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Which social buttons do you want on the blog?

9 Replies Christopher Roberts

Technology Bloggers is a community blog, therefore it is only right that the community are consulted on the decisions made.

My question to you is which social networks do you use, and which would you like to be able to connect with on the blog?

There are four main places you can get social on our Technology Bloggers at the moment: the first is the social icons in the header; the second is our social buttons on the sidebar; the third is the social buttons at the top of articles; and the forth is the social icons at the bottom of articles. Check out the image below to see them all.

Social Icons

Technology Bloggers social icons and buttons

My worry is, that we are not providing the buttons/icons you want. I just assume that everyone wants Facebook and Twitter, but do you use them?

In the image above you can see all of the buttons we provide you with. I never really thought we had that many, but putting them all together, there are a lot!

If I know what everyone uses, I can get rid of any unnecessary buttons, and potentially add some more useful ones in.

Which social buttons do you want? Let me know in the comments.

Here are some ideas:

  • Google: Google +1; Google+ Share; Google Buzz
  • Facebook: Facebook Like; Facebook Share
  • Twitter: Twitter Follow; Twitter Tweet; TweetMeme
  • Buffer
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • DZone
  • StumbleUpon
  • Topsy
  • Digg
  • Delicious
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • DesignBump
  • Serpd
  • TheWebBlend
  • BlogEngage
  • Pinterest
  • Flattr

Create a Google +1 button for an entire site

7 Replies Christopher Roberts

About a week ago, I posted about how Technology Bloggers now supports Google Authorship, so that writers can now claim posts as their own via linking them to their Google + profile. This article is also about the blog integrating further with Google’s growing social network: Google +.

Until recently it was not possible to create a sitewide Google +1 button, so that users could +1 your entire website; before you only used to be able to +1 the exact page you were on. However thanks to one of Google’s recent updates, it is now possible to +1 an entire site!

If you are a website/blog owner, then this article is probably going to be of particular use to you 🙂

I have recently added a sitewide Google +1 button to Technology Bloggers sidebar, which sits on the sidebar, next to our other social widgets.

Social media buttonsTo get a +1 button, you need to visit the Google +1 Button customisation page. There you can choose the style of your button, how big it is and the language used. What most people probably then miss is the ‘Advanced options’ link.

Advanced Options

If you click ‘Advanced options’, you get a whole new set of options drop down. One of these options is URL to +1. Usually when you place a +1 button on your site and a user clicks it, it +1’s that exact page. However if you enter your sites URL into the box and then get the code, when a user clicks your +1 button it +1’s your entire site.

Google +1 ButtonFor more information on the URL +1’d when users click your button, please see Google’s URL configuration explanation.

Sharing

When someone clicks +1, they will also be given the option to share the content/page to their circles. Usually Google will fetch the page title, and choose a selection of text and an image from the page users are currently on, however it is now possible to customise this too by customising the +Snippet.

Scroll down the page and you are able to select the type of page users are on, is it a local business, article, book, organisation, event, review etc.? You can also choose the title, description and image of the share. If you have created a sitewide share button, usually the button will offer users to share the current page, however by customising the +Snippet, you can make it so that your chosen title, text and image are what are shared, not the one Google automatically selects.

To implement the snippets you just have to add a few meta tags or some HTML code to your page.

Problems

One small problem I have come across when implementing this on Technology Bloggers is that you can’t successfully run 2 +1 buttons on the same page. That means that if you want to have a sitewide button, so users can +1 and share your homepage, and a button on every individual page, where users can +1 and share that page, it is not entirely possible.

The code of the button determines the URL to be +1’d, so it is completely possible that you can have 2 buttons, 1 for the page and one for the site, however the problem is with the +Snippet and the sharing, as both buttons inherit the meta data, meaning that when you share the individual page, it doesn’t share data from that page, but your generic sitewide text, image and title.

It isn’t really a major fault, and with a bit of clever scripting (and a lot of time) I am sure I could get it to work the way I want it to. I am sure Google will release an update at some point which allows you to have 2 +1 buttons, one for the site and one for the page, but in the meantime, we will just have to put up with it not working exactly as we would like it to.

UPDATE: I managed to resolve the problem easier than I thought. I added the +Snippet to the theme header, however told it only to appear on the homepage. The button is designed to fetch the +Snippet from the page users are on, unless the button is designed to +1 a specific URL, in which case, it goes to that URL to fetch the +Snipped – the homepage, where the +Snippet for the entire site is.

You and +1

So what is your opinion on the +1 button, do you use it in the same way/to the same extent the ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ buttons, or is it not as important? If you own a website or blog, will you be adding a +1 button to it, and if so do you think it is better to have a sitewide +1 or a unique URL +1 button – or both!

How to be a successful blogger

7 Replies Christopher Roberts

This is the conclusion to a series of articles in which I shared with you my knowledge of how and why Technology Bloggers has been so successful, so fast. Learn more about this series by reading our Technology Bloggers success article.

So there we have it, the first Technology Bloggers series has been brought to a close.

For the last six weeks, every Monday I have released an article as part of a series, explaining how and why Technology Bloggers has become such a successful blog in such a short space of time. This is the last article in that series.

So what have we learned over the series?Learning is a crucual part of bloggingFirst off we learned the importance of a reputation in blogging. If you have a positive one already, great, if you don’t have one, you need to start to build one to become known on the blogosphere, and to run a successful blog. A reputation can give you authority and respect in your niche.

Second we learned how promotion is a key factor in blogging, and how you need good promotion from the start to have sustainable success. Utilise social media and your online connections. Also, make sure you comment on friends blogs and if you have a blog or website already, plug your new site there too!

Then we learned about how respect is a key part of blogging. To conclude an entire article in just one sentence: basically, if you respect your readers, they will respect you, hence why we are a dofollow technology blog 🙂

The fourth in the series taught us why competition in blogging is important. Competition in blogging helps you to gain readers, especially commenting readers. Competitions contests themselves can also attract many people to your blog, from others on the net.

In the penultimate article in the series (excluding this article), we were shown why it is very important to give your readers lots of ways to subscribe to your blog. Email Subscriptions, Facebook and Twitter are what we use, although no-doubt that list will change in the future 🙂

The final article in the series taught us to follow the experts in blogging to succeed. You can either learn what works and what doesn’t work for yourself, – the hard way – or you can look at the experts, and see what works for them. Learning form your own experience is good, learning from others is more productive and wise.


The end of this series has got me buzzing to write another, but what about? Is there anything technology, blogging or science or related that you would like me to either teach you or research for you?

Any suggestions? Throw them at me below 🙂

Thanks for following the series and all also thanks for all the comments along the way. I hope you have learned something useful, which you can hopefully apply to yourself and your site 🙂