Useful Tools for Blogs

Do you blogging? do you know how many useful tools you can find online? here a short list of the most important! WordPress ThemeViewer - The number one location to find WordPress themes to make your page cool, which you will most certainly want to do. Templates Now - A smaller collection of WordPress themes, but still worth your while to check out. TemplateMonster - If you want more professional quality themes then this site can be useful. They offer extremely high quality themes that you can purchase for WordPress. Wordpress Themes - a neatly categorized site with a huge selection of themes Akismet - The best blog comment spam prevention plug-in. Ships free with WordPress, but you still have to turn it on and keep it updated. Wordpress Backup - an absolute must if you want to keep your archive in case of something going wrong WP Cache - if your blog ever experiences a burst of traffic, you’ll be thankful you have WP Cache Sitemap Generator - everyone who cares about SEO (and that should be everyone) should have this one Preview Pane - If you upgrade/install WordPress 2.2.x, the Preview Frame has gone missing, as the developers decided to leave it out, and it is a vital tool on checking your posts, so this plug-in restores that functionality. Facebook Photos - A nice WordPress plug-in that allows quick access to your Facebook photos and the ability to integrate them in to any post within WordPress with ease. Flickr Photos - Same as Facebook Photos, but for use with a Flickr account. Related Posts - This plugin lets you display all the posts you have written on the same subject near each post. It increases the chance that a visitor will spend more time browsing your blog posts. Feedburner Feed Replacement - sooner or later, most people switch to Feedburner for their RSS needs. This plugin redirects all the RSS feeds on your blog to the Feedburner one. Might cause problems with Technorati. Ultimate Tag Warrior - an advanced solution for all your tagging problems. Adsense Deluxe - a great way to manage AdSense ads on your blog. Super Archive - Creates a great dynamic archive for your Wordpress blog posts. Stat Traq - Get detailed statistics in a very effective graphical format. Sociable - adds all those cute tiny icons for easy social bookmarking LightBox 2 - A fade effect that you see on a myriad of blogs you visit these days where you click the image, the background fades and then the image itself displays in full view. A very nice effect to have. Official Wordpress Plugins Site - The official Wordpress plugin repository is actually one of the best lists of its kind out there Wp-Plugins - a comprehensive list of Wordpress plugins Wp Plugins DB - another large database of plugins for Wordpress Weblog Tools Collection - an often updated site bringing you the latest Wordpress plugins as they arrive Movable Type Style Library -If you are looking for a way to make your Movable Type blog look fresh, then look no further. The Style Contest - A collection of Movable Type Styles created from contests to create the best styles. Only the best is here. Style Generator - Use this if you wish to take things in to your own hands and create your own Styles for use with Movable Type. MT Notifier - This plug-in gives you a great amount of control of notification options for your users and helps with keeping your users connected to your Movable Type blog. InlineEditor - No more clicking through 3 or more pages to edit your posts on Movable Type, this plug-in allows you to edit through Ajax technology right on the same page as your post. MT Blogroll - If you want to link to your favorite blogs and sites, then you need a “blogroll” (collection of links to sites and other blogs), and this plug-in solves this problem with providing you the ability to create and manage as many “blogrolls” as your heart desires. Official Movable Type Plugin site - a comprehensive alphabetical list of Movable Type plugins Hosting Solutions Dreamhost - Offers a lot for a very small amount of money. CirtexHosting - Hosting plans starting at as little as $2. BlueHost - Another affordable hosting solution. HostGator - Cheap shared personal hosting. Media Temple - Grid based hosting; known to be able to sustain lots of traffic. TypePad - If you are a MovableType fan, then TypePad is the premiere service to be using to host your blog. Blogsite - An enterprise level blogging and publishing platform. Multiple blogs can reside withing one blogsite. Amazing SEO visibility. WordPress - WordPress allows you to create and host a blog on their own servers and you can display it to the world. You don’t get as much customization and functionality as if you have it hosted on your own server (for example, advertising is not allowed), but it is still a very good way to blog without paying money. Blogger - A service owned by Google, Blogger is a way to have your blogs hosted for free and you can post as much as you want. It allows Google’s AdSense to be used. Xanga - iXanga is a lively community of online diaries and journals. Users create their own profiles and there are many opportunities to interact with other users. LiveJournal - LiveJournal is excellent if you wish to blog on a personal level and join a community and share your blogs among friends. Vox - A new contender to the arena but Vox is a very nice and powerful blogging tool; not to mention free!; You receive many social