One of the best features of TypePad is all the built in content modules that can add great functionality and even make you some money - in this lesson, we will look at how to install new content modules and how to change the display of these modules on your blog. 

In the “Current Design” section of your Design tab, click on the “Content” link.

Overview of Content Modules

Typepad’s Content section is split into three main parts.

Firstly, there is the content selection area (1 in the image below) where you can select new content modules to add to your blog’s sidebar.

The example above is what you’d get if you had a three columns right layout (where there were two side columns on the right). But you may well have a different layout and so this section will look a bit different as it will reflect the layout of your sidebars.

For example, this is a three column layout which has two sidebars, one on each side. The sidebar area (3) is actually one area and you can drag and drop modules from the left to the right and vice versa easily.

Here is the same thing, but with a two column design which only has one sidebar.

When there is only one column like in the example below, the sidebar content modules are placed at the bottom of the main content.

Adding a Sidebar Content Module

There are many different types of content modules that you can add to your sidebars (area 3 in the images above) but the process is essentially the same (it’s a little different for Widgets, but we have a lesson dedicated to that coming up).

First choose the category of content module in “Categories” by clicking on the heading you want. If you want to see all categories, then just click on “All”.

You will then get what modules are in that category show up in the “Modules” section. Click on whatever module interests you.

Information about that content module will then display in the “Details” section. If you still want to add the module, click on the “Add this module” button.

Some modules will be added immediately to your sidebar layout but some modules require more information from you. In the example, the Other Accounts Module gives you a little popup that lets you customise the title of your module and its layout - so you’d have to choose your options and hit “Save” before TypePad will add the content module to your sidebar.

You will see your new module added to your sidebar.

You can drag and drop any of your sidebar modules to change their order and position in your sidebars.

In the example below, we’ve moved half of the modules that were in the right column to the left column.

You can remove these modules from your sidebar at any time by clicking on the cross in the red circle.

Some of the content modules also let you modify their settings - if so they will display a little pencil. You can click on this to get customisable options.

We will go through a number of specific sidebar modules in the following lesson.

Fixed Content Modules

TypePad lets you do another type of content customisation on the main parts of your blog like your blog posts. As these areas are fixed as far as TypePad is concerned, you may be able customise some of the content but you can’t change the positioning. You can, however, choose to have this content display or have it hidden.

Enabling and Disabling Fixed Content Modules

Enabling and disabling fixed content modules is very simple.

To enable them (if they are not already), just click inside the checkbox to tick it.

To disable them, click inside the checkbox to untick it.

You can click “Preview” to see what this would look like on your blog. If you’re happy with the changes, click “Save Changes”.

Navigation Bar

The Navigation Bar is switched off by default, but it’s quite a handy feature. What it does is it gives you a navigation bar of links, usually below your blog’s banner (but this depends on your design’s theme). 

Navigation bars are particularly useful to guide your reader to important pages that you may have like an About Us page, a Contact Us page or an Advertise page (with information how to advertise) or a Consulting page (with information on your consulting packages) or even pages off your blog (eg your ecommerce store).

In the example below, the links “Home”, “Archives” and “Subscribe” make up the navigation bar here.

You can customise what links show up in your navigation bar by clicking on the little pencil icon in the Navigation bar section.

You will then get a popup that allows you up to ten links to display in your navigation bar. ”Title” is the text your reader will see and “URL” is the web address/link that they will be sent to.

Fill these to the links that you want and make sure the “Title” text is both clear to a reader and enticing to click on (if that’s what you want them to do).

You can click “Preview” to see what it looks like first, before saving your changes.

Archive Headers

In this section, you get to choose how your want your listings of archived blog posts to display. When you click on the pencil icon, you get to customise your Date-Based Archives and your Category Archives.

For your date based archives, a drop down lets you choose the archive’s format. The “Month Year” format is the default and most commonly used, but it’s really up to you and what looks good with your blog’s theme.

TypePad will also give you the option to have archives based on categories, this can be displayed on your sidebar column (see Sidebar Modules below). The default header is just a plain “Category”, but you can change this according to your taste, selecting an option from the drop down.

Post Date Header

If you keep “Post Date Header” selected, it will display dates as headings with any posts written on that date grouped under the date it was written. 

To illustrate, this is what it looks like when this option is selected:

This is what it looks like when the option is not selected (notice there is no big date heading):

(Note that Titles are also selected to show in both the above examples).

It’s up to you whether you want to keep this or not, it certainly emphasises the chronology of your blog posts. If you want to let people know when a post was published but you don’t want to highlight the date so much, you can choose to have the date show up in the footer options (see Post Footer below).

Post Title

Keeping “Post Title” selected means that your post’s title will be displayed like so:

If you deselect it, there will be no title like so:

Most of the time, you will want to keep your blog’s title as blog titles serve important functions. They inform your reader as to what the post is about and act as marketing to convince people to read your blog post.

One feasible reason why you may not choose to have a blog title is if your blog is very date based and you have selected “Post Date Header” so that effectively the date becomes your heading like so:

Again, it’s up to your own personal choice and the nature of your blog.

Post Footer

Your post footer is basically a strip of text at the end of all your blog post that looks a bit like this:

If you deselect “Post Footer” then the footer won’t display, but it’s not recommended as it can contain useful for your readers like the time/date it was published, who the author was, how many comments your post has had and more.

If you click the pencil icon you will get a number of configuration options.

• “Posted”: Adds a “Posted on:” or “Posted at:” to the beginning of your header
• Author: who wrote the post
• Date: the date the post was published (so you can get rid of the “Post Date Header” and just have the date discreetly at the end of the post)
• Time: the time the post was published
• Category: the category/ies assigned to your post (it also sets up a link to a page that will list all other blog posts under that category)
• Technorati Tags: If you elected to have Technorati tags (by selecting that option in “Customize the display of this page” in your post editor), they will show up in your footer if you select this
• Digg This: Give your readers a link to recommend your blog post to Digg.com for free publicity
• Save to del.icio.us: Give your readers a link to save your blog post as a del.icio.us bookmark for free publicity.

Page Footer

You can choose to have a footer on your blog’s pages (read our explanation of what a blog page is if you are a little confused about posts and pages) by selecting “Page Footer”. It’s off by default.

If you click on the pencil (”Configure” icon you’ll see that there are far fewer options than for post footers. There is only the option to add links to Digg the page or save it in del.icio.us.

Feed Flare

FeedFlare allows you more advanced options for your FeedBurner feed. You can read more about FeedFlare to see if it is something you wish to enable.

Next up, we’ll go through how to add more content your TypePad’s Sidebar.

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This is part of our super series on How to Blog. Subscribe to our Newsletter for some special surprise How to Blog stuff over the course of the lessons.