So you've followed our guide and made it from ALDC member to blogger in six easy steps.  But now you want more.  You want to customize your blog, making it more useful for your readers and more effective as a campaigning tool.

Let's look at some of the ways you can make your blog your own.

On this example, you can change the overall look of the blog (the colour scheme and layout), the strapline at the top, and your personal details on the right.  You can also add a photo (Cllr Grice is uncommonly handsome and, with his customary modesty, has declined to post a photo so as not to make his colleagues look bad in comparison).

Further down the page, you can add a graph (what Lib Dem publication would be complete without one) and some useful links for your readers.

1. Choose your theme

Log on to administer your site, click on Presentation and Themes, then simply click on the theme you want.  It changes right away, so why not try a few and see which you like the most.

2. Set your strap line

When you applied for your MyCouncillor blog you specified a strapline, but you can change it any time.  Click on Manage, then ALDC and click where it says to enter a new one - easy!

3. Change your personal details and add a photo

Still on the Manage ALDC page, scroll a little further down.  You can edit your name, address, email and phone number.

Below that, you can upload a photo.  Be careful though - it's fairly small (think passport photo) and really should be as close as you can get to 200 pixels high by 140 pixels wide before you upload it.  If you're not sure how to do this, try a website like this to help.

4. Get yourself a graph

What would a Lib Dem blog be without a graph?  Click on Manage and Graph to create yours.  Put in the text, the number of votes and pick the colours - your blog will figure out the graph for you.

5. Add some links

Helping people find other sources of information is a useful way to make your blog more useful to your readers. One way is to have a set of permanent links down the side, perhaps linking to your colleagues and to other useful services and sources of information.

Go to Useful Links, then Add Link.  For each link, fill in a name and address.  The name should be nice and short.  The description is optional.  On the right (not visible on the screenshot above) there's a category list.  If you want to group links together in different categories, add them here.

Go to Manage Useful Links to edit or delete links that you've added.

6. Onwards and upwards

There's plenty more ways to customize your blog.  Explore the options, see what other people have done and, if in doubt, ask.

Last updated by Iain Roberts on 24th November 2009.

1. Apply for a site

You're already an ALDC member and you'd like a MyCouncillor blog.  The first step is to fill in the application form by clicking here.  Don't worry about the information you give being set in stone.  You can change almost everything later - with the exception of your council area and ward.

2. Receive your email

Within seconds of you submitting the form, the ALDC team springs into action.  After making the tea, your blog is set up and an email sent giving you all the information you need to get blogging.  The most important pieces of information are:

• your site address e.g. www.lennygrice.mycouncillor.org.uk
• your username e.g. lennygrice
• your password

3. Visit your site

Click on the link in the email to visit your site (or paste the web address into your browser). At the bottom right corner of your new blog is a link "Site Admin".  Click on it.

4. Log onto the administration panel

Put in your username and password to log into the administration panel.  You should be taken to the Dashboard.

5. Start blogging

Don't worry about customising your blog right now - lots of time for that later.  Get blogging!  Tell people about something your doing, some interesting local news or perhaps a national Lib Dem story,

6. Tell people about it

Blogging's much more fun if lots of people come and read your wise words, so tell people. Advertise your blog in emails, Focus leaflets, business cards and more.

Remember: you can get to your blog using several different addresses right from the start, including

• yourname.mycouncillor.org.uk
  
• yourname.4mp.org.uk
  
• yourname.focusteam.org.uk
  

Last updated by Iain Roberts, 17th November 2009.

Your MyCouncillor blog offers two different ways of seeing who visits your site: Hits and Hits Mk II.  Both give monthly totals and show you which pages are the most popular.

There are many things they don't show you.  Are your visitors all from your ward, or from Japan?  How do they find you?  How long do they stay?  Where do they go when they leave?

That's where alternative services come in.  This guide shows you how to use a service called StatCounter to find out all that information - and more.  Other services, including Google Analytics, have similar functionality and should work in a similar way.

In this how-to, we'll set up an account with StatCounter and paste some special code into your MyCouncillor blog.

Setup your StatCounter project

In your web browser, go to www.statcounter.com and click on the "Register Now!" button.

After you've filled in the registration form and registered, click on "Add New Project"

Put in the details for your blog.  The only one you must get right is the blog address.  The name you give it and the category you put it in are entirely up to you and will make no difference to the statistics.

