Just as you need tools to build and maintain a website, and tools to market a product, you need tools to help you blog more effectively, and to make your blog more interactive for your readers. There are numerous blog tools available that have different uses. You will want to use some, and leave others. Here is a basic rundown of some popular blog tools.
- Bloglog - http://mybloglog.com/ - a tool that allows you to view statistics for your blog. You can see how many visitors your blog is receiving, and where those visitors are coming from, as well as other useful information.
- Post2Blog - http://www.bytescout.com/post2blog.html - a nice blog editor with a great deal of functionality, beyond what is offered by the traditional blogging software.
- Blogarithm - http://www.blogarithm.com/ - A great blog reading tool that will send you an email when any of your favorite blogs are updated. This is a great reader to use, especially if other peoples blogs are an important source of news for your own blog.
- FeedBurner Email Subscription Service - http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/publishers/fbemail - a service that allows your readers to subscribe to your blog, and then be notified by email each time you update.
- Blog Poll - http://www.blogpoll.com/poll/ - A tool that allows you to create and add a poll to your blog, which allows more interaction from your readers.
- Pingoat http://www.pingoat.com and Ping-O-Matic http://www.pingomatic.com two ping services that will allow you to ping multiple services at one time after posting blog entries.
- YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/ - a place to host and find video for your blogs or website.
- IndieKarma - http://www.indiekarma.com/customer/Welcome.xhtml - a payment microprocessor that charges people one cent for reading a blog in the network, for each blog that they read. Blog readers can also opt to increase the amount of money they are paying for reading a blog in the network.
- OnlyWire - http://www.onlywire.com/ - A bookmarklet site that allows you to add bookmarks to several social bookmarking sites at one time.
- CoComment - http://www.cocomment.com/ - A place to keep track of all of the comments that you leave on other peoples blogs. A real time saver when it comes to checking to see if your comments have been commented on.
- Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/ - A place to store your images. If you have a hosted blog, you may not have the ability to store images on the server, and a service such as this provides you with a place to do that.
- Copyscape - http://www.copyscape.com/ - A useful tool that will check to see if any other website or blog owner has stolen your content. Tools like this make it much harder for plagiarizers.
- BlogRolling - http://www.blogrolling.com/ - A service that allows you to create and easily manage your blog roll, or link list, for your blog.
Again, there are numerous other tools available, but these are some of the best and most widely used. Be sure to take advantage of these tools, so that you can make your blog the best that it can be, and you can also make your blogging experience easier and more enjoyable.
