How to add Static Pages to a Blogger Blog (UPDATED)

A few months ago, Blogger has completely redesigned the section of the Pages, which now, looks very similar to that of the Blogger Posts. Now we will be able to manage the pages with more flexibility. For example, we can publish, delete or change many of them to draft at the same time - which has just the same function as the old Don't show option.

Among the options that we can find by hovering over a page and which we can see in the screenshot below are:

Edit: To access the editing panel and to edit its contents.

View: Open a new tab with the actual page.

Share: Share it on Google+ (which was not possible before)

Delete: remove a page.

In order to create a page, we need to open the pages editor from the button that says New Page. Almost every option tells us its function.

How to add a Web Address in the Pages widget

How To Set Custom Redirects in Blogger

Over time, most blogs may go through many changes, like posts being added or deleted. In some occasions, you don't want people to get 404 messages when they surf to posts or pages that don't exist on your blog and instead, make all requests to a specific link to be redirected to another page. One of the best way to avoid broken links and keep your traffic flowing in the right direction is setting custom redirects via the Blogger Custom Redirects tool.

In this post, we will see how to set custom redirects for Blogger posts and redirect an old URL to a new URL. But before redirecting any URL, you must know that there are two types of redirects:

A 302 redirect means that the page has moved temporarily. This redirect doesn't pass the URL value to the new location and instead, it will take the visitors to an appropriate location so that you aren't showing them a 404 page not found, or an error page. You can use a 302 redirect for coming soon pages or maintenance pages.

A 301 redirect means that a page has moved permanently to a new location. Use the 301 redirect when you deleted or changed the URL of your post. In most instances, the 301 redirects are always recommended for SEO because they will pass link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page and visitors will also benefit from this. However, 301s aren't suitable when you change your custom-domain, because it only supports redirection within the same blog, not to an external URL.

Now that we've established which is which, let's see how to set custom redirects for Blogger posts.

New Blogger Widget: Contact form - Change Style & Install in a Static Page

Just a few days ago, Blogger introduced a new widget. It is about a contact form that you can add to your blog easily. It is very basic, because - at least for now, does not permit incorporating files or send anything other than plain text.

The contact form for Blogger has the following features:

• Field for the user name
• Field for email
• Field for the message (textarea)
• Submit Button

Screenshot

 The design is simple and the text colors inherit the section where you add it. At the moment, this widget has no configuration options and is not available for dynamic views.

How to Add Contact Form to Blogger

To add it to your blog, just select the Layout tab, then click on Add a gadget in the section you want to show, for example, in the sidebar. Then, select the More gadgets tab and add the Contact Form gadget.

Styling Contact Form

As the background is transparent, the form will integrate well, aesthetically speaking, but nevertheless it is easy to modify using Style Sheets (CSS) to the appropriate selectors. Here's an example:

/* Contact Form Container */
.contact-form-widget {
width: 500px;
max-width: 100%;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 10px;
background: #F8F8F8;
color: #000;
border: 1px solid #C1C1C1;
box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25);
border-radius: 10px;
}

/* Fields and submit button */
.contact-form-name, .contact-form-email, .contact-form-email-message {
width: 100%;
max-width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}

/* Submit button style */
.contact-form-button-submit {
border-color: #C1C1C1;
background: #E3E3E3;
color: #585858;
width: 20%;
max-width: 20%;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}

/* Submit button on mouseover */
.contact-form-button-submit:hover{
background: #4C8EF9;
color: #ffffff;
border: 1px solid #FAFAFA;
}

This is how it will look like after applying the style:

To add this style, go to Template > Edit HTML, click on the sideways arrow next to <b:skin>...</b:skin> and paste the code just above ]]></b:skin> (press CTRL + F to find it):

How To Add Contact Form In A Static Page

First step is to add the Contact Form gadget (Layout) and second, to edit the template (Template > Edit HTML) to remove most of the gadget. You have to search for the id "ContactForm", expand the widget by clicking on the black arrow on the left (same with the includable) and then delete the part that I have colored in red (see below):

Part to be removed:

  <b:widget id='ContactForm1' locked='false' title='Contact Form' type='ContactForm'>

    <b:includable id='main'>

  <b:if cond='data:title != &quot;&quot;'>
    <h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
  </b:if>
  <div class='contact-form-widget'>
    <div class='form'>
      <form name='contact-form'>
        <p/>
        <data:contactFormNameMsg/>
        <br/>
        <input class='contact-form-name' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_contact-form-name&quot;' name='name' size='30' type='text' value=''/>
        <p/>
        <data:contactFormEmailMsg/> <span style='font-weight: bolder;'>*</span>
        <br/>
        <input class='contact-form-email' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_contact-form-email&quot;' name='email' size='30' type='text' value=''/>
        <p/>
        <data:contactFormMessageMsg/> <span style='font-weight: bolder;'>*</span>
        <br/>
        <textarea class='contact-form-email-message' cols='25' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_contact-form-email-message&quot;' name='email-message' rows='5'/>
        <p/>
        <input class='contact-form-button contact-form-button-submit' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_contact-form-submit&quot;' expr:value='data:contactFormSendMsg' type='button'/>
        <p/>
        <div style='text-align: center; max-width: 222px; width: 100%'>
          <p class='contact-form-error-message' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_contact-form-error-message&quot;'/>
          <p class='contact-form-success-message' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_contact-form-success-message&quot;'/>
        </div>
      </form>
    </div>
  </div>
  <b:include name='quickedit'/>

</b:includable>

  </b:widget>

After you have saved the template, go to Pages and paste the following code into a new blank page with the title you want:

 <div class='widget ContactForm' id='ContactForm1'>
  <div class='contact-form-widget'>
    <div class='form'>
      <form name='contact-form'>
        <p>Name</p>
        <input class='contact-form-name' id='ContactForm1_contact-form-name' name='name' size='30' type='text' value=''/>
        <p>E-mail *</p>
        <input class='contact-form-email' id='ContactForm1_contact-form-email' name='email' size='30' type='text' value=''/>
        <p>Message *</p>
        <textarea class='contact-form-email-message' cols='25' id='ContactForm1_contact-form-email-message' name='email-message' rows='5'></textarea>
        <input class='contact-form-button contact-form-button-submit' id='ContactForm1_contact-form-submit' type='button' value='Submit'/>
        <p class='contact-form-error-message' id='ContactForm1_contact-form-error-message'></p>
        <p class='contact-form-success-message' id='ContactForm1_contact-form-success-message'></p>
      </form>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Messages will be sent to the same email that you have registered in Blogger.

Here's a demo page where you can test it (it is an account that I don't use, so don't expect reply).

That's it! If you have any questions or comments please post below.