Testing bulleted list in Blogger sidebar

A blogger asked: "how do I add bullets or dots to my link list in the sidebar? I have tried many ways but I can't seem to do it."

I initially tried using an unordered list in a HTML/Javascript gadget:

<ul style="list-style-type:disc;">
<li><a href="http://www.bloggertipsandtricks.com">Blogger Tips and Tricks</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bloggerfordummies.blogspot.com">Blogger for Dummies</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogger-book.com">Online Blogger Book</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogger-faq.blogspot.com/">Blogger FAQ</a></li>
</ul>

That didn't work, so it must be the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). So I went to LAYOUT > EDIT HTML and edited this

.sidebar ul {
list-style:none;
margin:0 0 0;
padding:0 0 0;
}

to

.sidebar ul {
list-style-type:disc;
margin:0 0 0;
padding:0 0 0;
}

I tried this at Star Home Improvements. The codes for the unordered list <ul> was placed in the first right sidebar. As you can see, the "bullets" didn't display.

Testing customizing color menu bar

I like plain template with no or minimal graphics as my blogs are generally for the purpose of providing information. However, it can become quite dull. Hence I though of adding some color. The easiest is to add a color background to the Header. Color background does not increase the download time as would a graphic background.

Next is to add a horizontal menu bar with a slightly different background color from that for the blog title. I am testing that at Lincoln Chew blog. Please do give feedback by commenting and tell us what you think of that little bit of customization.

Testing SEO tip: post title blog title

For Blogger blogs in search engines result pages, the blog title precede the post title. For example, the post Meta tags for Blogger, the post is displayed as "Blogger Tips and Tricks: Meta tags for Blogger" as shown in the screen shot below:



I am going to test Optimize Blog Title for Search engine Results and increase visitors which offered a very simple way to do it. I am going to save the method below in case that blog goes off line:

The method is go go to the template editor (LAYOUT > EDIT HTML) and look for

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

That should be almost at the top of the template. Replace it with

<!-- Start www.bloggerplugins.org: Changing the Blogger Title Tag -->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> ~ <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>
<!-- End www.bloggerplugins.org: Changing the Blogger Title Tag -->

This was done for Blogger Tips and Tricks at about 8pm, 6 February, 2009. Now let us wait for the search engines to crawl the blog and see the results.

Recording any search result for further test. Below is the screen shot of a search for "blog countdown" which resulted in a link Countdown clock for your blog with the result displayed as

Blogger Tips and Tricks: Countdown clock for your blog



Let us see if it will eventually change to

Countdown clock for your blog: Blogger Tips and Tricks