experiences with this option as Vox is based heavily on community based blogging. Tumblr - Tumblr is great if you don’t have time to blog, but still want to share something now and again. It lets you easily post videos, pictures, links, and of course you can write there too. Jaiku - Jaiku allows you the ability to post “mini-blogs” which are short blogs (usually under 140 - 160 characters in length) about whatever you decide. Jaiku also allows you to link together content from other services and social sites that provide RSS/ATOM feeds and they can be displayed as well. Twitter - Twitter lets you say what you are doing in 140 characters or less. Recently new features have been added that have made it into a great communication tool. TextAmerica - A way to blog on the go. You blog with service by adding photos to your mobile blog and then later on you can add text descriptions and people can see your world on the go. Twitter - Twitter also has solid support for blogging from mobile devices. Tips About.com Weblogs - Professional blogger / freelance writer Deborah Ng covers a wide range of blogging topics for all levels of blogger, but is especially good for new bloggers. Advanced Business Blogging - Two people who are really making money with blogs and new media and showing others how to. Blogging for Business - Ted Demopoulos focuses “on practical business implications and uses of new media and technologies, including Blogging and Business, pod-casting, and other ‘Cool Internet Stuff’.” Andy Wibbels - The author of Blog Wild! puts emphasises blogs for small business marketing, but his tips are useful for all bloggers. Problogger - Darren Rowse is the definitive guide to making money with your blog. MasterNewMedia - A site about independent publishing and social media which publishes articles showing how to create effective blogs and improve online marketing strategies. Copyblogger - a great resource of no-nonsense information for bloggers (and everyone else who wants to learn how to write well) DailyBlogTips - a place where you can find useful tips to improve the quality of your blog. Updated daily. Blogging Pro - news, tips and technical support for bloggers. Blogs in Education - a great list of useful resources aimed at those who want to use blogs for educational purposes. 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs - No philosophy, theory or personal rants/raves/ramblings here - just practical tips for business owners. Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog - Tips for increasing the usability of your blog for your users which can lead to new and returning readers. Big list of blog search engines - a very detailed resource for blog search engines. Search Engine Submission Tips - an interesting list of techniques and strategies you can use to make your blog appear in relevant search results. How to Make Money From Your Website - a practical guide that explains the differences between the different advertising systems that you can use on your blog. 25 Tips To Optimize Your Blog For Readers & Search Engines - useful tips that help your blog stand out from the crowd. Research, Promote And Monetize Your Online Writing: A Blogger’s Guide To Twitter - a great guide by Michael Pick that shows you how to get the best out of Twitter. 25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog - a detailed list of tips to help bloggers optimize their site for online marketing. 9 Lessons for Would-be Bloggers - Joshua Porter shares interesting lessons he learned in 7 years of blogging. Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes - Jacob Nielsen writes down a list of the worst things you could do on your blog. How to Become a Freelance Blog Writer - Leo Babauta shows how to become a freelance blog writer and get rewarded. How To Prevent Running Out Of Blogging Steam - Did you run out of words? Here is what you can do when you have to face a situation like that. 13 Tips To Get Your Blog Noticed - a list of short tips to make your blog shine among the others. Blogger Forum - This site has a nice forum with plenty of resources for helping you on your beginnings in blogging. Bloggst - a fairly new community devoted to bloggers, and blogging, with howtos, interviews and other resources. True Blogging - a forum completely dedicated to bloggers, blogging resources and blog monetization. Blogger Talk - great resource for bloggers who want to share their experiences. Bloggeries - a community for bloggers from all over the world to gather and discuss their blogs. Webloggers - forum on marketing blogs, software for bloggers, blogging news and mobile blogging. The Blog Herald - a source of blog and blogging related news for bloggers. Resources Technorati - One of the most popular search engines for blogs; its top list is one of the most often cited metrics on the Internet. Sphere - a blog search engine that offers a contextual widget which shows related posts from other blogs. Google Blog Search - A very simple blog search engine. It’s basically Google Search that only looks through blogs and comments on blogs. Ice Rocket – A Google-like blog search engine. RSSTop55 - the most comprehensive list of blog top lists and blog submission sites onthe net. StatCounter - A completely free statistics and analysis tool for tracking your blog’s numbers. Site Meter - Site Meter comes in two flavors, Site Meter Basic and Site Meter Premium and this service