This is the first in a new series on my blog, “Make Your Blog Better” (MYBB) where I’ll stretch my nerdy wings and share tech/blogging information that will improve the quality of your blog.

As bloggers, we all know about the pitfalls of having a blogroll… have you ever found yourself asking these questions?

• how can I have the feeds I follow in google reader show up as my blogroll?
• I hate that my blogroll is full of links that I read years ago, but I never remember to take old links out, even if I’ve removed them from reader?
• I add blogs to google reader all the time, but I never remember to update my blogroll, WHYGODWHYISTHISSOHARD?

Okay, maybe that last one was a little dramatic, but generally, manually listing blogs SUCKS.

Most of us are using google reader anyway, so did you know that you can use google reader to be the source for a list of links that you currently read? It is easy… Here is how…

1) Go to your Google Reader (You’re obviously logged in, right?) and click on Settings.

2) Go to the second tab called, Subscriptions. On the right side, next to one of the blogs that you’d like to add to your blogroll, click on the pull down menu and select New Folder

3) Name your folder. As you can see, I named mine “Blogroll”

4) Still in your manage subscriptions area, you can now check off ALL of the blogs that you would like to have listed in your blogroll PUBLICLY. **Remember, you can still have blogs that aren’t listed here in google reader**

Once you’ve checked them all, go to the more actions tab, and select Add to folder> *your folder name*

5) Now you need to go to the Folders and Tags tab in settings. Check the folder you created, and use the drill down menu to change sharing to PUBLIC

6) Now, it gets REALLY easy. On the right hand side, in the Folders and Tags setting screen, click on “Add a Blogroll to your site”. Once there, you can customize the title, choose one of the preset colors, and retrieve HTML code that you can implant in your sidebar, or on a links page (like I did here)

7. Now, in google reader, you’ll have a blog roll folder in your subscriptions list, much like a folder you might have in your email inbox. The best part, is that you can add and remove bloggers at your discretion from your reader. If you read a post that is particularly inspiring, give them the ole “clickclick” and they’re added to the blogroll folder, and immediately, instantly included in the list you’ve already added to your site.

Likewise, if someone in your blogroll folder stops updating, or otherwise loses the right to be on your roll (ouch!) a right click –or even a drag and drop- and their back in your unfoldered set.

Know that you could have all of them in the blogroll folder, but I personally have a few guilty pleasures that I’d rather keep off my blogroll. ;D

You could also use this, if you’ve got the time and patience, to make separate folders (aka GROUPS) of links. Like make a folder for runners, and foodies, and crafters, etc. Once you’ve made all the folders public, nothing is stopping you from grabbing several bits of code, and putting them near each other in a sidebar or links page. (I may do this sometime) Voila! instant categorized blogroll that is fully integrated with google reader!

Please share, link to, tweet, or otherwise share this story with friends, because this is good stuff!

2 Questions for you, dear reader:

Do you currently have a blogroll/link list?

If you don’t use reader, but something else, please let me know.

If you have questions, please leave a comment. I will reply here, so that I can keep those questions and answers in this post for the benefit of the community.