I'd like to pass this post on to my Blog Basics 101 readers:

'Tweeting' on Twitter is a huge social media outlet these days - here's how to make sure your blog is easily 'tweeted by your readers!


Log in to Blogger, go to "Layout" -> "Edit HTML" and mark the "Expand Widget Templates"
Find (CTRL+F) this code in the template:


<div class="'post-header-line-1'/">


Immediately BELOW/AFTER that, paste the code for the widget (copy whichever code you like from the post below).


A bigger "Digg It" like button:

<script type="text/javascript">tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"> </script>


Add a smaller button:


<script type="text/javascript">tweetmeme_style = 'compact';tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>


Also, when you / your readers tweet your posts, by using the code below, it will show RT @YOUR_TWITTER_PROFILE instead of RT @TweetMeme and only at the end of the message, it will display (via @Tweetmeme)


<script type="text/javascript"> tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';tweetmeme_source = 'BloggerStop';</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>



Instead of "BloggerStop" use your own Twitter profile, in the code above.

So many businesses today have their own websites and even blogs! Do you think it's easier or better for those companies to create and manage their own sites? Sometimes it is - but anyone who has a website knows that it takes a lot of time to have one run well and look excellent.

This is where web design companies come in and in my opinion, local companies are best. They're easy to find too. For example, if you're in Orange county, CA - all you need to do is search for web design orange county and viola, there they are.

Now, sometimes exactly what you're looking for is not in the very first few results, make sure you browse through a few pages of results. There are often times really great companies buried in the results.

Social Media is at an all time high. If you want to promote yourself, blog, website, etc... the best way is through social networking. The problem is, how do you know which sites are best? Once you start checking them out, you will soon realize there are a tremendous amount of social networking sites and you may feel overwhelmed.

Let me suggest Ping.fm With Ping.fm you can post a message, a photo, a link, even create a blog post and send it out to several networking sites. You can send these messages from your computer, via instant messaging or your phone as a text message or an email!

For example, say you really want all your updates to be posted on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Friendfeed and Utterli. Simply create an account with Ping.fm and then choose the social network sites you wish to post to from Ping.fm - Once you do this you can also input your instant messenger information and your mobile information.

After your account is set up, post to Ping.fm from your computer, instant messenger (on your computer or phone) or text message/email and viola! Your message will post to all the sites you have set up an account with.

I do recommend visiting these social sites once in a while, just to do your part of actually interacting with those who are receiving your updates but Ping.fm is an easy way to get your messages out there without al the hassle!

This seems like a common sense thing - not to long, not too short - but it's not always that easy. As a blogger, there are a few elements you want to make sure you have going for you every time you post. As a reader, you don't want the 'behind the scene' elements to intrude on what you're reading.

A main concern for many bloggers is SEO (search engine optimization) - you want your post to be picked up by search engines as legitimate. It seems that both extremely short and extremely long web pages are not ranked as highly as pages that are of a reasonable length. A reasonable assessment is to have a page of at least 250 words and probably no more than 1,000 words.

Remember, this depends on the topic you're writing on. Writing reviews may create a longer post than say, if you're just reporting a recent news item.

What about quantity of posts? The consensus seems to be that shorter posts mean you will write more posts and writing more posts are better for generating readership with RSS and in Search Engines.

Most importantly, remember reader attention spans. It's fair to say that the typical internet reader has a short attention span. The attention span is less than 2 minutes - on an interesting topic. Keeping posts short, interesting and informative is your best bet!