Google Should Allow Adsense Publishers Buy Custom Domain Directly from Blogger using their Adsense Earnings

Since the rumor about Blogger rebranding to Google Blogs surfaced early in July, I was seriously considering getting my blogs (under blogger) their own custom domain, starting from my most visited blog.

I was about to buy one when something stopped me and this thought occurred to me.

Google should consider allowing Adsense publishers to buy custom domain directly from Blogger with their Adsense earnings.

Image created via wordle.net

Yesterday, I went checking my desired domain name over GoDaddy & NameCheap. I was glad that it was still available although the .com version is a little expensive for my meager budget.

Searching further, I found out that buying the domain directly from Blogger is cheaper by almost $2 and easier to implement. However, I only have Paypal earnings to spend. Buying a domain directly from Blogger directs you to Google checkout which do not accept Paypal. That sucks for me!

A thought came to my mind.

There are a lot of bloggers that for years maintained blogs under the Blogger subdomain, displaying Adsense ads. Google owns both Adsense and Blogger. If Google will only allow Adsense publishers like me to buy custom domains directly from Blogger using my accumulated Adsense earnings, it would be a win-win scenario.

Publishers get to own their custom domains and perhaps be more encouraged to create killer content. This is specifically beneficial to those publishers who have yet to reach the Adsense threshold for payment of $100.

Google, in return, gets paid for the domain and also gets to earn back the money they would have to send as payment to their publishers.

Do you have blog under Blogger? Do you display Adsense on it? Do you intend to buy your own domain soon? Would you consider buying your own custom domain at Blogger if Google allows us to do so using our adsense earnings?

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Template Change: 5 Important Things About Template Changes in Blogger

Template change for your blog is a serious decision and can be from a breeze, to tricky or downright disasters. Here are 5 important things I consider about template change in my blogs.

Decision to implement Template Change

Any decision to change blog templates should be to improve the overall look and feel of the blog for the visitors & readers. That reason alone merits serious consideration.

Template change crosses my mind when I see a new great-looking free blogger template online. And then, I refer to my blog analytics in terms of the bounce rate and length of stay on my blog. Afterwards, I try to compare the new template with blogs that I follow under the same niche. I try look for similar elements. If it does, then I make the decision to implement template change.

1. Testing the New Blogger template

To do this, I use an old blog that is no longer updated. There, I test the new template plus other HTML/XML customizations I need in that old blog. If I found some difficulty or not contented with overall new look & feel, I just look for a new template. By the way, ourblogtemplates.com is a good resource for great looking and customizable free blogger templates.

2. Backing-up the Existing Blogger template

Backing up your blog should be a must and should be done regularly, like every quarter. And I just don't mean the Download Full Template you see when you access your Blogger/Design/Edit HTML tab. I also suggest exporting the whole of your blog (via Blogger/Settings/Basic tab), taking notes of all the customizations you did, and the widget html codes. I tell you, it pays to have it all on record just in case things get messed up.

3. Implementing the Template Change in the actual Blog

After the first two things, I now have the confidence and peace of mind to implement the template changes in the actual blog I want to improve.

4. Testing the Blog's New Look

It is now time that I test my new look blog. I test the navigation. I check how my existing blog entries is rendered by the new template, especially the popular posts or top contents. I examine if the images, blockquotes, lists,etc are all looking good.

5. Incorporate other customizations

When I'm already satisfied with the testing, I think about other customizations that I can incorporate. This is where I refer to my bookmarks of blog customization taken from authority websites on the subject. Some of which include optimizing google adsense ad placement, adding an application/widget or simply putting additional ads or new ones from affialite programs etc,.

These were the things I just did with my Prepaid Cellphone Portal blog. It's my blog with the most search traffic but still a relatively high bounce rate.

I hope that the change of template and other improvements would improve its readability. The hope is that visitors would love their visits, stay longer, possibly interact with me thru commenting and return often.

When that goal is achieved, I know income and profit is not too far behind. How about you? When how do you implement a template change in your respective blogs?

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Why Display Related Posts in Blogger & How To Do So

[UPDATE: June 28, 2011
]For some reasons, the code isn't working out so I'm removing this one from my blog.

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To be able to present more information to my few regular readers and casual visitors, I decided to implement a technique that most season bloggers do.

Displaying related posts in blogger is must. This is why I implemented it here and how I went about it.

I believe related posts in my blog can bring my readers and visitor more information. Thus, they should see links to these related content displayed right after every post, to provide them with additional information about the one they initially read or visited.

Plus, internally linking all my related contents is good for search engine crawling and indexing.

First of all, I searched for a plugin or a widget, to help me with this goal. Google led me to bloggerplugins.org. They already created the codes and to implement them in your own blog is pretty straight forward, copy-pasting. As I am not that expert into coding, I just used it as is.

For those more familiar with html, css and xml, they could further customize the manner in which the related posts are diplayed on their blogs.

Related posts are displayed right after every post. Kindly look below and feel free to browse related content. And I hope, I would be able to give your more useful blots and info.

Hat tip to the people behind Blogger Plugins.

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