Archive for May, 2008

How to add a bizSugar voting button to Blogger

If you use Blogger (Blogspot) to host your blog along with our voting button, you may have noticed an irritating little quirk: the total number of votes show up correctly on individual post pages, but not on the front page. Even worse, if a reader tries to submit a post from the front page, they end up submitting your entire front page.

But fear not, we have an answer.

The following will add the bizSugar voting button automatically to each post.

1. First, your blog should be set to save Post Pages, so that each post will have a unique URL. To verify or enable it, login to your Blogger Dashboard. Under Settings-> Archiving, set the “Enable Post Pages?” to “Yes” and save the settings.

2. While still in the Dashboard, click on the Layout tab and then the Edit HTML option. This should take you to your template code.

3. Click on “Expand Widget Templates.” This is located in upper right area near your template code.

4. Copy your entire template code and paste into a text editor.  

5. Now, let’s say you already have other voting buttons and want to add bizSugar’s to the list. Find the location where you want to add the code and insert the following:

<!-- bizSugar button -->   
<script type='text/javascript'>submit_url=&quot;<data:post.url/>&quot;;</script>
<script src='http://www.bizsugar.com/evb/button.php' type='text/javascript'/>

Now paste the code back into your template page and your finished!

6. But what if you want to create a custom location for your bizSugar button? We can do that too. First, in your template code, find the following snippet of code.

<p><data:post.body/></p>

This is the body of each blog post. If you want to put your button at the top of your post, you add the button code above it. If you want the button below you post, you add the code below it. For example…

7. Let’s say you want to add the bizSugar button to the top right of each blog post (like we have in this blog). You would add the following code right above the  <p><data:post.body/></p> snippet of code:

<!-- bizSugar button -->   
<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'>
<script type='text/javascript'>submit_url=&quot;<data:post.url/>&quot;;</script>
<script src='http://www.bizsugar.com/evb/button.php' type='text/javascript'/>
</div>

Now just paste the entire code back into your template page and you’re finished!

(By the way, notice the style tags ‘float:right; margin-left:10px;’ in the code above? Feel free to tweak those until you get just the right position for your button.)

PRESS RELEASE: bizSugar Launches Small Business Newsletter

The small business social news Web site now provides e-newsletter showcasing its most-voted-for articles.

Kansas City, Mo, May 14, 2008 - Business owners and managers have a new way to receive the latest small business news and ideas each week. bizSugar (www.bizsugar.com) announced today it has launched bizSugar’s Top 10 This Week, a weekly e-mailed newsletter showcasing the top-voted articles from the bizSugar.com Web site.

bizSugar allows users to discover, share and vote for their favorite business tips, trends, news and strategies on the Web.

“By letting users vote on how interesting or helpful each article is, bizSugar takes advantage of the combined wisdom of our members,” said bizSugar founder, John Holsen. “This helps us create a repository of top business knowledge and allows our members to spend less time reading fluff.”

Top 10 This Week further supports bizSugar’s mission to provide top business knowledge for the time-starved entrepreneur.

“We recognize that a segment of our membership is more active with the website compared to other members,” said Holsen. “Top 10 This Week allows us to meet the needs of a greater number of busy executives by bringing the best articles to them directly. The newsletter’s voting feature should also encourage frequent interaction with the bizSugar website.”

bizSugar’s Top 10 This Week is available for free to business professionals who sign up for a bizSugar account.

About bizSugar.com
bizSugar.com is a Web 2.0 business community, designed for owners and managers of small to medium-sized businesses, that allows members to discover, share and vote for the best small business news and ideas on the Web.

A week worth writing about

Things can get pretty hectic at any start-up, so I always appreciate it when I have a good week. Last week went really well for bizSugar, so I thought I’d share a little. I had two interviews and we launched the first issue of Top 10 This Week.

First, Lisa Alexander interviewed me for WAHNewsToday. WAHN is a new website that provides some great advice for home-based business owners and for people who sell for companies that use a multi-level marketing strategy. Lisa is the founder of WAHN and I know she must be working like crazy because I’ve seen a lot of growth in the site over the last two weeks. It’s got a good niche and I expect it will do well.

Next, Julie Power interviewed me for the Internet Marketing Report Online. IMR Online is the blog that complements the Internet Marketing Report, a print newsletter that covers some of the best ideas for online marketing. Julie writes both publications with a style that’s entertaining and easy to understand. You don’t need to be an internet marketing pro to implement her ideas and suggestions. I was already a fan of the print newsletter, so I’m definitely adding Julie’s blog to my reading list.

Finally, we launched the first issue of our e-newsletter, bizSugar’s Top 10 This Week. The publication, e-mailed to our members every Friday, lists the most-voted-for articles over the last seven days. You may think that it’s rather un-Web 2.0ish to offer an e-newsletter, but we realize that some bizSugar members are more active with the website than others; so it’s our hope that the e-newsletter will encourage less active members to visit and contribute to the site while they’re reviewing and voting for the top 10 stories.

Not a bizSugar member yet? Click here to sign up and receive the newsletter.

Yes, it was a great week. Oh, I suppose I could mention how a small modification to our code accidently messed up our e-mail list and simultaneously removed everyone’s avatar for a full day. But no, I won’t mention that - not at all. It was a great week.