The speed at which your blog loads is critical to attracting more readers to your blog. If your blog takes a long time to load, many readers may leave your blog before they have the chance to read it. Here are a few tips and tricks that will help your blog load faster and attract more users:

Posts

Your blog's load time can be affected by the number of posts you display on your main page. You can easily edit the number of posts displayed of the main page from the Settings | Formatting tab. You can then select the number of posts you want to display on the main page. We recommend displaying 10 or fewer posts on the main page.

Third Party JavaScript and Links

For optimal blog load speed, we recommend using Google/Blogger widgets, JavaScript and links. However, if you need to use third party JavaScript and links, your blog will load much faster if you put all JavaScript at the bottom of your blog. If you have third party JavaScript and links in your sidebar, put them in at the bottom of the sidebar.

Images and Media

The more images, videos and other multi-media you have on your blog the longer it will take to load. However, images and other multimedia are important to attracting users to your blog, so it is important to optimize the load speed of your images and media. Here are a few tips to increase the load speed of your media:

• Decrease the size of your images or use thumbnails that link to the full-size image.
• If you use third party images, consider uploading them to Picasa Web Albums via the Blogger post editor.
• If you have a large number of images to display, you can upload all your images (from a vacation or event) to a Picasa Web Album and link to the album in your post or sidebar.

Other suggestions

• If you've added any custom CSS to your blog, make sure you put it at the top of the page.
• The most important content of your blog that catches readers attention should load the quickest. To help you identify which items are taking the longest to load you can use Stopwatch. To use Stopwatch, enter your blog's URL into the text box and click "Start StopWatch". Stopwatch will then open your blog in a frame and will record the time it takes for everything on your blog to load, including images, videos, widgets, etc. Take note of the items that take the longest to load and modify them appropriately using our suggestions.

Adding some headlines to your web page provides your readers the quick-scan way to know instantly what your recent blog entries are about. It’s also a good way to attract attention and to encourage the reading of recent posts.

Screenshot

Code

<script style="text/javascript" src="http://www.presssalad.com/filecab/headlines.js"></script><script style="text/javascript">var numposts = 5;var showpostdate = false;var showpostsummary = true;var numchars = 80;var standardstyling = true;</script><script src="http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=published&alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentposts"></script><scriqt> <ul><span style="font-size:55%;font-family:verdana,tahoma,arial;">↑ <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/headlines-widget-for-blogger/" title="Grab This Widget">GRAB THIS </a><a href="http://blogger-tips-and-trick.blogspot.com/" title="HEADLINES WIDGET">HEADLINES WIDGET</a></span></ul>  <!--NoEdit--></scriqt>

Installation

1. Go to your Blogger Dashboard > your blog’s Layout > Page Element > Add a Gadget > HTML/JavaScript
2. Copy and paste the code into the new HTML/JavaScript.
3. In the code, look for the line…

…src=”http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default….

…and replace the blog address (shown in color blue below) with your own blog address

…src=”http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.…

(For self-hosted blogs)…

…src=”http://www.YourOwnB1og.com/feeds/posts/default….

4. Add a title (optional). And Save.

From:Blogger Tips And Tricks

• you change the number of posts
• you can change the number of characters of the post summary (excerpt), or
• you can display recent posts as list (post titles only)
• show the post dates

See Installation and Other Options below.

Get Code

Option A

(With post excerpts)

<script style="text/javascript" src="http://www.presssalad.com/filecab/rpost-english.js"></script><script style="text/javascript">var numposts = 5;var showpostdate = false;var showpostsummary = true;var numchars = 100;var standardstyling = true;</script><script src="http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=published&alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentposts"></script><scriqt><span style="font-size:80%;"><!--DontEdit-->↑ Grab This <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/recent-posts-widget-2" title="Recent Posts Widget">Widget</a>! • </span><span style="font-size:58%;">Widget By <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com" title="MadTomatoe.com">Mad Tomato</a><!--DontEdit--></span></scriqt> <!-- Happy Blogging! --> 

Option B

(Displayed as list)

<script style="text/javascript" src="http://www.presssalad.com/filecab/rpost-english2.js"></script><script style="text/javascript">var numposts = 10;var showpostdate = false;var showpostsummary = false;var numchars = 100;var standardstyling = true;</script><script src="http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=published&alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentposts"></script><scriqt><span style="font-size:80%;"><!--DontEdit-->↑ Grab This <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com/recent-posts-widget-2" title="Recent Posts Widget">Widget</a>! • </span><span style="font-size:58%;">Widget By <a href="http://www.madtomatoe.com" title="MadTomatoe.com">Mad Tomato</a><!--DontEdit--></span></scriqt> <!-- Happy Blogging! --> 

Installation

1. Go to your Blogger Dashboard > your blog’s Layout > Page Element > Add a Gadget > HTML/JavaScript
2. Copy and paste the code into the new HTML/JavaScript.
3. In the code, look for the line…

…src=”http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default….

…and replace the blog address (shown in color blue below) with your own blog address

…src=”http://YourOwnB1og.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.…

(For self-hosted blogs)…

…src=”http://www.YourOwnB1og.com/feeds/posts/default….

4. Add a title. Save.

Other Options

How to change the Number of Posts
To change the number of posts, just look for the number 5 (for Option A) in the code and replace it with the number of posts you want to be displayed. (For Option B, look for the number 10).

Recommend setting for Option A: 5 to 8.
Recommend setting for Option B: 5 to 15.

… var numposts = 5;var…

How to change the Number of Characters (Excerpt)
This widget is set to display an excerpt of 100 characters of each post. If you want to change that number, just look for the number 100 in the code and replace it with the number of characters you want to be displayed.

Recommended setting: 50 to 100.

… numchars = 100;var…

How to Show Post Date
If you want to show the post date, look for the line with the word showpostdate in the code. Then change its value from false to true (shown in color blue below).

… showpostdate = false;var…

That’s it! Please let me know what you think of this widget by leaving a comment below.

From:Blogger Tips And Tricks