How to Follow a Blog and Add it to Your Sidebar

Since joining the blogging world, I have learned A LOT and still have A LOT to learn.

One of fun things about blogging is finding other people's blogs that you enjoy reading. You can then decide to "Follow" their blog. By following someone's blog you are saying that you want to keep up with what they post.

To follow a blog through Blogger, first <i>Log In</i> to your account. Logging in takes you to the <i>Dashboard</i>.
On your Dashboard there is an area that says "Blogs I'm Following."
Beneath that are two buttons that say "Add" or "Manage"
Click the <i>Add</i> button.
After clicking the "Add" button you will type in the web address of the blog you want to follow or you can copy the blog address and paste it into the URL spot.
This address doesn't have to be from a "Blogger" blog.

There are different blogging sites. For example, Blogger, WordPress, Livejournal, Xanga, Open Diary and list goes on...

Under <i>Manage Blogs</i> click <i>Design</i> and that will take you to a new page.

Once you click Design, on the right hand side click "<i>Add a Gadget."</i>
This will cause a box to pop up. This box will have lots of cool things you can add to your blog, but scroll down until you see "<i>Blog List</i>" and click.
The box will disappear and you will be able to see where that gadget was added to the right hand side of your page.
Next to Blog List click on "<i>Edit</i>."

Here you can customize your settings.
Add the name of the title you want. Our says, "Our Blog List."
Then you have the option of how you want the blogs you follow to be sorted. Choose from <i>alphabetically</i> or by <i>most recently updated</i>.

I prefer to sort mine by most recently updated because I can see who has posted something new.

Next decide what info you want to show up. I like to see the Icon, Title of Most Recent Item and the Date of Last Update.

After that, click the "<i>Add to List</i>" button. You can type or paste in the blog URL or you can choose from a list of blogs you are already following already by clicking on "Blogs I'm Following."
If you click on "Blogs I'm Following," just click on the boxes next to the blogs you want to be able to see updates on from your blog page.
The cool thing about having the blogs you follow on the side bar of your blog page is that it allows the people that follow your blog and read it regularly to see who you like to follow and when the most recent post was.

Last step...click "<i>SAVE</i>."

Click "View Blog" to see what it looks like on your page.

There are so many ways to follow blogs. To find out more ways, check out the following blog posts that are specifically geared to help you learn more about blog following. I am interested to learn more about the different ways myself!

Visit:

<a href='http://jeremynjenprice.blogspot.com/' target='_self'>I Believe in Love</a> -- Google Reader tutorial

<a href='http://studiojru.com/blog/' target='_self'>Studio JRU</a> -- Linky Followers tutorial

<a href='http://beyondwordsdesigns.com/?page_id=527' target='_self'>Beyond Words Designs</a> -- BlogLovin' tutorial