When you start your blog you may have no conception of how long you're going to be doing this for or the time and effort that it is going to take on your part, but when you become a seasoned blogger, you'll be able to look back (and look forward) and see your personal seasonal rhythms with your blog.

We all have our ups and downs and habits that we get into, and our blogs will reflect that over time. Right now, it's getting into fall, and for a a lot of people summer is one of two extremes - it is either the time where you're lazy and don't maintain your blog as much, or you're coasting along with your blog because everyone is engaged and involved. After this, you're going to have to make one transition or another - either get more involved with your blog and write more or expect less involvement from your audience. Or you're one of those lucky few that get consistent involvement year round - know I strongly dislike you.

For those who are just starting - know that you will likely get into routines in different seasons (the weather may not correlate...but it will happen.) Blogs have life cycles and phases just as a business does. You'll probably get into a winter funk, and there will be some bumps and scrapes along the way - balancing life, work and blog isn't always easy.

As I said, your seasons may not match what you're seeing outside of the window, but you really should take note of what kind of life cycle your blog has, where the ups and downs and peaks and valleys usually occur. If you don't notice these things, your blog could become completely stale or irrelevant without you noticing. Years will run by you, and your blog hasn't grown or evolved at all. Maybe you don't get to know your audience, or haven't don't any kind of SEO, but SEO is a whole 'nother topic.

Just as a fact of life in the real-world seasons of Fall and Winter, you will be faced with a lot more holidays - from Halloween to Christmas. You'll need to decide to what degree you're going to want to share your personal experiences of the holidays, or the ways in which you're going to allow the holidays you do (or don't) celebrate color your content.


Winter

The winter of your blog is a test of discipline. Long days and little to show, at this point you're just trying to get through your posting schedule. You don't have the heart to start any new promotions or launch any new projects. You just slog through the mud and keep on keepin' on. Do you have the devotion to really keep doing this blog? Your winter is your benchmark.

Spring

Spring - buds are blooming, birds are chirping, the sun is shining. In short, things are looking better. You've got new subscribers or maybe you just got pitched a great promotional deal, but things are going so much better than they were. Whatever is making you excited about your blog again, you're posting so much more and are engaged and active, riding on cloud 9.

Summer

As I've mentioned earlier, the summer of your blog (which likely corresponds to the actual season) can be one of two things. Either you're hot and lazy and kind of abandon ship with your blog, posting less frequently, engaging less often, or you're continuing the high of summer and you could almost be on vacation because things with your blog are evolving so naturally and everything is going so easily.

Fall

The fall of your blog is the time that you need to take to analyze your blog. Do you need a new design? (Do you want a new design?) Do you need to reach out to a different audience? Guest post somewhere? Start in on a new topic or a new angle? Fall is the time to ask those questions, and figure out what is going on a bit deeper with your blog - figure out how to grow it, how to nurture it.

Don't forget your blog is a reflection of you, and you go through cycles and rhythms. Follow them, understand them. Don't try and fight them or get frustrated with it. Ups and downs happen with everything. Keep in mind the larger picture of you and your blog and how they fit together - and a big part of that is identifying and acknowledging the rhythms that your blog goes through.
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Internal Links
Here’s an easy way to create internal links for your blog. Do so and you will in no timekeep your bloggers blogging, increase your viewership, and achieve higher search engine rankings.
Follow these simple suggestions to build internal links and help your blog gain greater success:-
  1. Create links in your most viewed posts
  2. For starters build internal links for your most popular posts and pages. These posts are moreoften visited by readers, so take the opportunity to lead them to your other posts. You can do so by manually inserting the links or with the help of plug-ins. In this way you can ensure the reader who likes your work gets to read more of your work by just clicking on the internal links.
  3. Furnish your pages with links of relevant information
  4. Once the reader has read your post, it is most likely that he will want to know more on the topic. You can provide him/her with this chance by creating links of any relevant or related posts. It would be advantageous if these links are from your own blogs, probably older postsand are manually added rather than through plug-ins. Thus the reader can find all he wants to know on your blog and at the same time you can enjoy extensive readership.
  5. Create series and sitemaps
  6. Readers do not like to read very long posts. It is best to have short posts and arrange them in a series, each series carrying links to the previous ones. Moreover, it is beneficial to provide the reader with a sitemap as it will help him/her to navigate through your blog and also give you chance to provide more number of internal links.This will help you to lead the readers in the direction you like, to promote your other posts, and increase your readership.
  7. Create links at the end of posting threads
  8. When you have completed posting on a particular topic, you will most likely conclude the thread through a single post. This post can carry internal links to the previous ones and other related postings. You will thus attract the reader to read other posts on the topic.
  9. Use 404 pages to your advantage
  10. Certain blogs may trouble you with error pages. These pages can be edited and used for posting. You can then insert them as internal links on your other pages.
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In the last post i showed you how to use the Pascal Theme Nivo Slider on Blogger.So in this post i have the second of the three Nivo themes, the default nivo slider.The default theme while looking more basic still has the cool transitions and other options like pop up captions.The slider is from Dev7 Studios and you can see the live demo below.

