How to add BlogThis! links to each of your blog posts

In a previous post, I explained how to add a BlogThis! button to your browser links bar. In this post, I will explain how you can also add this link to your blog posts. This will allow your readers to blog about your posts without having to visit their Blogger dashboard, and can assist in publicizing your blog.

First, let me explain how the BlogThis! function works.

The BlogThis! function uses javascript to acquire the url and title of the page you are looking at, sends this to Blogger and also sends you to the posting page in your Blogger dashboard.

So, if you were reading this post from my blog's homepage and wanted to blog about it, the url sent to Blogger would be www.bloggerbuster.com and the title would be Blogger Buster. Since you are reading this post on the "post page", the url would be that of this particular blog post, and the title will be "How to add BlogThis! links to each of your blog posts".

With this in mind, you should understand that it is much better for the BlogThis! links to appear only in your post (item) pages. Otherwise, the link which appears in the BlogThis! pop-up may not correctly match that of the post it refers to.

So, now we have a better understanding of how this works, here is an explanation of how you can make BlogThis! links appear only in your post pages:

1. First, make a backup of your blog template by going to Template>Edit HTML and clicking on the "Download Full Template" link near the top of the page. You should always do this before modifying your template in case you make a mistake, or decide to revert back to your previous template.
2. Once you have made a backup of your template, check the "expand widget templates" box, and search for this line:

   <div class='post-footer'>

   If you cannot find this line, search for <div id='post-footer'> instead, as the post-footer section may be defined differently in your template.
3. Just after this line, paste the following section of code exactly as it is written (highlight all of the code in the text box to ensure you don't introduce any extra line breaks or spaces as this would break the functionality of the link):
   
   
   
   The <b:if...>: conditional tags tell Blogger only to display the link on "item" pages. This ensures that the correct url for the blog post and the correct title will be sent to Blogger for the visitor to write about in their blog.
4. Save your template and view your blog. The BlogThis! link should not be displayed on the main page of your blog. However, if you click on the title of a blog post and view it on the "item" page, the BlogThis! link should appear in your post footer!

Please do be aware that the BlogThis! function only works for those who use Blogger blogs. Visitors who blog with Wordpress, Typepad or any other system will not be able to blog about your posts directly from the page!

I hope this helps those who have requested the BlogThis! link for their blog posts. Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.

Technorati Tags: blogthis | bookmarklet | post | links | footer