




Take the security word off your comments…let the spam detection work for you. You want it to be easy for readers to interact with you!!! Removing word verification is easy – go into Settings and then “Posts and comments”, and choose “No” on the “Show Word Verification” menu.








How can you make sure you’re not a no-reply blogger? Go to your Blogger profile (get there by clicking the down arrow next to your profile pic and blog name in the upper right corner and selecting “Blogger profile”) and then click “Edit Profile”. Make sure that (#1) Under “Privacy” you have checked the box next to “Show my email address” and (#2) Under “Identity” you have an email address listed.
If you have switched from a Blogger profile to a Google+ profile and are a no-reply blogger, it’s a bit more complicated of a fix but you can read how to do it {here}.





When you start a Blogger blog, the photos you upload to it are stored in a Picasa web album but if you sign up for Google+, your blog photos will be stored on Google+ {here}. There IS a difference between the two:
- Picasa Web Albums offers only 1GB of free storage for photos and videos. With Google+, the storage limit is 15GB.
- For both Picasa and Google+ you can upload an unlimited amount of smaller photos for free – in other words, photo files under a certain size don’t count towards storage limits. For Picasa, photos larger than 800 x 800 pixels count toward your storage limit but for Google+, only photos larger than 2048 x 2048 pixels count.
- You can set your Google+ settings so that ALL photos uploaded to Google+ will be automatically resized to 2048 pixels (on the longest edge) so that they won’t count towards your storage limit. Simply log into Google+ (if you have more than one Google+ account, make sure you’re on the one where your blog photos are stored) and go into your settings (in the drop-down menu under “Home” in upper left corner). Scroll down to “Photos and Videos” and make sure the box to the left of “Upload my photos at full size” is NOT checked.

Clearly, when you pit Picasa against Google+, Google+ comes out on top. And signing up for Google+ does not mean that you have to change your Blogger profile to a Google+ profile or connect your blog to Google+ in any other way.



All bloggers using Adsense ads are required to adhere to Adsense policies. You’re probably familiar with some of these policies, such as not clicking on your own ads, but did you know that you are required to have a privacy policy on your blog? Specifically, Adsense states that “publishers must have and abide by a privacy policy that discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browsers, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website”.
Why is this important? If you don’t have a privacy policy, you are not in compliance with Adsense’s policies and are at risk for having your Adsense account disabled (sometimes permanently). Google tells you what information to include in your privacy policy {here}.
Thanks so much to my amazing blogging friends for contributing to this post – they’re some smart girls I tell ya! Hope you all learned a new tip or two. And if you have a tip to share, we’d love to hear it – share away in the comments! Enjoy your weekend!

