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Beta Blogger was built in an Office Live account so it's not dependent on any 3rd party applications. As long as Microsoft supports OLSB/Business Applications, once installed, it can't be changed or "upgraded" by anyone but you. YOU'RE IN CONTROL! Take our tour to find out more...............
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3/29/2010 |
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5 step set up
- Install the application and pages (1 .olp file)
- Upload the css file appropriate to your site's configuration
- Set up the month and category lists
- Connect the modules to your lists in business applications
Blog!
After initial set up-you won't have to touch your blog pages in the the page editor again!
Complete set up instructions are included within the application. The basic package also includes 30 days of phone support and unlimited email support in case you get stuck.
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3/28/2010 |
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Form based interface
When you create a new post in the application, you'll see a form based interface like this: [Mouseover the image to enlarge]
 
Each line item has instructions and a copy/paste example to assist you if a specific format is required. The rich text editor allows you to add images, links and other formatting to your posts. [IE only] You can also create your posts in html-though javascript gets filtered out.
Fill in the form, click ok, and your post will automatically be published to the corresponding pages/indexes.
"Post posting"
Editing your published posts is a snap. Rather than wrestling with the page editor to change your content, simply open the app and make your changes in the post form. All your entries are shown in "preview" by default, so it's easy to locate the target post by scrolling through them.
[Mouseover the image to enlarge]
Say you want to add an image: scroll to the post, open it for editing, click the image icon and enter the url of the image. Click ok to save.
Perhaps the best thing about Beta Blogger is you don't have to deal with the page editor! The built in, predefined page layouts and structure guarantee a consistent, professional look everytime. That's all there is to it!
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3/27/2010 |
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Structure
We guarantee Beta Blogger will blend in with the size, colors and look of your site. The page layouts will work with virtually any variation of site width and navigation orientation. You can see a 780px/left nav site here
We'll promptly fix any integration issues between the blog and your site. A good looking blog on customer sites is our best advertisement!
Header and navigation
The modular design only occupies the editable zones of your pages, so your header and navigation structure won't be affected.
Integrated blog navigation means you only have to add one page to your site's nav to open the blog and give your visitors access to every post.
If you're using the left nav configuration, either for a primary or secondary menu, we include a module that will allow you to fill the empty space below the nav element with your own content. If you use top only nav, the module will fill the entire left column:
The lookBeta Blogger is delivered "style neutral"-in other words, the module backgrounds are transparent and fonts and hyperlinks will inherit your site's scheme. In the unlikely event there is a compatibility problem with your site, we'll fix it, no charge. And with a little css styling, you can easily transform the look of Beta Blogger, like THIS -same blog-totally different look!
Flexibility
Beta Blogger is "makeover-proof"! It's designed to effortlessly withstand any changes made to the color scheme, look or layout of your site. For example, if you decide to reconfigure your site from a 980px wide, top nav set up to 780px wide with left nav, you simply delete one file from your docs gallery and upload another one and your blog will be updated.
Additionally, each blog element is a separate module so you're free to move them wherever you want on a page. Just drag and drop to a new location-or delete ones you don't want to use. To illustrate this, here's an example of a site where we used one navigation element only and moved it to the left of the page.
Change happens, after all. But it won't affect your blog.
To experience the flexibility of Beta Blogger, visit our interactive gallery where you can see how the blog adapts to a variety of different site styles.
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3/26/2010 |
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Till now, the only way to add a blog to an OL site was to iframe a 3rd party blog or use Live Spaces. The iframe solution can look okay but NONE of the content is exposed to search engines.
Compare the source code of this iframed Blogger blog on an OL page with the source of the page you're reading and you'll see what I mean. Source code is what the search engines see.
Live Spaces blogs are great-but only allow one page of content and redirect the visitor away from your site to see more of your blog or leave a comment. Not good if you're trying to maximize the search benefit of your blog.
Expose yourself!
With Beta Blogger, ALL your blog content is visible to the se's. Visitors can find, read and comment on all your posts without ever leaving your site. Not only that, but if you currently use a Live Spaces blog, YOU CAN INCORPORATE IT INTO YOUR BETA BLOGGER BLOG! Simply add your Live blog id to the module on the provided "Earlier entries" page and you can include as many of your Live blog posts as you'd like.
So not only is your current and past content "exposed", but your site also gets the search engine credit for every page view and every link clicked.
Test the SEO power of Beta Blogger for yourself!
If you want to see for yourself an example of how Beta Blogger content gets picked up by the search engines, copy/paste this sentence into Google (it's a comment left by a visitor on our Try It Yourself page):
"A CLOTHING LINE OF FAITH ANDF BELIEF WITH POWERFUL AND POSITIVE INFLUENCE."
