How to Create Pages on Google Blogger
Need for Pages/Category Buttons on Menu Bar
A blogger generally blogs on various topics according to his tastes and capabilities and thus create useful content on different subjects in the long run.
While doing so, he may not follow any systematic rule to stick to a particular topic for some definite period and switch over to another topic in some other period. He will be blogging as and when he gets ideas and content for his topics to discuss.
In the long run, the entire Blog may become a mess of different unrelated subjects and it may be very difficult for the viewers to find out the topics of their interest on his Blog. So there should be a tool for the readers of your blog to land on to the topics of their interest without much difficulty.
Creation of Pages or Categories on your menu bar for each subject can ease their scrolling and they will be thankful to you for easing their work. Otherwise, they may not follow you and may leave your blog.
How to Create Pages on Blogger?
It's very simple. The blogger format is very customer friendly with its easy layout and simple steps in creating a very great, easily navigable format.
Following some simple steps, you can build up as many pages on your menu bar as you may need to differentiate each category of your articles.
If you are already a blogger, you will be seeing all your articles listed chronologically on the posts page of your (administrator) blog when logged in to your blog. The recently published article will be at the top and older ones at the bottom. You can see it from the screenshot of the posts page posted below.
I will explain you, step-by-step, the entire procedure of creating pages/categories in the following sections of this article.
Blogger Posts Page
Create Pages by Clicking Pages Button
In the above image of blogger posts page, you can see the drop-down menu on your left side. I am naming them as the image may not be clear. The sequence is as follows:
- New Post (red square button)
- Overview
- Posts
- All
- Drafts
- Published
- Pages
- Comments
- Google+
- stats
- earnings
- campaigns
- Layout
- Template
- Settings
Now, for creating pages on your blogger menu bar, select the pages button and click it. It will lead you to a blank page as shown below.
New Page Button in the Blank Page of Blogger
New Page Creation - Step 1
When you clicked the Pages button, a new page opened up titled "Pages > All informing you that presently "there are no pages". So click on the "new page" button at the top horizontal bar as shown by the mouse in above image. It will take you to a blank page for typing the page title in the space provided in the top horizontal box. See it in the below image.
Page Creation - Step 2 - Page Title and Linkage to the Articles
In the above image, find the title box for entering the page title that you want to create. It is in between the red-lettered "Page" and "Publish" buttons. You will type the name of the page by clicking in the box.
Next step is to link your articles. In the blank place provided below for typing your content, you will type the names of your articles that you may want to link to this page of your Blogger.
When you type the article titles to be linked to this page, type one by one. Each article needs to be linked to this page with the help of that article's URL. So, type one article title at a time, and copy the URL of that article from your original blog.
After copying a URL of the article, you need to select the title name that you typed here for that article and then click on the link button as shown by mouse arrow in the above page image. On clicking the Link button, a small window will open as shown in the below image.
Page Creation Step 3 - Linking Article URL to Blogger Page
Now, in this new window, the title name of each particular article will appear automatically whenever you select the name of it with your browser and click on the Link button.
Or, you may type the topic name again in the box "text to display". After doing so, scroll below where it asks to mention the URL. There you will paste the URL of your original article which you have already copied and wanted to link to the page.
There are two small boxes below before okaying your action. Tick the box which tells to open the link in a new window so that the reader reads the article in a new window and does not move out of your blog.
After ticking the option, click the "Ok" button. Then you will return to your page element again. Type your next article name to be linked to the page and again go to the Link page and paste the URL of that article in it and click Ok.
Whenever you post a new article on your main blog, you will have to simultaneously log into your Pages window and link your new article to that page in this same manner. By doing so, your Pages get updated regularly.
Customizing Blog Layout With Menu Bar for Pages Feature
Now, you need to create the Menu bar also accordingly, so that all your pages show up on your Blogger Menu when viewers visit your blog.
For this, you will have to go to the Layout page and arrange the pages in the order of your preference and click save so that they appear in that set order on your Menu bar.
Customizing Menu Bar Layout for Featuring Pages Buttons
- Log into the Layout page by clicking "layout" on the side menu bar of your main blog page (Posts Page).
- When the Layout window opens, click on the 'Add a Gadget' button below the title bar of the blog as shown in above image by the mouse hand.
- On clicking the button, a window will show up with various gadgets of Blogger as shown in the below images.
- Choose the gadget "Pages" by browsing down through sidebar inside the Add a Gadget window and click on the '+' mark against Pages option as shown in the 2nd image below with a mouse hand.
- You will now land into another window as shown in the 'Configure Page List window' (in the image 3 as shown below) which asks you to configure your page list.
Images for Selecting Pages Gadget and Configure Pages Window
Configuring Menu Bar
In Configure Page list, there are two columns reading 'Pages to Show' on your left side and 'List Order' on your right side. At the bottom, there is the save button.
Under Pages To Show column, whenever you create pages on the Page creation page, the page titles will automatically appear here.
You will have to simply tick the small box before each of the page names in this "configure page list" column to make them appear in your right side column under the 'List Order'. When you ticked all page names in the left side column and they showed up in the right side column, you have to re-align them by dragging with your mouse up and down in the order that you may wish them to appear on your Blog Menu Bar. After aligning them in order, you will have to click the 'save' button to finish your task. Now your complete task is over and the pages will appear there on your original Menu Bar just like the buttons in the below images.
Snap Shots of Blogs Featuring Page Buttons in Menu Bar
Your Experiences With Pages
Do you create pages or categories while blogging?
Advantages of Creating Pages on Blogger Sites
A lot of benefits are there both to the blogger and the audience.
- Navigation becomes easy for the viewer. He can select the page he wants to browse instead of going through the headache of browsing all through the articles for viewing his topic of choice
- Pages created in above format, serve the purpose of an index of all topics related to one subject at one place. This facilitates the blogger to know whatever points have been covered by him till date so that he can blog on other remaining points.
- The reader finds it very easy to find his choice of topic by going to the page and selecting the article that he wants to view. This can save his time and he may view more articles.
- This method of creating pages is better than simply labeling the articles. Because the same label may be used in many articles and when you search with labels, you may have to browse many articles with that label in order to find your particular one. But, through pages, you will be able to select the page of your subject and topic and then, click on the article link directly that you are searching for.
So, it is a very good tool on Blogger which enables you to create pages for each subject and index all the articles on that subject on that particular page for an easy browsing experience by the audience.
Further, you can rearrange the sequence of articles covering the same subject (but not published in a sequence or order at the time of writing them).
By doing so, your audience can read them in the correct sequence.