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A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Friday, April 18, 2014

A to Z: P is for profile. Can they find their way back to you?

Well P was going to be about promotion, but as the challenge has progressed, I've become frustrated with the number of people who've kindly left comments on my posts, but I can't find to read their posts and leave return comments. These are people who've left comments on my posts, and when I click on their names, I'm taken to their profile page and it includes a photo of them, and a list of the blogs that they follow. But there is no link back to their blogs.

Profiles are pretty important. Especially if you leave comments and  then people can't find their way to you, to your hiding place in digital obscurity.

Isn't part of the idea to have people follow you back to your blog, to read your meaningful post. :-)

Sign out of everything,  then take a look at as many of your profiles as you can without signing back in. Make sure you sign out of everything Google (multiple sites) Google+ is a bully about spreading digital tentacles where you might not want them ~she writes while posting on a free Google blogger platform~.

It's true. I click to leave a comment and I've been taken to commenters' G+ page only to dead-end there. So adding information to your G+ about page is another good way to help people find you and your blog.

Check your blog page--now you are like Joe Reader out in the public sphere perusing your blog.

If you use the Blogger platform, and you've discovered that your blog isn't listed on your profile page, then log back in to your Google account.On your blog, upper right, click on "Design". On the new page that loads, click on the little menu drop down arrow just to the right of you name in the upper right corner, then click on "Blogger Profile".  On the new page that appears, upper right, click on orange box "Edit Profile". Click on the third item down, "Select Blogs to Display". Blogger choices should pop up. Click on the blog you want people to find when they click on your name on other blogs (when you leave comments on another blog, and someone clicks on your name on the comment, this will be the blog they are taken to).Click to select the blog that will be displayed on your profile.

A fail-safe if you're not sure a blogger can click back through to your blog is to leave the link on the comments you leave on other blogs. Time constraints keep me from looking up the instructions (html code) how to make the link active, but in  Blogger, anytime you find an inactive link in a comment, you can click and drag to highlight it, then right click on it and select "open link in new window".

Visit other  April Blogging from A to Z Challenge by clicking here. 

Gotta run. Have a wonderful (Good) Friday everyone! :-)

20 comments:

  1. I find this frustrating too, Teresa. The old Blogger-style profile was a lot cleaner, and I think Blogger defaulted to listing your blogs unless you chose not to. Either way, it was easy to set, and easy to see.

    Google+ has totally messed up the works. It seems to want to share everything about you except your flippin' blog!

    BTW, the HTML code to add a link is as follows - here I've used square brackets instead of angled less-than/greater-than otherwise it will try to turn this into a link:

    [a href=http://put your web site URL here]and here put the text you want people to see[/a]

    For example
    [a href=http://thebaldpatch.blogspot.com]Botanist's blog[/a]

    When I switch [ and ] for < and > this is what you get:
    Botanist's blog

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    1. Thank you, Ian! You are wonderful! I wrote this this morning before I headed out to go to work. I just didn't have the time to sort through my files to find it.

      I don't understand much about the technical aspects of it all. I just know that as a bumbling, fumbling user, Google has done little to make life easier, and lots to make it complicated. It sort of scares me, how everything they do seems to be aimed at grabbing information. Thanks again, so much!

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    2. And I just used your link instruction on Fil's (comment below) blog. It worked swimmingly. You've explained it so well!

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  2. I also hate clicking on someone's profile link only to find a Google Plus page, with no way to find the actual blog. I also hate finding myself on some blog or website that requires you to register with a particular commenting service before you can write anything in response.

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    1. Agreed. I don't leave comments if I have to sign up to an additional service. :-) Thanks for visiting, Carrie-Anne. :-)

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  3. Thanks for the instructions. It is difficult to trace some people back. I'm going to check to see if mine is easily traceable. I also like to use an elegant signature too, but I forget sometimes.

    Nana Prah

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  4. For some reason I'm not getting htat little menu drop box after I click on design. I only get a round picture of me.
    Nana Prah

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  5. You're reading my mind again! I was just thinking this - people use their gravatar instead of blog address. Very frustrating.

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    1. Yes it is. Cursed Gravatar. Adds confusion... Thanks for visiting, Susan! :-)

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  6. HI Teresa - thanks for this - I managed to get the links like Botanist has outlined when posting on a Blogger blog, but all the other blogs including Wordpress won't allow it … any clues on that? Thanks for visiting mine today :) Lovely to meet you.
    Fil at Fil's Place - Old Songs and Memories

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    1. Thanks for visiting, Fil. I left a comment with (I hope) the answer, on your blog a short time ago. :-)

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  7. I love your blog background! Gorgeous. I love your post and the idea of making it easy for folks to find us. It never ceases to amaze me, new writers will bemoan their lack of reader interaction but then when you try to give them some love, it's impossible to find a simple "follow" button. Great reminder!

    I know you already stopped by today, but I wanted to say thanks and let you know I returned the follow. Happy blogging!

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    1. Thanks, Catherine! It's a photo I took, then added the stars to it with "Paint". It will be the cover of my first book.

      Thanks for giving my post a read, and thanks for the follow!

      Happy blogging to you as well. :-)

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  8. THANK YOU for this post! You have no idea how much I needed it! I'm going to print it and follow the instructions. Since the AtoZ, I did a little tweaking on my blog and lost my "follow" button.

    Thanks, also, for reading my blog and following. I'll return the favor and look forward to reading your archived posts as well as future writing. Happy day!

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  9. P.S. You can find me at:
    http://freezerburned-suddenlysusan.blogspot.com

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  10. Thank you for opening up this topic for conversation! I'm on WordPress and had a terrible time getting my avatar and a link to my blog on Blogger, and finally opened up a Blogger blog just to direct people back to my WordPress blog! Not an ideal set up ...
    So I'm still learning about this, but hopefully I'll figure it out before they change things up again. :)

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    1. It works just fine. It's taking the long way around to get there, but the important thing is that commenters can find their way there. :-)

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