Last time we checked it was the first result. That's the power of Beta Blogger!
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3/25/2010 |
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Keep your visitors on your site
No matter how good your blog posts are-you won't maximize their benefit to your site unless your visitors can easily find them and browse to other posts they may be interested in. Beta Blogger's integrated navigation ensures anything in your blog can be found with at most a couple of clicks. For visitors seeking new content, links to your 10 most recent posts are prominently shown at the top of every blog page. Visitors can also discover every post written at a certain time in the archive menu or every post in a given topic in the category menu. Finally, a summary page displays a list of all your posts linked directly to the post.
Navigation highlights
- Integrated navigation doesn't interfere with your site's overall nav.
- One link in your site navigation gives visitors access to your entire blog.
- Consistent blog navigation on every page encourages browsing.
- Posts organized by recent, month and category
- Subjects are linked so one click takes a visitor directly to the post they're looking for.
- Summary page lists all your posts by subject.
More page views, more repeat visitors
It's generally accepted that a blog can draw more visitors to your site-Beta Blogger's integrated navigation can help keep them there longer and coming back more often.
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3/24/2010 |
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Interactivity
 Allowing visitors to leave comments is a great way to encourage participation in your site. Sites that allow comments see an increase in traffic and return visits.
Beta Blogger includes a moderated comments feature that opens right below the post and won't redirect visitors to another site like Live Spaces does. Your visitors can conveniently leave a comment and read what others have said.
Managing comments left on your site
It's great that visitors can leave comments on your site-but how do you know when they have? Opening every comments box to check would be quite a chore. That's why we provide an RSS feed for every comments box. Simply copy the RSS link and add it as a subscription to your favorite RSS reader.
When you check the reader, you can easily see if you have any new comments.
If you want to delete any unwanted comments, we provide you with a unique Google id/password that lets you log in as an administrator. Right click the admin link-log in once and you can quickly remove any comment left on any comments box on your site. As a convenience, by default the comments feature also filters out any profanity. Feel free to leave a comment to see how it works!
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3/23/2010 |
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User content zones
Within each Beta Blogger template are well defined user content areas in the left and right columns. These can be used for additional text, images or to give your affiliate ads a clean, professional presentation.
Even better, these zones are already configured so you can simply paste your ad code into the designated area!
Beta Blogger can pay for itself!
It's become almost standard practice for blogs to include an advertising component. According to web site worth evaluators, Office Live sites' potential ad earnings can range from $9 to $50 a month.
Even a low traffic site can easily earn back the cost of Beta Blogger in a short period of time. As a real life example, this site earned back the $20 cost of the Beta Blogger Basic package in 3 months. And that was with an average of just 19 unique users and 15 new visitors a day.
Ad placement
The key is ad placement. Ads should be placed in well defined areas, be unobtrusive and not crowd out your content, and add visual interest and impact to your pages. In short, they should look like they're supposed to be where they are and not just tacked onto your layout as an after thought.
Beta Blogger can help you blend your ads seamlessly into your site. Don't miss out - put Beta Blogger to work for you-in no time it could pay for itself! Back to top |
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3/22/2010 |
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Update! Live Spaces and Word Press conversion
Live Spaces now offers the option to convert your blog to a Word Press format. This seems a little pointless since you could already get a free WP blog, with or without Live Spaces. But it obviously spells the end of Live Spaces blogs. The effect of this on Beta Blogger is simple: if you convert your blog to WP, your LS feed will no longer work on an OL site or within Beta Blogger. If you don't convert nothing will change until the forced conversion in March 2011. By that time, perhaps MS will have come up with a way to embed a WP blog on an OL site....but I wouldn't count on it. Either way, for now-we can truthfully and with even more emphasis say: Beta Blogger is the ONLY way to add a real blog to your OL site!
Already have a Live Spaces blog? No problem....
If you already have a Live Spaces blog on your site, you can easily integrate it into your Beta Blogger blog. You can either:
- copy/paste your posts into a Beta Blogger post
- set your blog up on the designated "Earlier Entries" page.
This page includes a Live Spaces blog module so all you have to is add the name of your blog and decide how many posts you want to appear on the page. The blog will be formatted the same as your new Beta Blogger blog and will look like it's a part of it!
See an example of how this works here
You can also use the Live Spaces blog on the Earlier Entries page to "warehouse" older posts after you reach the limit on allowable posts* that include the commenting feature. This allows you to keep writing new posts with the commenting feature AND retain search engine exposure for older posts.
*Go here for an explanation of the post limit.
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3/20/2010 |
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It cost us many late nights, some gray hair, many beers. a lot of coffee, and more abuse from our family than we care to recall. Except for the beer part, we'd've gladly paid $19.99 to avoid all that if we could have. You can.
