Blogging Accessories, Tools & Hacks

Hi all, my name is Ariel (AJ), and Cory asked me to write a guest post dealing with some of the “extra” tools that are available to bloggers. A little more about me later – let’s get to the heart of this topic!

Building a blog is a gradual process. If you’ve begun to publish posts on a consistent basis, you may start wondering how to improve your blog further – how to personalize it and make it stand out in a crowd. Of course, the best way to make your blog unique is to write good content, but there’s also a technology dimension.

I’m not really a geek, but I do like blog tools and hacks, especially when they make my blog look good. This list represents some of my favorite blogging extras. I use Blogger, but most of these should work regardless of what platform you’re blogging on.

Blogging Accessories
These are my favorite blog-related online tools.

Firefox is my browser of choice because it’s customizable, with lots of extensions and shortcuts that lend themselves to blogging. Once you sign up, be sure to take a look at GreaseMonkey – a really great extension for bloggers.

The feedreader par excellence; I use Bloglines to read my favorite blogs in one place. (You can subscribe to my blog, BitterSweetLife, as a test case.:)

CoComment tracks all the comments you leave on any topic anywhere. Tag your comments with descriptive labels, keep track of the blogs & forums you’ve visited, and, best of all, see instantly if anyone has replied to your cutting-edge observations.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site where you can store all your favorite web pages and index them with tags. It’s like a searchable, massive bookmark collection, because you can view other people’s collections as well (and even subscribe). I post a lot of my favorite blogs to del.icio.us so I can find them later, and also have a dedicated account that I use to index BitterSweetLife.

LibraryThing is an ingenius online platform for people who love books. Easily create a tag-able, search-able, share-able list. Then show off your excellent taste in books with a sidebar widget (like I do).

Pandora Internet Radio
This “music genome project” lets you find music you like and create “radio stations” featuring your favorite tunes. Then you can add your radio station to your blog with some simple code.

Blog Tools
These programs and hacks give your blog extra functionality. Some of them will require adding code to your template. If you’re not familiar with HTML, be sure to proceed with caution. Check Blogger Help for lots of step-by-step template instruction. And always “preview” your changes before you save.

Feedburner is the top dog when it comes to customizing your blog’s RSS feed. Once you understand the basics of RSS, (think of it as making your blog content “portable”) get a free account to add personality to your feed. A good RSS feed means more readers.

More than a directory, Technorati is a community of users who search and tag blog content. Be sure to “claim” your blog so you can take advantage of the stats, news and publicity. Technorati also provides widgets for your sidebar – blog search and “which blogs link here?”

Statcounter is a free service that tracks your blog visitors with lots of demographic information; it also monitors links and page loads to reveal which of your posts are the most popular, most searched-for, etc.

Meebo is a message platform that channels all your IM accounts (AIM, MSN, Gtalk, etc.) into one place and lets you put an IM box on your blog for real-time conversations.

BlogFlux
BlogFlux provides multiple services including a directory, button-maker, and stat tracking.

FreshBlog is the source of a lot of the hacks that I’ve incorporated on BitterSweetLife. There are a lot of guys in their basements writing hacks for Blogger; FreshBlog acts as a kind of clearinghouse for the really good ones.

Blogger Hacks Wiki
This is a list of the better Blogger Hacks, continuously updated by a group of smart guys.

This “1ClickNotifier” hack for Blogger allows you to send an email to people who have commented on your blog, notifying them that you’ve responded.

The “Evangelical Aggregator” is a massive listing of evangelical Christian blogs. Signing up with them may or may not add credibility/traffic to your site…

TTLB Ecosystem
This definitive blog directory doubles as a blog-ranking system. You’ll want to sign up, even if your blog does begin life as an “insignificant microbe.”

Free Email Forms
Adding a contact form to your blog encourages interaction while killing spam. This is the same service I use.

BlogRolling
If you’re the type of person who puts a lot of links in your sidebar, BlogRolling is an easy way to manage your link list and customize the way your links are displayed.

Blog Directories
Listing your blog in directories and search engines will expose your writing to a wider audience. This list is definitely not exhaustive, but here are some of the better known blog directories where I’ve listed my blog, BitterSweetLife. You should also submit your blog to the main search engines like Google and Yahoo.

[Ariel Vanderhorst lives in Kansas City with his wife, Lindsay, and their first child, Aidan. He attends Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and enjoys playing basketball, reading theology, and pretending to be a technology geek. He blogs at Christian Spirituality - BitterSweetLife, and wishes he could write like C.S. Lewis.]