View Demo Button


Add The Default Theme Nivo Slider To Blogger


Remember Always Back Up Your Template Before You Make Changes
Design Edit Html Blogger

Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code )

]]></b:skin>

Step 3. Copy and Paste the following code Directly Above / Before ]]></b:skin>

Important - This is a scroll box make sure to get all the code.
/*Start Slider Css*/
#slider-wrapper {
background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpfU4OeWOGf89OHZDTm2YfHVnfTnpbTuwEiD5Piw-POYkmMJQOzv6GtDaHx3iZ6c9BC662fbN9UEfAC3dbWrWAeSfzhrxiDERhvpDzg0jSGu62txZPf6C-0K6MwTti3GjoHGXs2RUQXex/s1600/loading.gif) no-repeat;
width:998px;
height:392px;
margin:0 auto;
padding-top:74px;
margin-top:50px;
}
#slider {
position:relative;
width:618px;
height:246px;
margin-left:190px;
background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpfU4OeWOGf89OHZDTm2YfHVnfTnpbTuwEiD5Piw-POYkmMJQOzv6GtDaHx3iZ6c9BC662fbN9UEfAC3dbWrWAeSfzhrxiDERhvpDzg0jSGu62txZPf6C-0K6MwTti3GjoHGXs2RUQXex/s1600/loading.gif) no-repeat 50% 50%;
}
#slider img {
position:absolute;
top:0px;
left:0px;
display:none;
}
#slider a {
border:0;
display:block;
}
.nivo-controlNav {
position:absolute;
left:260px;
bottom:-42px;
}
.nivo-controlNav a {
display:block;
width:22px;
height:22px;
background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7Dpvu7OX_TWHeVsRsCTjS9DBDfU3Ijx2yHggyE2G3RLznRbB0WPT0-XmmyYBn92mK0lhVVOZkF9XUwYip9V4UoqhoR1C8iCMCln2THJUk4Wli87NixHSq6toMYOEo4C6n-RzaNHd0cbZ/s1600/bullets.png) no-repeat;
text-indent:-9999px;
border:0;
margin-right:3px;
float:left;
}
.nivo-controlNav a.active {
background-position:0 -22px;
}
.nivo-directionNav a {
display:block;
width:30px;
height:30px;
background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiatPJiWnLVi6YRe4-JLVR-PIvWSCKN9cbCF17O0QbiyX8h6jwfqE-nOgaMxUKuLcT69nT1x1GoSMC8QLfghFW9r6epzN1PxS4KNlQPiW9VpivHPBOMizVM46wkXAOqv_poljPXP3pUdh7y/s1600/arrows.png) no-repeat;
text-indent:-9999px;
border:0;
}
a.nivo-nextNav {
background-position:-30px 0;
right:15px;
}
a.nivo-prevNav {
left:15px;
}
.nivo-caption {
text-shadow:none;
font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}
.nivo-caption a {
color:#efe9d1;
text-decoration:underline;
}
/* The Nivo Slider styles */
.nivoSlider {
position:relative;
}
.nivoSlider img {
position:absolute;
top:0px;
left:0px;
}
/* If an image is wrapped in a link */
.nivoSlider a.nivo-imageLink {
position:absolute;
top:0px;
left:0px;
width:100%;
height:100%;
border:0;
padding:0;
margin:0;
z-index:6;
display:none;
}
/* The slices and boxes in the Slider */
.nivo-slice {
display:block;
position:absolute;
z-index:5;
height:100%;
}
.nivo-box {
display:block;
position:absolute;
z-index:5;
}
/* Caption styles */
.nivo-caption {
position:absolute;
left:0px;
bottom:0px;
background:#000;
color:#fff;
opacity:0.8; /* Overridden by captionOpacity setting */
width:100%;
z-index:8;
}
.nivo-caption p {
padding:5px;
margin:0;
}
.nivo-caption a {
display:inline !important;
}
.nivo-html-caption {
display:none;
}
/* Direction nav styles (e.g. Next & Prev) */
.nivo-directionNav a {
position:absolute;
top:45%;
z-index:9;
cursor:pointer;
}
.nivo-prevNav {
left:0px;
}
.nivo-nextNav {
right:0px;
}
.nivo-directionNav a {
display:block;
width:30px;
height:30px;
background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiatPJiWnLVi6YRe4-JLVR-PIvWSCKN9cbCF17O0QbiyX8h6jwfqE-nOgaMxUKuLcT69nT1x1GoSMC8QLfghFW9r6epzN1PxS4KNlQPiW9VpivHPBOMizVM46wkXAOqv_poljPXP3pUdh7y/s1600/arrows.png) no-repeat;
text-indent:-9999px;
border:0;
}
a.nivo-nextNav {
background-position:-30px 0;
right:15px;
}
a.nivo-prevNav {
left:15px;
}
/* Control nav styles (e.g. 1,2,3...) */
.nivo-controlNav a {
position:relative;
z-index:9;
cursor:pointer;
}
.nivo-controlNav a.active {
font-weight:bold;
}
.nivo-controlNav a {
display:block;
width:22px;
height:22px;
background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7Dpvu7OX_TWHeVsRsCTjS9DBDfU3Ijx2yHggyE2G3RLznRbB0WPT0-XmmyYBn92mK0lhVVOZkF9XUwYip9V4UoqhoR1C8iCMCln2THJUk4Wli87NixHSq6toMYOEo4C6n-RzaNHd0cbZ/s1600/bullets.png) no-repeat;
text-indent:-9999px;
border:0;
margin-right:3px;
float:left;
}
/* End Slider Css, Info @ http://www.spiceupyourblog.com */


