Working with Titles & Labels

It's always so striking to me how few bloggers use Titles and Labels when writing their blog postings and I imagine this is due in part to simply not understanding the importance they hold in helping people actually find the information we write about on our blogs.
Both Titles and Labels are equally important because they help our visitors more easily find information in our blogs, either by finding our blog posts through commonly used search engines like Google or by using the search feature which you hopefully have positioned somewhere on your sidebar*.
To easily access and view all of the titles and labels you've used in your blog posts, visit the "Edit Posts" page found under the "Postings" tab...
Using "Titles" for your blog posts is essential for a number of reasons, non more so than for your own organization. Using titles allows you to easily view previous blog posts and find them faster ...
There you will find a list of all the blog posts you've written, listed by date and showing their titles.
In this section you will also find an alphabetical list of all the Labels you've used for your blog postings and the amount of posts containing those Labels...
are important because it's how the "Search this blog" feature is used to find previous blog posts and it's also how the Google search engine sorts our blog posts, by title.

The feature Blogger calls "Labels" is also known as tags or keywords on the internet. This is an important feature to include with each blog posting because it also helps keep our blog organized, allows search engines to organize and list our blog posts and also helps that nifty LinkWithin gadget work which can be found at the bottom of many blog postings.To include a Title in your blog post simply look for this area...and type in a title related to what you're writing about in your blog post. It's reminiscent of grade school when we had to define a paragraph in as few words as possible and you can have some fun with it by making your titles catchy or enticing so that your visitors will want to read more.

To add Labels to your post just think of a few words that relate to what you're writing about, for example this posting will include "tutorial" and "how to". To include Labels in your blog post just look for this area when writing your blog post...and be sure each word is followed by a comma, like so...Using Titles and Labels may take a few extra seconds when composing your blog posts but in the long run can save you loads of time by helping to organize your postings as well as helping to create a more enjoyable experience for your visitors.
*If you are not currently using the search feature gadget on your blog and wish to add it go to the "Design" tab (1) of your blog, then click on "Page Elements" (2), next click on "Add-a-Gadget" (3), then look for "Search box" and click the blue plus button to add...
Enjoy!

How to: Control Spam Comments & Report Blog Spammers

Recently one of my visitors asked for help in understanding how to control who can leave comments on our blogs. While I don't profess to know everything about Blogger (or even half, for that matter) I have delved into this realm a bit because like most of you, the thought of having someone spam my blog with advertising comments leaves me feeling rather sick. And so I thought I would share a few steps with you on how to control comments left on your blog posts. So, away we go...
To begin, you will need to log into your blog so that you can navigate to the area of your blog I like to call the "backroom"...
Once there, click on the "Settings" tab...
Next click on the blue "Comments" link...
On the "Comments" page you will see a selection of options which control the comments features of your blog. If you're following along with this tutorial then go ahead and scroll down the page, reading over each title to get familiar with the various selections or simply click on the image below to view a screen shot of the entire page...
For the moment, we're going to focus on the second section ~ "Who Can Comment"...
To prevent unwanted "Anonymous" comments you'll want to be sure one of the other choices is selected...
Personally I usually select the "Registered Users" option. The reason for this is several of my friends host their blogs outside of Blogger by using either Typepad or WordPress and this allows them the ability to leave comments if they choose.

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One thing to keep in mind is that neither of these selections will alleviate spam comments completely as many of those users create Blogger accounts for the purpose of being able to get around this feature.
For this reason Blogger has created a location where you can report a spam blogger. It's a tool I use frequently in the hope of reducing these obnoxious offenders and the process to report them takes only a few seconds. So, here's how it works...
When someone leaves a comment on your blog you can easily access their profile by clicking on the avatar or name associated with their comment...
This only applies if you've already selected to not allow "Anonymous" users the ability to leave comments, as described above - Anonymous users do not show a link.
In the example below you can even also see how some visitors have a Blogger logo next to their name, while those with an "Open Id" have a different logo...
To report a spammer, you'll need to know the exact address of their Blogger profile. To find out this information click on the blogger's name which should appear in blue if it's a link...
The important information you will need is the actual address of the profile which you can find in the address bar of your browser...
{Note: I'm using my profile as an example since I was unable to locate a spammer's profile so please don't submit my blog ~ I would cry... a lot.
Copy this information, if you're a Windows user you can do this by right clicking in the address bar and selecting copy...
Next, go to this address: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/request.py?contact_type=spam
The page is designed simply to report spam bloggers to Google...
To report the offending blogger, just paste the address you copied into the open text area...
and then click the gray "Submit" button...
That's it... you've successfully reported a nasty blog spammer.

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Returning once again to the "Comments" section in our tutorial when you are finished making changes to the area be sure to save your changes by clicking the orange "Save Settings" button at the bottom...
That's it! I hope this information has been helpful and together we can work to make Blogland a bit more enjoyable and a user friendly place to be. And as always, if you find any errors with my tutorials please help me help you by letting me know so I can fix the issues - thanks!