How to add a followers gadget to your blog

Take a look at some of your favourite blogs and you'll see that many of them have a 'join this site' button or a  subscribe box that allows you to sign up to receive updates. You'll probably want one of these on your blog. Why? Because if visitors have found your blog, and they like it, you will want to make sure they check back. People do this in different ways, e.g. adding the page to their bookmarks, but it's nice to give them the option to sign up to your site. And it's really encouraging when you start getting followers because you can see that people like your blog!

It's really easy to add a followers gadget and / or a subscribe by email box.

Followers gadget

Log into your blog and on the left hand menu select 'layout'.

You'll see that there are various boxes that say 'add a gadget'. You will want to click on one of these, depending on where you would like your followers gadget to appear. I'm going for the side column.

It opens up a window with a list of many different gadgets you could add to your blog. Scroll down until you see one called 'followers'.

Click the little plus icon next to this gadget to add it to your blog. It takes you to another window that looks like this:

You can add a title if you want. I think 'followers' is pretty descriptive, but you can change it to whatever you like. I'd recommend keeping the 'use template default styles' button checked (I unchecked it and it scared me a little! It lets you change all the colours etc. if you really want to though).

Then press save and view your blog. You'll see it's added a followers button.

Now your readers can click the join this site button to follow your blog. 

Subscribe by email

You may also want to give your visitors the chance to subscribe by email.

Go back to the layout screen. Click on 'add a gadget' where you would like it to appear. This time scroll through the list until you find follow by email, and click the little plus icon. You can change the title if you want, then press save. That's it, done. Go view your blog and check it out.