Blogger Buzz announced this week that it now possible to customise your posts with permalinks.
It's always been possible to give your blog posts unique URLs.
What they actually mean is it is now possible for YOU to determine and customise the URLs which act as permalinks for your blog post.
What's a permalink?
A permalink is the "permanent link" - the unique address for the blog post (or website page). It means that it can be identified amongst the trillions of addresses on the Internet. If you click the title of your Blogger post, the resulting page will show the permalink for the post in the address line of your browser.
If you have a permalinked blog post it means that other people can reference your post and share it with their friends
I'd say a permalink is one of the most vital ways in which you can help your blog get traction and traffic on the Internet. It is also very relevant if you are thinking about what keywords are relevant to your blog post.
How to customise a Blogger Blog post URL
To do this what you need to do is use the custom URL option in post settings. You can find this in the right hand menu - see the box highlighted in blue below - just click on "Permalink" and it will open up.
Note that Blogger assigns an automatic URL - so if you forget you don't need to do anything, it will still have a unique URL but one determined by Blogger and not by you.
However you can create a very specific URL - or permalink - for your Blogger blog post by opting for the custom URL (see below).
Note how when you complete the words you want to use for the permalink in the window that it changes in the notation of what will be the complete URL for the blog post up above
Just click "Done" to save your new dedicated and unique permalink for your post.
That's it - simple!
The benefit is that the words used in your permalink will now be captured better by the search engine bots.
One warning - make sure that your permalink accurately reflects the content of your blog post or Google will penalise you. Be naughty too often and Google will consign your blog to Google Clink!
For more information of relevance to artists who blog see Blogging for Artists - Resources for Artists
Are you an artist who wants to have a blog? Or maybe an artist who wants to work on improving your blog? You'll find links on this site to sources of advice and information relevant to blogging for artists and blogging by artists.
This sounds like a good thing but I haven't tried it yet.
ReplyDeleteSo if I understand you are ADDING key words (relative to the post) to the automatic URL and search engines will find it easier? Or are you creating an entirely new and different one from the automatic URL?
And this is different from the 'Labels' keywords as far as search engine are concerned?
Also, since we are on the subject of Google have you, Katherine, or anyone else noticed how slow images take to come up on the screen in lightbox (the black background window)?
Unless it's my imagination it seems to be getting even slower.
Note: I'm aware multiple images within a post will take longer than a single image but sometimes it takes up to 25-30 seconds for a single one, which is an eternity when scanning through a blog quickly.
I'm creating an entirely new URL - see the two pictures in the post and read the URLs. One is the automatic version and the other is the new version for this post.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried testing exactly the same size and dpi with different backgrounds. In principle a black background should make no difference.
You have to control all other parameters before concluding that one variable is responsible as an explanation. For example the thing that very often makes a difference is what time of day you are looking, what the level of traffic is and how good your connection is.
Thanks Katherine,
DeleteI'll try eliminating any other variables.
So far time of day does not seem to matter. My own site seems to be the slow, but others too.
I even tried it out on my neighbors computer to check it out, both iMacs, to see if it was an issue with my computer. I got the same results on hers.
Cool thanks for the heads up
ReplyDeleteHi Katherine
ReplyDeletewhen I tried to change the permalink on my Blogger blog the custom or automatic URL option wasn't given. I wonder if this is a recent change?
setting this all up is not so daunting with your easy to follow instructions and tips. thank you!
Have you enabled the search description in Settings? That's the usual reason it doesn't show up.
ReplyDeleteGo to Settings on the dashboard
In "Description" you need to enable "description"
Make sure you also write a meta tag description of your blog for search engines!