience of each bloggers 'HOME'..
    lve never been to my google reader and rarely my dashboard...ho hum...

    will go see??

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  22. I find Bloglines very good (though it's sometimes down, which is a minor frustration).

    I'm a firm believer - as you know - in good content over techie stuff.

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  23. Amiable brief and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.

    ReplyDelete

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