Step 4. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code )

</head>


Step 5. Now Copy And Paste This Code Directly Above / Before </head>

If you have previously added jQuery to your template you can leave out the line in green.
<script src='http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.6.1.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://yourjavascript.com/8855314511/jquery.nivo.slider.pack.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
$(window).load(function() {
$(&#39;#slider&#39;).nivoSlider();
});
</script>


Step 6. Save Your Template.

That's the Css and Scripts added we now add the Html for the slides.

We will be adding the slider across your blog below the header.This area is called Cross Column and can be seen in the image below.


Adding HTML For The Slides


The HTML for the slides goes in a Html/Javascript gadget in the cross column section as shown above.

Below is the html for the slider in the demo.There is no really easy way to explain it so you will need to take a minute to figure out the code.I have the URLs (The Destination of the slide when clicked) is in red, the image is in green and the caption (Optional) is in yellow.Each slide works in the same way, you can just copy and paste this code and replace the URL, Image and captions.To add extra slides you can repeat one of the sections and once again add your URL, Image and Caption.

&lt;div id="slider">
&lt;a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com">&lt;img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSN8OlHTuyRo4rhU4NG3gNoP8Fg2ZGTVBjBe5DJw-CRfTnXrjGBs341BCCyWJIHtvHw9FG6fnjvZhBr6GXyUOZSjmlaoWLpj6ws_8gxk5PUf3df0NlMoA6eDtOzL37kXUbUjZHTELjGzo/s1600/toystory.jpg" title="This Is A Caption" />&lt;/a>

&lt;a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com">&lt;img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYdKl-NiFwiKrYLkkIYPwSYeFPjfFtE31R6X-txrRc7sJfZfdL1rlXc38E59FmFPn1LJMJZAMfFqiKnR0Q0orPtGrWahQFXkJoEkMQtcNBPm3KmiLhkn67lDmFvx6dxaQ_neA1Ogy9BdI/s1600/up.jpg" title="This Is Another Caption" />&lt;/a>

&lt;a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com">&lt;img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKzPSIhc7H6gx9lJ1IWsMeneonmy-rauhshH_QB3yLl74n5fzZKyDe98v4iROzZfeCWX8qDcP-SFLcmY30bdfGrJdr1XgVcOZiW_95SIbmV9QfwvNP-ufDnFWWKwcIENbmFA22eIHinJQ/s1600/walle.jpg" title="This is an example of a caption" />&lt;/a>

&lt;a href="http://www.spiceupyourblog.com">&lt;img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirTvol7JXtKqLS3yR2zETM1Uy0tcqZ8IdopWsL5NVp2bl4RK5aSaPMblVxX5nSlbbh6Qz9qiKUvg91k5zDnv7Ya-yKIxCixSbv_Wif8Pmsivtn5vm9nfBV4BQoR6Hyeb9p5Uf_u8FM8Po/s1600/nemo.jpg" title="This is another Caption" />&lt;/a>
&lt;/div>

I have 4 slides in the demo you can add more by repeating a section and once again add your URL, Image and caption.

That's the default Nivo jQuery Featured Posts Slider For Blogger.Make sure to check out more of our jQuery tutorials and Blogger Tips.
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