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Saturday, May 25, 2013

A few Tumblr tips & tricks for the beginning Tumbler-er

A few months ago, I though it might be a good idea to add another tool to my blogging-platforms-knowhow. After a short contemplation I chose to have a go at tumblr and open a blog there, and what better a blog than a photographs blog

Having been doodling around I encountered issues that were not immediately resolved by intuition and independent footwork alone. A Search (though in many occasions not too long&deep a search) was sometimes required, and those issues piled together into a short list of tips & tricks for my own usage. As usual, find this blog as a very convenient place to store such a list. 

I still consider myself a Tumblr newbie (and as my current feelings go, shall probably remain so for 
the remainder of my life as a blogger), so if you Tumbler veterans out there accidentally reach this small haven of the net and have anything useful to add, please do so. Much obliged ! 

Let's start with the most basic of all: documentation:


How to get to your archive :
Just add "/archive" to the end of any blog URL to see for yourself.
(and it is very simple to add a link to one's archive, by adding a page re-direct; you go to add a page,
 instead of standard layout you choose redirect, and from there on it is quite self-explanatory...)

links to  tumblr SEO lore

How to add a Tumblr blog to Google analytics 
In many themes it is incredibly simple. You choose customize and you see the theme options on the left, and one of them is...
yes, you guessed it right: Google Analytics UA Code... (from now on it is smooth sailing if you know Google Analytics)

How to add Adsense to Tumblr 
A link to a basic guide at howtogeek  (it is quite straight forward, as long as you are not scared by editing HTML. considering Adsense's sensitivities, you would surely undrstand why at the time  I just wanted to make sure that there are no known pitfalls.   I am a firm believer in the old carpentry (and NASA) saying: 'measure TWICE, cut ONCE');  3 remarks to this good guide:
  1. Each theme has its own build as far as editing the HTML goes, but just be patient in your look-around. you will find it sooner than it may seem... in many cases it will not be where the howtogeek sends you, but it will still be located in front of your eyes, as soon as you enter the custom theme editing state. 
  2. If you are not trained in Editing HTML, this might get really problematic. pay attention that the first section of the HTML is not where you want to put your adsense code. you want to go over the HTML, get acquainted where the <head> starts, and there try and find the strings that correlate with what you see on your tumblr page. (hint: i chose to put my adsense code after the "follow" section)
  3. The howtogeek guide has one problem - it assumes that a new adsense ad is going to show up immediately. as this is not the case, you  may wish to add a document.write('*Hello, there!*') before the </script> to verify the location and also for one's personal ease. Just don't forget to remove it afterwards.... 
[Update: As of 2018, Google adsense has changed the rules once more, and the enforcement of the authorization of selling adsense inventory using ads.txt has made life with adsense on tumblr impossible. I should note that as my tumblr project is a thing of the past, I did not investigate this thorougly. A quick search of first page results indicated that there is no simple solution. I stopped there, removed my adsense code from my tumblr blog, and moved on with life...]