There are more options further down, and on the next couple of screens.  You don't have to change any of them, but you can if you like.  

Then you get to the success screen.  Click on Configure and Install Code.

Your next job is to decide how you want your counter to look.  It could be invisible, or a counter that tells visitors how popular your site is, or a simple button.

Next you're shown a page of code.  This is the code that has to go into your MyCouncillor blog.  Don't worry if it means nothing to you.  We don't need to understand it, just to cut-and-paste it.  Select all the code and copy it (Edit -> Copy).

Put your StatCounter code into your blog

Log into your MyCouncillor blog so you're in the administrator section.  Click on Presentation, then Sidebar Widgets.

Scroll right down to the bottom of this page and you'll see a section called "WYSIWYG Text Widgets".  Where it says "How many widgets would you like?", select "1" and click "Save".  In the "Available Widgets" pane, a box saying "WYSIWYG Text 1" will appear.  (If you already have a text widget, it will be "Text 2").

Holding down the left mouse button, drag-and-drop the "WYSIWYG Text" box into the Sidebar 2 pane.  Once you've dropped it into the pane, you'll see a little icon appears on the right hand side - click on that icon to edit the contents of the widget.

Now simply paste the StatCounter code into the widget and close the box by clicking on the x in the top right corner.

That's it - all done.  StatCounter is now recording every visit to your blog.  Log back into StatCounter at any time and click on your project to explore more about who's coming to your blog and what they're doing.

If you selected a visible button or counter when you set up the StatCounter project, you will see it on the sidebar of your blog.

What do the statistics mean

StatCounter measures your visitors in three main ways:

• Page Loads increases by one any time someone visits a new page on your blog.
  
• Unique visitors increases by one any time a new person, who hasn't been before, visits your blog.
  
• Returning visitors increase by one any time someone who's visited your blog before comes back.
  

The numbers you get from StatCounter are pretty similar to Google Analytics.  That means that, when bloggers talk about their statistics, the ones you get from StatCounter will be comparable.  Unfortunately, they don't seem to be very close to the Hits or Hits Mk II stats from the MyCouncillor blogs - generally they're quite a bit lower. 

Also bear in mind that you might not want to go for the highest possible readership.  Increasing your unique visitor stats is good for the ego, but if none of them are from your ward it may not be doing your election chances any good or helping you communicate better with your constituents.

Last updated by Iain Roberts, 12th November 2009

A new feature has been added to the MyCouncillor system. This is a "What you see is what you get" (WSYWYG) sidebar panel.

There are a whole host of things you could do with with this, from a simple advert for your PPC, to a Twitter feed; an automatic picture badger or a news feed.

Here's a couple of examples:

Paul Ankers has used his sidebar widget for a feed of his Twitter "tweets".

As an example I've put a Flickr photo badge (it's set to just have photos of my local area) on my website.

Will people let us know how they get along - its probably not for the beginner user, but for more advanced users it could be really exciting.

Instructions
1) Log into your MyCllr site's back end
2) Go to 'Presentation' + 'Sidebar Widgets'
3) You will see in the 'Sidebar 2' column (or in the case of your template Sidebar Z) a new entry called "WYSIWYG Text 1"
4) Click on the 'Configure' button on the right hand end of this new widget
5) A pop-up window appears to let you edit the contents
6) Make the changes you require and then press the X in the top right hand corner to close the pop-up
7) Finally, press the "Save Changes" button at the bottom right of the window.
 
Below the save button is another box that allows you to add more WYSIWYG widgets. Each appears in the sidebar and can be dragged around to the required position. Each one can have different contents.
 
 

Any picture that is already on the internet can be used on your website - this is normally easier than uploading a picture yourself to the myCouncillor system. 

Any picture, that is, that you have permission to use!

This might be:

 •?A photo from a free photo website (try typing in “free photos” into google and you’ll find loads of websites that have useful free photos

• A photo from somebody else that you have permission to use, or they’re OK with you using the image as long as you credit them

• A photo you have put onto a photo-sharing site yourself - like Flickr or Picasa (see next chapters). 

First we need to get ready to use a picture on mycouncillor. 

Click on the little "tree" when you're writing a story on the website. This will open a “insert/edit image” box where you can add a photo to your site. 

1 Get the Web Address of the Picture (URL)