Do You Know the Muffin Man?

I shamelessly stole this photo from Bec's blog, Bec's Cross Stitch Creations, to introduce you to a new-to-me blogger! Everybody knows the Muffin Man but Bec is still kinda new around here. I met Bec when her photo appeared in my followers gadget. Of course, seeing someone new I had to go investigate. She had a lovely blog and even a couple of followers but no one had left any comments! How very sad. I went to fix that right quick! I clicked her comment link and tried to comment but nothing. No worky at all. A common Blogger bug and easily fixable...if you can contact the owner! Thankfully, Bec had an email available for me to use. I told her of the problem and how to fix it and fired that off. A few minutes later I got a reply saying she fixed it and a nice post appeared later, thanking me publicly. I've since enjoyed getting to know this sweet girl who stitches amazingly huge pictures and she's even started designing! The silly cow picture I stole is actually a freebie she has shared! Go meet her!

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Now this story does have another motive as well...

more Blog Stuff You Should Do:

#1 add an email to your blog! Now, some of you are really nervous about doing that, I know. You are thinking, " What if I get weirdos contacting me? I don't want everyone to see my email address!" Which brings me to a warning: add an email address but don't use the address you use to sign in to your blogger account! Keep that one a secret, please. Create an email account just for use on your blog and one you won't mind "throwing away" if you do indeed get weirdos emailing you. There are many free email hosts out there ~ find one and use it! Don't want to have to check yet another account every day? Don't bother, just check it whenever you update your blog or go check on your blog. Trust me, this is a good thing! If Bec hadn't had her email visible she would still be wondering why nobody liked her!

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How do you add an email? at the top of your dashboard (or your design page) there is a link that's called "My Account" click that...find "Blogger Settings" click that word "Settings" and scroll to the Identity section, there you will find a place to add an email. You will see that it says "Changing this does not change the e-mail address you use to sign-in." Now scroll back up and check the "Show my email address" box. Save your settings and you should be all set!

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And yet one more tip!

#2 Change your comment form to the pop out type!

Why? There are several reasons! It does fix the bug that prevents people from commenting such as in Bec's case. Plus, it's much easier for people to leave a comment on your blog. You like comments, right? I know I do! I like leaving comments too, and I leave a lot of them! You want to streamline the process as much as possible so people can leave their comment quickly with as little fuss as possible. There are lots of blogs I visit that require several clicks to leave a comment and the entire freakin' blog page has to load every time! If it's too much hassle people are more apt to go on to read the next blog instead of waiting for your blog page to load over and over.

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Another benefit to the pop-out form is people don't leave your main page. So they might read yet another post and comment on that one as well.

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It's easy to change your comment form: Settings ~ Comments ~ Comment form placement ~ and choose "pop-up window" ~ save.

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I hope no one is offended by my amateur Blogger tips. I'm not trying to be a know-it-all! My only desire is to be helpful!

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Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox