Advanced Lesson 1: Adding More Page Element Options to Your Template

In Basic Lesson 7, you saw how easy it was to add page elements to the right hand (or left hand) column of your blog or to add elements at the end of the blog. But what if you want to add an element below the header (such as our Firefox link on this blog) or before your blog posts? As shown below, most standard Blogger templates don't offer the option to add elements in these places.



You can remedy this situation by following the simple instructions at the Tips for New Bloggers blog site. This requires editing the HTML code of your Blogger template, which is very easy to do (you don't need to know HTML coding...just follow the directions).

To make changes to your Blogger template, click on Layout for your blog on the Blogger Dashboard. This puts you on the Template tab. Click the Edit HTML sub-tab to display the HTML of your template. The top of this screen will look like this:



Before making modifications to your template's HTML code, it is always a good idea to back up your existing template. This enables you to go back to your original template if you muck up editing the HTML code. Click the link to save a copy of your template to your hard drive.

Just follow the step-by-step instructions at the Tips for New Bloggers site. After making the HTML modifications, clicking your Page Elements sub-tab should give you a screen that looks similar to this:



You now have more places where you can add content!