offers advanced analytics of your site statistics. AWStats - A free and open-source alternative to track your site statistics. Feedburner - A wide range of tools to spiff up your RSS feed, including HTML preview, geotagging, merging link and photo feeds, password protection, and one of our favorites - a customizable GIF-based headline animator. They can also insert ads into your feed and have both free and premium analytics. Alexa - Alexa has the statistics for all of the internet and it lets you compare your blog to another. Google Analytics - a free, full-featured (albeit a bit slow) analytics program from Google (ex. Urchin). MeasureMap - another free tool for detailed analysis of your blog’s visitor habits PayPal - PayPal allows you to set up a donations system on your site. Your readers can click a button that will bring them to a page where they can send you some cash. Chitika - Contextual interactive CPC advertising. Requires more screen real estate than AdSense, but tends to have higher click-through rates and payout rates. LinkAdage - Text links and text advertisements to generate revenue from your website by way of bidding, brokering, and exchanging text advertisements. Txtswap - If you want to exchange text links to try and bring in more users, and in turn raise the potential to gain income, this is another service to try. Google AdSense - Almost certainly the largest single source of income to bloggers worldwide. Pay per click and per view. Yahoo Publisher network - pay per click ads, similar to Google AdSense. AdBrite - Get paid for text link advertisements on your blog. Text Link Ads - One of the leading suppliers of text link advertisements. BidVertiser - an advertising system where you set the bids for pay per click ads. ReviewMe - a marketplace for paid blog reviews. PayPerPost - another marketplace for paid blog posts; often criticized, not only because of the idea of paid blog posting, but also due to the fact that they don’t require full disclosure on paid posts. BlogBurst - get your blog syndicated by the bigtime media; best blogs get paid for their content. Spread it Reddit - Social content site with focus on fun stuff, politics, science; sometimes, anything goes. Witty descriptions are obligatory. ClipMarks - A service that allows you to save and share “clips” from web pages. Digg - Social content site that likes technology-related content; especially Google and Apple related. Promoting your own blog - especially too aggressively - on Digg is not a good idea. Blogmarks - another “clipping” service for saving and sharing links from the web. Newsvine - Social news site with plenty of options and features Netscape - Netscape’s social news portal, less oriented towards technology than both Digg and Reddit Del.icio.us - If you need to share bookmarks or you want people to tell you about websites, Del.icio.us will allow you to do that. MyBlogLog - Possibly the coolest blog community building tool around. Doubles as a simple analytics tool. BlogRolling – Blogroll manager. PollDaddy - cool polls for your blog. BlogPolls - another provider of free polls for bloggers Favicon Maker – simple service that enables you to easily create a favicon from an image. Qumana - a desktop blog editor for Mac and Windows. Blogjet - another desktop blog client, works only on Windows. Blogarithm - enables you to track all your content at one place. GeoLoc - a widget that shows your visitors’ locations on a world map. JunkIWant - display your Amazon wishlist as a widget on your blog BlogSticker - create stickers for your blog. MyOpenId - enables you to identify yourself for various online service, using your blog address. BlogFlux tools - several cool tools for bloggers. ImageShack - free photo hosting service. RSS Readers Omea - one of the most fully featured RSS readers out there; can get a little slow as its database grows; free in its basic version, also has a commercial, advanced version with more features Liferea - RSS reader for Gnome users Akregator - RSS reader for KDE Straw - RSS reader for Gnome, supports RSS and ATOM, as well as exporting/importing OPML feeds Snownews - text based RSS reader for all you 1337 people AgileRSS - desktop aggregator that is able to display any RSS, ATOM, and XML news feed; also offers an RSS news ticker Newsfire - RSS reader for OS X NetNewsWire - Newsgator’s RSS reader for the Mac comes in two flavors: commercial and free PixelNews - a commercial Mac OS X RSS reader that comes with a huge database of feeds Shrook - a Mac RSS reader which also has a web based version; supports synchronization, instant notifications via Growl, real time search, smart grouping and more Vienna - a freeware, open source RSS/Atom newsreader, with a built-in tabbed browser and the ability to customize feed display NewsLife - RSS reader for the Mac, pleasing to the eye, simple and easy to use Squeet - another Mac RSS reader, currently on hiatus Mozilla Thunderbird - Mozilla’s e-mail and RSS reader, supports skins and add-ons Awasu - RSS reader with a customizable user interface, the ability to synchronize with other readers, bookmarking and annotation, and republishing of your feeds GreatNews - integrates with Bloglines, and offers a very fast way to browse through your feeds RSS Bandit - RSS reader that offers organization of your feeds through folders, as well as synchronization across several installations IntraVNews - an RSS reader