How to Number Your Comments in Blogger

My friend Ashley led me to this great tutorial on how to number your comments in blogger. The directions were really easy to follow. I needed to do this because I hated counting comments for giveaways!

Five Reasons Why You Should Enter Giveaways

Giveaways are the hot thing right now. Although the number of giveaways is somewhat overwhelming, there is value in entering these contests. You should enter giveaways because:

1. It's easy! You don't need to do all the entries. Do what you can to save time. Of course, if it's something you really want, do more entries to increase your chances of winning.
2. You hear about new products you might not have heard of otherwise.
3. You save money! You win great products for yourself or to give as gifts. Some giveaways offer discounts on the product for all submitters.
4. You discover great blogs with useful or fun information.
5. If you blog, other giveaway bloggers might enter your giveaways or follow your blog.

I hope you have fun entering giveaways and win some awesome things!

The Five Love Languages and Blogging

5lovelanguages.com

The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman, is a book about how to speak love to your partner in the way he or she understands it. The five love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts, and physical touch. Each has its own dialects as well. For example, quality time could mean doing an activity together or engaging in meaningful conversation. You can usually tell what your love language is by how you show love or by what you ask your partner for the most.

 The five love languages also apply to blogging:

Words of Affirmation: You feel loved when people praise your blog and give you blog rewards and recognition. You feed off encouragement and appreciate when people leave comments. You most likely enjoy writing reviews.

Quality Time: You bond through discussion and sharing ideas. You feel loved when people read your posts and respond with their own thoughts. You also like feeling part of a group of people with similar interests and consider those people friends.

Acts of Service: You like blogging for the free services (advice, products, recipes, etc.) you provide and receive. You like to help promote others and have them promote you.

Gifts: You love when companies give you products to review or give away and you, in turn, enjoy giving them away. If you don't host giveaways, then you like entering them for yourself or others.

Physical Touch: Tough one. Perhaps you enjoy blog conferences and meeting in person all the new friends you've made online.

My love language is quality time (though acts of service is a very close second!) and my primary dialect is conversation. That is why I blog. Right now I use giveaways to bring people to my blog, but I hope one day my content will be more effective in winning me readers. I want this to be more of a discussion blog than a giveaway blog; I want the giveaways to be the icing on the cake. So please comment and share your ideas, especially if you're like me and quality time (conversation) is your love language.

Make Your Own Blog Button

I always wanted a blog button, but I'm not html savvy. I looked it up on eHow and found this amazing article: How to Add a Blog Button with Text Box Underneath for Code. The directions are very clear and easy to follow. Just one comment on step 2: you can upload your photo to Google's Picasa Web Albums. Once uploaded, click on the photo and on the right click on "Link to this photo." Select the thumbnail size and check the box next to "Image Only (no link)." Then copy the html code under "Embed Image" (not under "Link"). I love my new button!