Such a great post! Off to back up my blog, RIGHT NOW!
Thanks for letting me be a part of this, Kris. I just learned a few new things!!
Love this post Kris…such great tips. Definitely learned a few new tricks today! Thanks for including me sweet friend 🙂
Wow, as a newbie I would like to say Thank You!!!! But u just gave me a lot of home work for this weekend. 🙂
This is a great list – certainly one to bookmark. Thanks for including me!!
What an awesome resource, thanks for putting it all together and including me, Kris!!
Thanks Kris!! I too jumped in having no idea and many of these tips are new to me! Pinning for later so I can go back and check on a few of these things 🙂 Have a great weekend!!
Thanks – same to you Denise!
Great, great list!!! Thanks so much for sharing!!
Hi Kris! So nice to meet you through Linda! Such great tips… There are definitely some new ones for me here… like backing up my blog, YIKES!! Must do stat! Thank you so much for this wonderful post.
XOXO,
The Glam Pad
WOW. These are ALL great tips. How I wish I’d known all of this when I starting blogging!! Thank you!
Such great and informative tips Kris and from my fave bloggers nontheless! THANKS so much for this post!
I don’t have a blog, but I subscribe to many. As an “end user” I agree with every one of your tips. I have wondered why some blogs appear in my email inbox long after they have been published. Now I know it’s probably because the blogger has not properly schedule the email delivery. For some reason I prefer reading blogs published by Word Press over Blogger. One last tip I would pass on that I read long ago in a blog about the 10 fastest way to kill your blog (or something to that effect) is to have the commenter see the message “your comment is awaiting review”. Only a few of my blogs do this, but I firmly see it as a turnoff to to the reader who took the trouble to leave a comment. There are other ways to control inappropriate comments, as many blogs I read do not use that screening. Love your blog! Best, Beth C.
Beth, I so appreciate you taking the time to comment because it’s priceless to get a reader’s perspective! Your tip is a great one – thanks for sharing it. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!
Wonderful tips! Thank you!
Great tips Kris!
Wow, a few things here I really hadn’t paid attention to before. Love your blog, I’m adding you to my blog roll so I can’t keep reading! Have a great weekend.
As the comments before me say, so many new tips that I’ve never heard of!! Thank you!! Found you from your comment on Simply Modern Home! You have a new follower!! I would love for you to stop by my new home decor blog The Daily Nest http://www.thedailynest.com Thanks again for the great tips! ~Kathy
Thanks for stopping by Kathy – I will come on over for a visit!
This is awesome. Done and done.
So many great ideas that I’ve never thought of! Thanks for pulling this all together Kris!
Thanks for all the great tips! I have pinned so I can work on the list.
Thanks Tammy @ The Colored Door
So glad you found it helpful Tammy! Enjoy your weekend!
Wonderful tips!
Fantastic tips, some of which were new to me even after blogging for more than 3 years but many I’ve had to learn ‘the hard way’. Excellent resource, thank you for putting this together! xx
Glad you were able to learn a new tip or two! Have a great weekend!
Many years ago when I was still on Blogger, I DID lose almost all of my images! One day they just disappeared…. So beware and yes, do back up!!! I recently moved to self hosted WordPress and couldn’t be happier!
I’ve been blogging for years and just learned a bunch! Thanks so much!
Great tips!! Appreciated have a nice weekend!
These are great, Kris! I learned a few new things too. Good to see you at Emily A. Clark this morning!
Thanks for the helpful tips, Kris! Have a great weekend!
Same to you Kim!!
These are wonderful tips! I have been on blogger for years and have felt like I knew my way around pretty well…but I definitely picked up a few new tips I didn’t know! Thank you!
Wonderful tips … and the back up thing? I never knew … off to do that NO!! Thanks for the round up and great info!
This was such a great post…yikes the back up thing I like Kim did not know…so many great tips!!
These are great tips. I really hate when links don’t open in a new window, drives me nuts.
Great tips! I’m a big fan of google+ too! Lovely post.
Learned something new about photos and Google + – thanks this was helpful!
Thanks for the tips! I just backed up my blog and changed the word verification thingy.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for this post. Very insightful.
Thanks so much for sharing this! Such a lack of help for Blogger out there…off to step up my game!
Thanks for sharing all these fabulous tips!!!
Plumtickledpink.blogspot.com
Good tips all but an especial thanks for showing me how to easily backup my blog!
Just went through and checked everything off, great post, thanks!!
I use WordPress, but most of these were applicable to me. Thanks so much for the list – it was very helpful!
I already employed most of these tips, but really found the last two useful. I had maxed out my Picasa photo storage over 2 years ago and had been paying for more storage. I had no idea I could cancel my storage fee because I had more storage on Google+!! I immediately cancelled my storage plan. You just saved me some pocket change every month! Thank you!
Lisa.
This is awesome info! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m going to put much of it to use today.
http://www.passthehoney.blogspot.com
Great ideas!
Thanks so much! There were so many valuable tips.
Very helpful post, thank you! How do you see that a blog is on wordpress/blogger when they have their own domain?
If you right-click on a page of someone’s blog and click “View Page Source”, you’ll see several lines of code with “blogger” in it if they’re on Blogspot. Hope that helps!
Hi. This is really helpful. Thank you so much. Can you please suggest me any app or online editor which can be used to make drawings or pictures for my blog?
I love PicMonkey!