that integrates with Microsoft’s Outlook. SharpReader - requires .NET framework, lets you organize feeds into folders, integrates with Feedster, can display new items via system tray popups eCruiser - an RSS reader in Japanese Juice - a pretty basic RSS reader Opera - Opera web browser comes with a fully featured RSS reader FeedDemon - Newsgator’s feed reader offering a high degree of customization, newspaper-style feed reading, synchronization with other Newsgator products, and feed search Snarfer - a free RSS reader, with key features being river of news style view, embedded video display, synchronization with Bloglines, powerful search and filtering Active RSS Reader - simple RSS reader with a very small hard disk and memory footprint Feed Amasser - a very lightweight, freeware RSS reader FeedExpress - a freeware, open source RSS reader; quite basic, but with some nice features, for example CSS customization Crackfeed - a tiny systray based application that notifies you with RSS news as they come HappyFish - RSS reader and podcast client, requires .NET 2.0 Attensa for Outlook - RSS reader that fully integrates with Outlook, support OPML import/export, scheduling, republishing, and advanced feed organization Briz RSS Reader - a very simple RSS reader Particls - desktop RSS notifier and ticker with lots of options, also has a Firefox plugin Anothr - RSS reader/bot for Skype/Gtalk/MSN RSSOwl - works on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Offers, among other features, a multi-pane, highly customizable interface, OPML and blogroll import, internal browser, and a search engine. BottomFeeder Rich-featured multiplatform RSS reader (works on Linux as well as Windows and OS X), supports CSS customization, OPML import/export, and plugins. BlogBridge - open source RSS aggregator that allows you to create dynamic feed reading lists Google Reader – In addition to tracking your feeds, Google’s popular RSS reader allows you to star items (like in Gmail), view trends in your feeds and reading habits, and recently added an option to read feeds offline. iGoogle – Formerly known as Google Personalized Home, iGoogle allows you to include RSS feeds as part of your custom start page. Netvibes - This personal homepage provider includes hundreds of “modules” you can add to your page from Hotmail to your Flickr photos, but also lets you create your own modules by simply entering an RSS feed URL. Pageflakes – Another personalized homepage provider, Pageflakes functions similar to Netvibes, letting you select from pre-made modules or create your own by adding an RSS feed. My Yahoo! – Still the most widely used custom homepage on the Web, My Yahoo now allows you to add RSS feeds alongside your weather, stock quotes, and news. Similar to Netvibes and Pageflakes, My Yahoo allows you to re-arrange your feeds with drag and drop features. My Netscape – Netscape’s personal homepage service also includes the ability to add RSS feeds as content modules. An account also lets you participate in their Digg-like homepage voting. Daily Rotation – A no-frills personalized homepage aimed targeted at techies, Daily Rotation includes recommended feeds from hundreds of tech sites, and also lets you add in additional feeds of your own choosing. Rojo – A part of Six Apart, Rojo is a web-based reader that combines RSS aggregation with a community of sorts, showing what people are reading on their homepage. Bloglines – One of the early online RSS readers, Bloglines “split screen” interface makes it easy to view the full content of any of your feeds. The service is part of the IAC family of sites. Newsgator – NewsGator’s RSS reader allows you to organize your feeds in Windows-style folders that can be expanded and collapsed. MySindicaat - an advanced online RSS reader with a tree-like feed layout, available in several different flavors, including a mini ticker and a mobile RSS viewer. It also has RSS mixing capabilities. Fwicki - web based RSS reader that lets you create custom river-of-news style feeds. NewsAlloy - a fast and full-featured web based RSS reader. Also has a mobile version. Feeds 2.0 - a personalized RSS aggregator, that learns from your reading habits and displays relevant feeds NewsGator Go! – NewsGator’s mobile version syncs with user’s online accounts, allowing you to read their feeds on the go for $29.95. LiteFeeds – Once downloaded to your phone, LiteFeeds allows you to browse your feeds, email articles to friends, or bookmark them to your del.icio.us account. Egress – This program for Windows Mobile sports a clean UI and also supports podcasts. Egress is available for $12.95. Mobispine – Mobispine is a free Java application for reading your feeds on your mobile. The service also includes a web component where users can add feeds to the Mobispine database, see related feeds, and leave comments. Quick News – Designed for Palm OS, Quick News lets you download feeds either via a HotSync or a direct internet connection for later use, which enables offline (or out of coverage) reading. Bloglines Mobile – The popular web-based reader also offers a browser-based mobile version to access your feeds without downloading anything. FeederReader – This application is designed for phones running Windows Mobile, and bills itself as being especially well suited for developers, allowing you to view the RAW XML files for and its XML elements and attributes. FreeRange – This