Table Of Content‘‘
B uilding a
TypePad
Blog
People Want to Read
’’
Scott McNulty
Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read
Scott McNulty
Peachpit Press
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510/524-2178
510/524-2221 (fax)
Find us on the Web at: www.peachpit.com
To report errors, please send a note to [email protected].
Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education.
Copyright © 2010 by Scott McNulty
Executive editor: Clifford Colby
Editor: Kathy Simpson
Production editor: Danielle Foster
Compositor: Danielle Foster
Indexer: Valerie Haynes Perry
Cover design: Charlene Charles-Will
Interior design: Peachpit Press
Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts,
contact [email protected].
Notice of Liability
The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every
precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall
have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to
be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer
software and hardware products described in it.
Trademarks
TypePad, TypePad Micro, and Movable Type are trademarks of Six Apart Ltd., registered in the U.S.
and other countries.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware
of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All
other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion
only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark.
No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affilia-
tion with this book.
ISBN-13 978-0-321-62451-2
ISBN-10 0-321-62451-3
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
To Sean, my brother, for helping tend to practical
matters during our childhood (while I didn’t).
About the Author
Scott McNulty has been blogging for ten years, seven of those on
TypePad. He owns more e-readers than one man should and several
times more books than are sensible.
Scott lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marisa. By day, he’s the mild-
mannered chief blogger at Comcast. By night, he blogs about what-
ever strikes his fancy at http://blog.blankbaby.com. He has also been
known to tweet once or twice under the handle @blankbaby.
Acknowledgments
Most folks have no idea how many people it takes to produce a good
book (and I take all the help I can get). My thanks to Cliff Colby, for
once again persuading me to feel the joys of tech authorship; to Kathy
Simpson, who proves that it takes more than one bad tooth to keep a
good editor down; and to all the people at Peachpit Press who made
this book a reality, including Danielle Foster and Charlene Charles-Will.
I’d also like to thank Jenn and Kate for encouraging my moonlighting.
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Chapter 1: Why TypePad? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What TypePad Offers You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Comparing the TypePad Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Chapter 2: Getting Started with TypePad . . . . . . 13
Setting up Your TypePad Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Setting up Your First Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Touring the TypePad Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Navigating Your Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
vi Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read Contents
Chapter 3: Personalizing All Your
TypePad Blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Working with Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
About Me Is All About You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 4: Managing Blogs from
the Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Working with the Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Chapter 5: Working with Blog-Specific
Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Getting to Your Blog Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Basics Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
SEO Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Sharing Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Feeds Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Add-Ons Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Posts Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86
Categories Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93
Comments Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95
Authors Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Post by Email Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Import/Export Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Chapter 6: Viewing Your Blog’s Statistics . . . . . . 111
Getting to the Blog’s Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
Working with the Overview Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Chapter 7: Posts and Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Composing a Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Putting Images in Your Posts and Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140
Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read Contents vii
Creating a Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Managing Posts and Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Chapter 8: Managing Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Working with Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Monitoring Trackbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Blocking Unwelcome Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160
Chapter 9: Designing Your Blog
with Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Working in the Design Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164
Viewing Theme Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Displaying Content with a Default TypePad Theme . . . .173
Creating Your Own Theme with Theme Builder . . . . . . . .181
Working with Advanced Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190
Managing Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198
Chapter 10: Checking out TypePad’s
Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Working with Photo Albums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Configuring a Photo Album . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Managing Photo Albums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215
Using TypeLists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217
Working with File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Chapter 11: TypePad Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
TypePad Blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
TypePad Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
TypePad One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Appendix A: Blogging Terms 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
viii Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read
Appendix B: Alternative Ways to Post . . . . . . . . 239
Using Blog It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
Posting via Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .243
Posting via TypePad’s Mobile Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244
Using the TypePad iPhone Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Posting from Third-Party Blogging Applications . . . . . . . 248
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Building a TypePad Blog People Want to Read
Preface
Because you picked up this book (and perhaps even
bought it), I assume that you’re interested in learning
more about TypePad (www.typepad.com; Figure P .1)
and, by logical extension, about blogging. This book is
mainly a TypePad primer, but it also covers how best
to leverage your blog for your business.
Figure P .1 The TypePad logo.
Before I get into the meat of TypePad, however,
I need to cover some blogging basics.
If you want even more basics, you can find
note
a glossary of blogging terms in the back of
this book.
