Add a Recent Comments Feed to Blogger Sidebar

One very simple way to increase page views of your Blogger (Blogspot) blog is to add a recent posts feed to your site. The procedure is easy and effective and does not require any template tweaking. This tutorial assumes limited technical knowledge of Blogger and is mostly aimed at new bloggers and beginners although it is suitable for any Blogspot blogger who wants to increase site traffic.

If you would like to add a recent comments feed to your Blogger (Blogspot) blog please see my tutorial Add a Recent Comments Feed to a Blogger Blog

Below I will take you through the steps of adding a widget so that your feed is displayed in your Blogger blog's sidebar. Unfortunately the maximum number of items that can be displayed in the posts feed at this point is limited to 5 due to a Blogger limitation. I have not found a hack to increase this level but when I do I will update this post.


Add a Recent Posts Feed to the Sidebar of a Blogger Blog

1. Login to you Blogger blog and navigate to Layout > Page Elements

2. Click on Add a Gadget in the sidebar and select the Feed widget

3. A popup dialog box will appear requesting you to configure the URL of your feed. Enter the following text into the box:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Be sure to substitute yoursitename for the name of your site 



4. If you have entered the address of your post's feed correctly Blogger will retrieve your feed and display a preview in a dialog box. The feed will include links to the last five posts on your site. 

5. Delete the name of your blog and type in Recent Posts instead


6. Click on Save

7. Click on View Blog to see your new Recent Posts feed in action.


8. If you want to change where it appears in the sidebar this can be achieved by returning to Layout > Page Elements and using the drag and drop feature to position the widget.


Troubleshooting
If you are using a feed delivery service like FeedBurner your default feed URL will be being redirected by Blogger.com. In this case you will need to enter the Feedburner address of the feed which is likely to be something like this:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/YourSiteName

Notice how Feedburner capitalizes your blog name. Check the exact address at Feedburner if you are not sure of the feed address. For more on burning your feed at Feedburner check out these articles: Blogger RSS Feeds and Feedburner and Burn Blogger RSS Feeds at Feedburner and Add a Feedburner FeedFlare to a Blogger Feed


This tutorial demonstrates how to add a recent posts feed to your Blogger (Blogspot) blog so that it can be displayed in a widget in the sidebar of your Blogger blog.

Method 2 - Using a Contributed Gadget to Add a Recent Comments Widget to Blogger (Blogspot) 

1. Login to you Blogger blog
2. From the Dashboard go to Design > Page Elements
3. Click on Add a Gadget in the sidebar
4. Click on Most Popular from the menu on the left hand side of the Add a Gadget window
5. Select Recent Comments
6. Change the number of comments to display according to your individual blog requirements. The Preview box will show you what your widget will look like with less than 10 comments
7. Change the Summary Length to 100 px or leave as is if you prefer
   
   
8. Click on Save to activate your Blogger widget
9. Click on View Blog to see your Recent Comments Widget displayed
10. Use drag and drop in Design > Layout to position your widget as you desire

This Blogger tutorial has demonstrated two different methods of adding a recent comments gadget to your Blogger blog (Blogspot blog) using Blogger widgets. The recent comments widget is probably best displayed in the Blogger sidebar or it can be moved to the footer if you prefer and of course depending on your blogger template.