Getting Started with MailChimp

1. Go to mailchimp.com and click on the “Sign Up Free” button on the upper right side.
2. Type your Email, choose a Username and insert a Password.
3. Check the email you provided and click “Activate Account“.
4. On the MailChimp page, click on the “I’m Not a Robot” button.
5. Select your plan and click “Next”, then enter your name and site name on the next page. You will also need to add an address – this will be listed below each email you send as the anti-spam protection.
6. If you previously used another mailing service, you can import your contacts, otherwise select “No“. Click “Continue“.
7. When the account is all set up, you can create your widget.

Create a MailChimp Widget

1. Go to your MailChimp dashboard > click on the “Create” icon located on the left side.
   
2. Click on “Signup Form” and select “Embedded form”. Click the “Begin“ button on the right side.
   
3. Click on the Continue button.
   
4. Scroll down the code area and locate the line that starts with <form action="
5. Then follow the tutorial on How to Set up the Email Subscribe Widget.

This tutorial is related to How to Configure Link List Gadget. To configure the read more button, log in to your dashboard > go to Layout and click the Edit link on the “Read more button” gadget:

This will open the ‘Configure Link List’ window. For more info on how to configure the gadget, see the screenshot below:

1. Title – the title is optional. It will appear on your dashboard only.
2. Sorting – this setting is intended for multiple items only, so you can skip it.
3. Link list – click on the ADD A NEW ITEM link to create your button
4. Site name and Site URL fields – add text and type the URL of the link (e.g. http://my-blog.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html). The URL can be any page posted on your blog (“About me” page) or it could be an external site (such as your Facebook profile etc).

Once you’ve added all the details, click the SAVE links as shown in the screenshot above.

Related: How to Add Social Media Icons

If you see a link in the Configure Link List window, click on the pencil icon as shown below.

Type the Site name and add the Site URL in the available fields. Note: you can learn more about how to create a static page and get the link here: Adding a Static Page in Blogger.

Don’t forget to click the SAVE links to apply the changes.

Note: if there is no link, then the gadget may be designed for social media icons or some other type of information. To add social media profiles, please refer to this tutorial: How to Add Social Media Icons.

1. To set up the YouTube widget, go to “Layout” > click “Edit” on the “Latest Videos” gadget.

2. This should open a popup window containing another channel ID. Simply replace UCEgEw7AEzq9QID_CPcBtx4Q with your channel id.

Note: If you cannot find your channel ID, try this tool here.

3. Click the “Save” button and view your blog to see if the latest videos appear on the homepage.

Note: if the slider still doesn’t work, verify if your blog is set to ‘Public’ and the feed is set to Full.

Instructions

1. Log in to your dashboard > go to ‘Layout’ and click ‘Edit’ on the ‘Featured Slider’ gadget.

2. Replace default/? with default/-/Label? and then replace the Label text with the label you want to display posts from.

3. Click the ‘Save’ button to save the changes.

Important

The label is case sensitive. “Featured” is not the same as “featured” or “FEATURED”. If you don’t type it exactly as it appears in your post editor, the slider cannot identify those posts.

Keep in mind that the slider does NOT work with multiple labels. If you want to show posts from different categories, add an unique label to those posts and then type it in the featured slider box (as shown above).

If it is your first time adding labels, make sure that you also check our adding labels to Blogger posts tutorial.

Note: This tutorial applies to the following templates only: Belmondo.

How to Add Promo Boxes in Blogger

Go to “Layout” > click the “Edit” link on the ‘Promo Box #’ gadget:

This will open the Configure Image window where you’ll find several settings and options as explained below:

1. Title – type the title for the featured page/image.
2. Caption – use this field to add a short description.
3. Link – add the link to your page (e.g. http://my-blog.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html) or category. The link can be any page or post published on your blog or any external website (such as your Facebook profile).
4. Image – select the Upload image from computer option and then click the Browse… button to upload your photo.

When you are done, click the ‘SAVE’ link at the end of this window.

2. This will open the ‘Configure Link List’ window – to get started, click on the ADD A NEW ITEM link:

3. Add Site Name and Site URL in the available fields and then click SAVE.

Note: To add another profile, click the ADD A NEW ITEM link again and fill out the fields for your social media profile. For more details on how to use this gadget, see the screenshot below:

4. Once all the links have been added, click on the SAVE link at the end of this window and you are all set!

How to Add a Shop Widget to a Blogger Post

The video below will show you how to create a “shop the post” widget and add it to a blog post.

Note: if your theme provides a section for the shop the post / shop my style widget, edit the widget and replace the code in the box with your own.

Shop Button

To edit the Shop button, please follow this guide: How to Configure Link List Gadget.

To configure the ‘About Me’ gadget, go to “Layout” and click the “Edit” link.

This will open a pop-up window where you’ll find several settings and options as explained below:

1. Title – the heading that will appear above or below your profile picture.
2. Caption – write something about you, or your blog. This text usually appears below your photo.
3. Link (optional) – type the URL of the link (e.g. http://my-blog.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html). The URL can be any page posted on your blog (“About me” page) or it could be an external site (such as your Facebook profile).
4. Image – select Upload image from computer and click the Browse… button to upload your photo.

When you’ve finished adding all the details, click the “SAVE” link to apply the changes.

If you want to add the author bio box in the post footer, please follow this guide.

Until we’ll find another alternative, you can create a new widget at snapwidget.com. You’ll have to register, but creating a widget is free.