Beta Blogger packages
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3/20/2010 |
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Everything you need to build a professional looking, seo friendly blog on your Office Live site. We want to make sure Beta Blogger works for you so, in addition to the application, page templates, commenting element and supporting files, you also get 30 days of phone support and unlimited email support.
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3/19/2010 |
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For bloggers
You don't have to know how Beta Blogger works to enjoy its benefits-you can simply install it and start adding content to your site. But if you're interested in learning more about how its inner workings, here's a look "under the hood":
Beta Blogger leverages the Sharepoint technology underlying the OLSB platform. In essence, Sharepoint provides user friendly tools to arrange almost any data in manageable lists and forms that can be sorted, filtered and connected. In this case, the data are your blog entries which after being "collected" in a form are then published to "lists" on web pages. Beta Blogger applies the template to ensure it all works.
From a user experience point of view, it's just like a regular blog. The blogger enters posts and the nav links into a form, and the application automatically publishes the post and updates the indexes on the web pages. The major difference with say, Blogger, is OLSB can't dynamically create pages on demand. That's why Beta Blogger includes all the predefined pages needed.
Every function of the application is accessible from a convenient dashboard in business applications, which includes a quick start guide and useful links:
Behind the scenes, Beta Blogger uses the business applications area as a database for the posts and different "views" of that database format the modules on the web pages. Embedded javascript and css code handle some of the functionality and the appearance of the blog, so you don't have to.
The only non OL component is the commenting feature which is hosted separately by us and automatically added to your posts. Comments moderation is accomplished by using a unique id that you control, allowing you to delete any undesirable comments.
So the only things a user has to do is install the application, connect the published lists on the included pages to the "database" (by clicking ok a few times!) and enter the posts. Unless you want to change the appearance of the blog, you don't have to know ANY code to operate a fully functioning, great looking blog.
For visitors
The integrated navigation ensures your visitors have easy access to any of your posts from anywhere within the blog. They can find, read and comment on your posts on a number of different pages, arranged by default as follows:
- recent posts = last 10 posts
- archive = all posts with summary linked to each post
- 12 monthly pages
- 10 category pages
Beta Blogger's structure can also be customized if you have special needs. For example, you may have a category with a lot of posts and you want to provide streamlined, FAQ style navigation for that category page-as we did on this site here. Please CONTACT US with your requirements.
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3/18/2010 |
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We tested Beta Blogger by installing it on a couple of working sites. Here's what happened:
CASE 1: Our own "lab" site
In this test we wanted to show how a site with a left or top/left navigation would look with Beta Blogger. We use this site to noodle around with different OL features, so it was a perfect candidate to put Beta Blogger to the test.
We took various things we've written about Office Live in the past and entered them as blog posts. In this configuration, we left the secondary nav on for demo purposes. You have the option of turning it off and using that otherwise possibly wasted left nav space to seamlessly and unobtrusively display ads, images or other content. See the results HERE
CASE 2: Local Church site
For this test, we took the Pastor's occasional monthly message-"From the Pastor's desk"- and turned it into a blog. Rather than showing only the latest message and links to prior messages, Beta Blogger allowed us to include ALL the messages in a convenient and easily navigable format that is fully discoverable by search engines. The recent messages are in the blog but we also pasted earlier messages into a Live Spaces blog and included them on the "earlier entries" page.
In this example you can see how Beta Blogger inherits the font and link styling of the parent site. And I'm not sure how long the church will allow them to stay, but note also how the Google ads somewhat adapt to the content of the site. A sure sign Google is seeing what the site is about!
See the results HERE
Functional, flexible...
Hopefully, these examples demonstrate just how functional and flexible Beta Blogger can be. It can also be used to bring organization and consistency to ANY content on your site-not just a blog.
You can see examples of other uses here. We really look forward to seeing the creative and different ways we know OL site owners will use it to "tell their stories".
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3/18/2010 |
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This webbrewers.com site was built almost entirely using Beta Blogger. We thought it would be instructive and fun to build a site using ONLY Beta Blogger. For the subject site, the only add on was the header image. Everything else-from site navigation to page content-was created in Beta Blogger. We've detailed the steps we took below to give you a "real world" example of how it was done.
Preparation
Since our goal was a 100% Beta Blogger site, we decided to use 2 elements to build the pages: the blog category navigation as the main site navigation, with the default navigation turned off on every page; and blog posts to occupy the body of the pages. We continued as follows:
1/.Install solution:
We started by installing the .olp file as a "solution" in the subject Office Live site. This uploads the application, the pages and the supporting css and javascript files to their appropriate locations.
