Adding Pages to your blog

Right now your blog just has a main (home) page, and that's really all you need. But many of you have hobbies and bios you might want to share, and pages are the best places to showcase those.

Go to Layout, then click Add a Gadget at the top.

When the pop-up window appears, scroll down and click Pages. The configuration menu will ask for a title, so it only makes sense to title it Pages. You can also check whether you want to "automatically add new pages when they are published." (I do)

If you want your pages to appear in the sidebar, be sure to put them near the top of your page so your readers can easily find them. A better place (in my opinion)  is under the header (see where Pages is in my pic above). The pages you add will line up horizontally beneath your header, like this:

Drag and drop your Pages gadget to your preferred position, then click Save Arrangement at the top of the page.

NOTE: some templates will not let you put your pages underneath the header. This means they'll have to be in your sidebar. It might not matter to you, but I changed my template because I wanted my pages under the header. It's another one of the many personal preferences.

Next, click Pages in the left sidebar menu.

Click New Page and give the gadget a title.
NOTE: Blogger limits you to 20 pages. If you exceed that, consider combining similarly themed pages.

From here, your page is just like a post. The Title is what will appear on the Page tab. (You don't have to do a Home page - the first page you created is your Home page and Blogger will take care of that.) For now, let's give it this title and create About Me.

Type in everything you want to tell the world about yourself, then decide about commenting. I don't allow commenting on my Pages, only my posts. You'll see that option in the right sidebar of your editor.

Preview your page, then Publish it when it's ready.

Blogger will automagically line up your pages in the order they are posted, but you can change that anytime. Just go to Layout, click Pages and configure your page order. It's easy - just drag and drop the pages where you want them, then click Save Arrangement.

Notice that if you pull up your blog when you're signed into Blogger or Gmail, there are faint little tools at the base of your gadgets and posts. It looks like this:

Any time you see that, you can edit that element! When you click on this icon for your Pages gadget, the configure pop-up window like this will appear:

Be sure your page is "checked" on the left so it will show up on your blog. Be sure to click Save Arrangement or your changes will be lost.

When you want to edit this page, you can go back to Pages and go from there OR you can pull up the page on your blog, scroll to the bottom of your text and click on the little pencil.

Any time you see this you can change your page/post!

Now that you know how it's done, think about any hobbies or charitable organizations you might want to promote on your blog and add pages to your heart's content!