Java application will work on Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. The site has optional Google Reader integration. Google Reader Mobile – If you use Google Reader, you can access a version designed for mobile phones. ZapTXT for mobile - mobile version of the ZapTXT widget. Feedblitz - one of the most popular RSS to e-mail converters. Supported by FeedBurner. Also has a Firefox plugin. ZapTXT - monitors feeds for certain terms and sends you notifications via e-mail. Also has a mobile version. R|Mail - offers simple subscription to any RSS feed, as well as an R|mail subscription widget which you can use on your site Feed Validator – By entering your feed URL at Feed Validator, the service will literally translate your RSS to code and identify any potential problems. It works with versions of RSS up to 2.0. RSS 1.0 Validator – This validator for RSS 1.0 generates an HTML page identifying any errors. Redland RSS 1.0 Validator & Viewer – This validator offers a variety of display options for checking your feeds. Feedburner - the obvious one. Recently acquired by Google, FeedBurner has become the de facto standard for RSS feed management, offering a huge set of features, including detailed analytics, chicklets, feed optimization and ad insertion. WebPasties - a set of RSS-related tools, including some feed management features FeedPass - creates a nice landing page for your feeds Yahoo! Pipes - an advanced RSS mixer with a graphical user interface; supports simple operators, filters, and many advanced functions Feedbite - a combination of an online RSS reader and an RSS mixer, with the possibility to vote for RSS “bundles” Feedblendr - a very simple RSS mixer that doesn’t require registration Blogsieve - full featured RSS mixer that lets you blend up to 5 feeds and do some advanced filtering on the results Feedcombine - RSS mixer that lets you blend feeds from a list of predefined sources Feedshake - RSS mixing and some basic filtering xFruits - a set of very neat tools for RSS blending, filtering and conversion, including an RSS to PDF tool BlastFeed - an RSS mixer that lets you combine and filter feeds and get them delivered via e-mail, IM or RSS FeedRinse - an advanced RSS filter that enables you to get rid of the “spam” in your RSS feeds FeedDigest - RSS mixer that lets you mix and sort feeds and then republish them on a website Popfly - Microsoft’s very promising RSS mixer, currently in closed beta Google Mashup Editor (GME) - Google’s set of developer tools for creating mashups RSSMesh - a PHP script that lets you blend several feeds into one Afeeda - RSS mixer which lets you blend all your favorite feeds into one Pingoat – On Pingoat, you enter your blog URL and select the services you would like to ping. Doing so will make sure that the selected sites crawl and index your site. The site has nearly 50 different services you can ping. Ping-o-matic – Enter your blog or feed URL and select from a variety of blog search engines and Ping-o-matic will send them a ping. The site has about 20 services to choose from. Blog Flux – In addition to a variety of other tools for bloggers, Blog Flux offers Pinger, which includes more than 30 sites you can automatically ping, including several language specific indexes. ping service – This site is mostly in Dutch and automatically pings a few of the larger services such as Technorati and Weblogs.com Syndic8 - one of the biggest RSS feed directories; integrates with several services on this list Technorati - indexes blogs based on tags and authority, as measured by incoming links. Feedster - organizes feeds into content channels such as technology and celebrity gossip. Blogstreet - places feeds into different directory categories and also has a Digg-like homepage powered by user rankings. Weblogs.com - one of the original feed directories, Weblogs.com simply shows the most recent blog updates automatically as they happen. Icerocket - a blog search engine that also keeps track of blog statistics with their Blog Tracker product. blo.gs - a simple listing of recently updated blogs in the spirit of Weblogs.com. blogdigger - blog search engine, also has a Local feature for finding bloggers in your area. 2rss.com - a categorized blog directory and search engine with about 10,000 feeds indexed. WeBlogALot - a blog directory that also pulls in breaking news feeds from mainstream sources. SearchFeedr - RSS feed search, supports Yahoo!, Google, MSN Live and Altavista FeedCycle - bundles feeds into “episodes” and delivers them on a scheduled/daily basis FeedCrier - brings RSS feeds to your instant messenger Clicky’s RSS feed - Clicky is a web analytics tool which can deliver analytics results via an RSS feed RSS Panel X - a Greasemonkey script that displays RSS, Atom, hAtom and OPML directly from originating website FeedForAll - create and edit RSS feeds and podcasts Radio UserLand - a combination of a publishing platform and a news aggregator Custom Reader - a white label RSS reader solution, ready to be branded to your liking Chaos Wallpaper - RSS reader and wallpaper changer in one FireAnt - RSS reader focused on podcasts, vidcasts, and media NewsAloud - converts RSS feeds to voice RSS2PDF - converts RSS feeds to PDF format Dapper - creates an RSS feed from any website Feedity - another RSS generator that can generate an RSS feed from any website RSSMicro - an RSS search engine; searches over 65 million feeds