Whew, I spent most of the weekend wishing I was a blog designer while updating my blog. Many thanks to the REAL blog designers who generously share their tips online. This started with my wanting smaller blog buttons to reduce scrolling up and down to see everything. Getting my social media icons onto one bar was the most difficult part. Who would have thought that this little blog button bar would take all day to figure out?
First problem was that it's hard to google something when the name of the thing that you are looking for is a big mystery. There are many posts about adding blog buttons so people can share your posts. I finally realized that I wanted "follow blog buttons" instead of "share blog buttons". At this point, some of you may be laughing to much to read the rest of this post. Like I said in the beginning, I am not an experienced blog designer. HTML code and I are not good friends!
The other thing I learned is to search for Blogger blog button tips. Why? When you don't know what you are doing, at least get directions for the right type of platform. Because my blog is hosted by Blogger, it helped to narrow the search.
Three posts were the most helpful for creating my social media button bar.
Stacy's post,
Social Media Button Bar How-To got me started on the right track. She included a link to
Project Alicia's post titled
Idiots Guide to Adding Social Media Buttons to Blogger. Imagine my frustration when in the beginning I couldn't follow these instructions! She gave fabulous instructions for getting the buttons and codes for "Your Picture URL." The problem was that I didn't know how to get "Your Feed URL" for everything. When you read her post, the last part will make more sense.
Luckily, Single Dad Laughing had detailed instructions on how to find "Your Feed URL" in his post
here.
By putting the information in the three posts together, I finally got my social media button bar. It took me a while to figure out how to fit the blog buttons in one row instead of two. If you saw my blog early on Easter morning, these little social media icons were running amok! They certainly didn't want to be the same size and line up together. Lesson 461: Sometimes it takes awhile (hours or days) for the changes you make to actually happen.
For those REAL blog designers out there who share their knowledge, (and actually read this entire post) THANK YOU. For those of you on a steep learning curve like me, stop and laugh at yourself now and then. Who knows, maybe your social media icons will shape up and get in a straight line when you aren't looking.
Creatively yours,
Sharon Cheng
Richland Hills, TX
My Online Store