2/.Define categories:
Next, we opened business applications and clicked the category tab to define the core categories we wanted to use for the site. These can be added to or changed at a later point. For a blog, you would then normally configure the months you want to use, starting with the month of your first post. For the sake of simplicity and since this site wasn't a blog and we were using the categories for the main site navigation, we skipped that step.
3/.Activate pages:
Switching to the page editor, we opened the predefined pages we wanted to use-in this case just the ones for the categories we'd set up in the last step. For a blog, you would also want to configure the "Recent","Archive" and "Earlier Entries" pages and possibly a few of the "Monthly" pages. Since we were only using the category navigation, we deleted the other navigation modules and to activate the pages, we simply right clicked the modules, clicked "properties" and clicked "ok".
4/.Enter posts:
Within 10 minutes and with the required pages already built, we were ready to enter our first "post". So we went back to business applications, clicked the "Blog" tab and then "New" to create a new post. Following the line by line instructions, here we can enter a post number, subject and link, author, date, post contents, and finally a month and category from the drop downs. To demo the flexibility of Beta Blogger we left the author/date options blank so they wouldn't show up on the pages. You can also uncheck these lines in the module to eliminate the space they would occupy.
The post and category information appeared exactly where it should on the appropriate page, with the comments box links underneath the post. If this were a blog, the "Recent" and "Archive" indices would have been updated too.
We then returned to business applications to create additional posts. Within a few hours the entire site was built! This is a very simple site for demo purposes-but how long would it have taken without Beta Blogger?
You can see the results on the live, working site here! - and keep in mind nothing you see on this site was entered via the page editor-we didn't even have to reopen the editor once the pages were set up. Everything was created in business applications using just...
Beta Blogger!
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1/8/2010 |
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One application-many uses.....Beta Blogger can be used for much more than just a blog on your site. If you've taken a look around this site, you've seen a live example of the application being used to build an entire site, a process which would have been much more arduous and time consuming without Beta Blogger's built in ability to organize content and present it in a consistent way. If you've had any experience creating an Office Live site, you know it's not that easy to position tables, images and text and get a polished, professional look. And having done it once, updating your site and keeping it fresh which is a critical component in attracting visitors, can be a chore. Beta Blogger will make all of that easier for you-no matter what the content.
Control your content!You can install multiple instances of Beta Blogger on one site-use one for a blog, one for an online store, one to showcase your artistic work-the possibilities are endless. You can easily customize the appearance of the "posts" because they are really just content boxes. Remove the author, date and subject line with a couple of clicks, and you'll be working with a blank box. Or create your own "view" and use that in place of the predefined modules. Here are a few thoughts and examples on other ways in which Beta Blogger can be put to work to help you with your site:
ecommerce:create a professional looking store
- use the category feature to create product categories
- add each product to a category as a separate "blog" post
- you can even add Paypal buttons within the post with a little javascript
- instead of blog navigation, your product category nav will automatically appear on your pages
- include special deals in the user content side columns
- number of products is only limited by the 50mB storage capacity.
SEE A DEMO ONLINE STORE HERE!
Photographer/artist:create an online gallery of your work
- use the categories to organize your work into "collections"
- post individual pieces or groups of images in a "blog" format
- add interest by varying the presentation with slideshows and different image enlargement techniques
- encourage interaction with the commenting feature
SEE A DEMO GALLERY HERE!
Musician/performers: create a showcase for your talents
- create categories for upcoming gigs, bios, photos etc
- post relevant info in blog posts within those categories.
- use one category as a blog about your self or group to encourage interactivity.
Schools/not for profits:create a resource center for your organization
- Use the categories to assign each teacher a "home page", where they can post homework assignments etc. and keep their students on track.
- Or organize categories by subject and give teachers/staff access to update homework projects etc themselves
- highlight events/fundraisers/achievements in "blog" posts
- include announcements in the user content side columns
- engage your audience by posting images to celebrate sporting/academic achievements
Think outside the blog! Fundamentally, a blog is just a way of organizing website content. Think of Beta Blogger as a content management system for your site. You can create multiple applications with one copy of Beta Blogger (on one site)-and use each one for a different purpose. (Our "Try It Yourself" demo is actually running off a separate installation of Beta Blogger on this site.) As the demos illustrate, pretty much any content can divided up into chunks like blog posts. Beta Blogger can render it into an effective, organized and professional looking presentation on YOUR site. Don't let Office Live's page editor restrict your imagination-Beta Blogger can help you build the site you want! Back to top |
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1/4/2010 |
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Office Live Small Business has a number of limitations which even Beta Blogger can't overcome. Here are some of the things Beta Blogger CAN'T do:
Beta Blogger can't:
Conclusion
Even with the above shortcomings, we still feel Beta Blogger is the best (perhaps only) option if you want a nice looking, seo friendly blog on your site.
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