TypePad Explained - Part 7 of Many

Typepad series of tutorials offered by Rob Gibbs, blogging instructor for real estate professionals. This tutorial will cover how to add and order your content using regular templates.

TypePad Explained - Part 6 of Many

The Basic format of a blog (posts listed in reverse chronological order) is what makes it a living website.  But every now and then we need static content.  You need to frame IDX or develop an About page.  In typepad they call the writing “Pages.”  Depending on your design they don’t always show up automatically on your homepage either.  Here is short video on how to create a page, then add it to your sidebar in TypePad Advanced Templates.

TypePad Explained - Part 4 of Many

Sorry I’ve been gone for a while…this is a short video on how to apply a new design to your typepad blog. Enjoy!
Rob

How to Post on Typepad-Part 1

When you’re ready to update your blog, you can add a Post to Your Weblog. All of your posts are available within your blog Archives. TypePad’s intuitive interface allows you to add content, pictures and links quickly and easily. Whether you know a little bit about technology or a lot, you can go from blank screen to live blog in minutes.

Here is a quick video on

How To Do A Basic Post in Typepad…

How to post on TypePad from Rob Gibbs on Vimeo.

TypePad Explained - Part 3 of Many

First Things First:

Before you jump right into your first post, there are some housekeeping things you will probably want to take care of first.  So let’s do that…

Before we get any further, lets look one more time at the layered menu tabs TypePad uses.  Below you see the “Account Menu” in green. Then in blue you have what I call the “Tabs.”  If you look even more closely, below that you have different pages within that tab.

In the “Account Menu” click on “Control Panel” and you will be presented with an overview page.  The first thing probably want to do is fill out your Profile.  So from the Control Panel, click on the Profile Tab.  Do a good job about this.  It is (another one of) your online identity and, at least in my opinion, provides useful information to your readers about who you are, if they want to know.  Once you fill out the “Author Profile Page” click over to the “About” page to set up, well, the “About” page.  This page let you check mark what information you want on your public profile page available to everyone.

One more thing on the “About” page.  There is only one for all your Blogs in this account.  It resides outside any individual blog.  So if you have a “professional blog” and then a “rant blog” in which you claim some alias, beware - they are linked through your About page.

The last thing on the Profile Tab is the “Mobile Settings” page.  If you are so inclined, you can email TypePad a post.  Why?  I don’t know.  My guess is that this is a hang up from slower than broadband speed internet access, but set it up anyway…just in case.

The next blue tab is Site Access.  Here you can do a couple of different, important things.  Ban spammer IP addresses and words (they are referring to comments you receive).  You can password protect all, none, or some of your site, so if you are also writing a family blog, you can keep it out of the public view.  The last area is the Domain Mapping Page.  This is where you assign your Domain Name to your blog.  We’re going to come back to this a little later, after we’ve posted a few times, and walk you through that step by step.

The next blue tab is the Stats Tab. It’s a little limited, but if you don’t have time to mess with Google Analytics or Google Webmaster Tools right now, it is adequate.  You can see the number of hits, where they went to and what the referring website was.

Next is the Files tab.  These are documents and images you want to store to reference in your site.  Not to be confused with the ability to put pictures in your post.  That is handled in the actual post window (and then stored here if not referenced off somewhere else.)  This would be how you would upload a custom banner or document you created that doesn’t reside somewhere else on the internet.  It uses a simple upload protocol much like anything else.

The last two tabs are “Account Info” and “Help.”  Account info is where you tell them your billing information, upgrade or downgrade your account and can see the last 6 times they billed you.

The “Help” tab is actually pretty good.  While you do get email tech support with the Pro package, most of the time you can find the answer to what you are looking for in their extensive online library of information.  By the way, when you need it, tech support is really good too.

Next time, configuring your blog…

TypepPad Explained - Part 2 of many

So you took the leap…whipped out the Credit Card and signed up.  CONGRATULATIONS!  Now what!!??!!!

Now the fun begins…  :-)

First things first…lets look at how to navigate the TypePad Menu System.  Here is the homepage you get once you log in.

There are several different things going on here…at the top you have what I’ll call your “Account Menu” because this controls things across many different Weblogs (because you can create more than one.)

The Home page is where you can select from the different weblog manage.  As you can see, I have two here…”Rob Gibbs, CRS, GRI - Finding Homes, Building Relationships” and “Bleeding Edge Tech”

There is also usually new info from TypePad located on this page…like the iPhone App announcement (above) and the ability to search the knowledge base and the latest from the TypePad company blog.

So, sticking with the “Account Menu” the next thing is the “Weblogs” tab.  This looks pretty much the same as the home page with a couple of IMPORTANT Exceptions…

There are two important buttons on this page…the first is the “Create New Weblog” button in the green header.  USE THIS WITH RESTRAINT!  ;-)  The other is a nifty little tool in the blue box - “Set Up QuickPost Bookmarklet.”  This puts a little app in your right click menu for any webpage you come across to post to any of your weblogs quickly.  We’ll get more in depth into the QuickPost function in another post.

Next is the Photo Albums Tab.  This is just what you think it is…a place to keep your photo albums. We’ll explore how you can use this to showcase homes and do other cool stuff in later posts.

Next is the TypeList tab.  This one is especially useful for adding blogrolls or non-standard widgets to the sidebar without having to edit HTML in Advanced Templates Mode (again…more on that later).  You can see I have 2 here…the Google Reader Widget and the My Favorite Sites Blogroll.

Finally, one of the most important tabs is the Control Panel tab.  This controls many of the features across all your blogs.  You will immediately notice a secondary tab set on this page (in light blue).  One of the first things you should do is complete your Profile.  We’ll start with some of the Control Panel Features in the next post.

See you next time!

Rob

Typepad Explained - Part 1 of many

Hello bloggers,

This week I’m going to start a series of posts on TypePad, one of SixApart’s blogging platforms.  TypePad is a hosted, you pay for it, platform.  I’ve used several different ones (in fact, I’m using Wordpress to write this post) and I keep coming back to TypePad because it is as simple to use as it is powerful.

Right out of the gun, I want to address the issue of cost.  First off, it isn’t a lot.  In fact, depending on what you might pay for a hosted site it might be less.  If you want your blog to be your site, with IDX integration and other forms and such, I would recommend the “Pro” package (14.95/mo).  It gives you the flexibility to edit directly into the templates and other powerful things but still use their basic setup.  All of the packages are listed here.

Why pay when there are so many free ones?  A couple of reasons.  The different packages come with varying levels of tech support to help you integrate different pieces like <iframe> for IDX and other widgets or anything else you might be having trouble with.  There is never any worry about updating software or making sure your webhost knows how to host your software because TypePad is hosting their own software on their servers.  In short, it just works. You get multiple blogs, multiple authors, unlimited photo hosting (in the pro package).  Full CSS editing capability and a ridiculous amount of bandwidth to name just a few things.

Next time, getting started with a new blog on TypePad…