10 Useful Blogger Features to Enhance Your Experience

You've set up a blog on Blogger.com, posted regularly for a few weeks or months, and built a small but loyal audience. You've mastered the basics and are ready for more advanced features. You want to discover more tools, enhance your blogging skills, and possibly even earn some money for your efforts.

Blogger offers several advanced tools that can help you manage your blog. You can track how many readers you have, update your blog from a mobile device, invite others to contribute to your blog and create a writing team, and even monetize your content with ads. This article will guide you through these features, consider it your Blogger 102 course.

10: Earnings Tab

On the Blogger admin page, you'll find an option on the left labeled 'Earnings.' This section allows you to connect your blog to your Google AdSense account. AdSense will analyze the content of your blog posts and show relevant ads to your readers. You can then earn money through clicks or ad impressions, typically just a few cents per action.

AdSense gives you control over where ads are placed on your blog, allowing you to customize the font and colors of text ads. You can also block certain ad categories from showing up. After your ads have been running for a few days, you'll see earnings and other statistics in the 'Earnings' tab.

9: Template Designer

Head to the 'Template' tab and click on the 'Customize' button. From there, you can tweak nearly every aspect of your template. Adjust the width of the main column and sidebar, modify background images, and even reposition elements like the header, footer, and sidebars.

The Advanced tab allows you to modify the font, size, and color of every element on your blog, including links, headlines, and post text. Your blog doesn't have to resemble anyone else's template—be creative and make it unique!

8: Stats Tab

One key question for any blogger is, 'How many people are reading my posts?' Blogger makes it simple to find out. No tracking codes or plugins needed. Just visit the 'Stats' tab and you'll be able to see your page views from today, yesterday, the past month, and since your blog's creation. You can also track views per post and see where your traffic is coming from.

You can even dive deeper into the stats. Want to know where most of your readers are located or what browser or operating system they're using? All this detailed information is accessible in the 'Stats' tab.

7: Google Video

Blogger integrates smoothly with other Google services, making it easy to add videos to your posts. There's a video button on the 'Create a new post' form that opens up a selection of options. You can search YouTube to find and embed a video, or add one you've uploaded to YouTube. Alternatively, you can upload a video directly from your computer. This video will be hosted on Google Video, and while it's not searchable or publicly available like YouTube videos, it will still appear in your blog post when embedded.

You also have the option to upload videos from your Android phone (with a free app) or directly from a webcam.

6: Blogger Buzz

Blogger Buzz is a blog dedicated to all things Blogger. While it may seem a bit too self-referential, it’s incredibly helpful. It’s filled with posts from the Blogger team, sharing tips, explaining new features, and offering advice on how to get the most out of your blogging experience.

If you're dedicated to Blogger or just looking for some helpful tips to enhance your blogging experience, you should definitely consider bookmarking Blogger Buzz.

5: Team Blogging

Maintaining a blog by yourself can be overwhelming. By bringing together a team of bloggers, you'll not only have more content, but you'll also gain new perspectives and writing styles. How do you set up a team for your blog?

First, one person should create the blog under a primary Google account. Next, go to the 'Settings' tab and click on the 'Basic' subtab. Under the 'Permissions' section, there's an option to 'Add Authors.' Add new authors by entering their email addresses – they'll need a Google account, but if they don't have one, the invitation will allow them to create one.

Next, you'll need to determine the level of access for the other authors. If you make them administrators, they'll have complete control over the blog. This includes altering the settings, modifying the template, and managing authors (in addition to creating and editing posts). Non-admin authors can still write and update their own posts.

4: Blogging by Phone

For those who blog on the go, you'll be pleased to know that you can manage your blog directly from your phone. It doesn’t even need to be a smartphone—just one capable of sending and receiving text messages. Simply send a text to BLOGGR, and you'll receive a registration code that you can use to either start a new mobile blog or link to your existing Blogger blog.

Once registered, you can post both photos and text to your blog via text message. A comprehensive guide and list of commands is available at Blogger on the Go.

3: Google+

Google+ is the social networking platform by Google, seamlessly integrated into Blogger (you'll find a "Google+" tab in the admin panel). Linking your blog to your Google+ account offers several advantages. You can easily share your blog posts with your Google+ friends, and they can effortlessly share them too.

You'll also have an easier time gauging your audience's reactions. You can track who gave your post a "+1" and see who shares and reshapes your post.

Above all, Google+ is a platform designed to keep you in touch with friends and colleagues. You can engage in active conversations about your blog posts or even host live Google+ hangouts to chat with your readers in real-time.

2: Picasa Web Albums

Picasa is Google's platform for sharing photos. As you may already know, it is integrated with Blogger. Whenever you upload a picture to include in a Blogger post, it is stored in a dedicated album in your Picasa account. You can easily insert photos directly from your Picasa albums into your blog entries. Thanks to Picasa's built-in image editor, you can effortlessly adjust and organize your images, all while having quick access from your Blogger dashboard. Additionally, you can tag and share your photos with your Google+ circles.

1: Blogger Widgets

You can also include third-party widgets. The 'Add a gadget' window features an 'Add your own' option, which allows you to enter the URL of any custom widget designed to work with Blogger.