Senin, 26 November 2007

Blog Tools

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A couple of months ago I asked readers to share which blog tools they use the most in some of the following areas. The suggestions were a nice start but I’d like to see the list expand as I’m certain there are more blog tools and services out there.

Please note that I’ve decided not to add ‘hosting packages’ to this list and am attempting to keep it to products that directly help bloggers blogs improve rather than more general organizational/business products. Lastly I’m not including actual blogging platforms - if you’re interested in these and how to choose between them you might like my Choosing a Blog Platform post.

Here’s the list of suggestions so far - what would you add to it?


Statistics Packages and Metrics Tools
• Sitemeter
• Google Analytics
• My Blog Log
• WebAnalyse
• Performancing Metrics
• AWStats
• Mint
• Extreme
• Webalizer
• Stat Counter
• Measure Map
• Slim Stat


Blog Editor Tools
• Ecto for Mac and Windows
• Qumana
• BlogJet
• Zoundry
• w.bloggar
• Blog Desk
• Post2Blog
• Performancing for Firefox
• Mars Edit


News Aggregators and News Sourcing Tools
• Bloglines
• FeedDemon
• Technorati
• Google Reader
• Website Watcher
• BlogPulse
• Blogarithm
• Topix
• Blog Bridge
• Grazr
• Rojo
• Memeorandum
• NewsGator Online
• Net News Wire


Email Subscription Tools and Newsletter Services
• FeedBlitz
• Zookoda
• Aweber
• Yutter
• RssFwd
• Feedburner’s Email Subscription Service

Blog Poll Tools
• Blog Polls.com
• Vizu
• Free Blog Poll
• Blog Poll
• Blog Flux Polls
• WP Polls

Other Blog Tools
• Pingoat – pinging service
• Pingomatic – another pinging service
• AudioBlogger – audio post to your blog via phone
• BlogRolling – a service to manage your blog roll
• Creative Commons – copyright protections service
• Feedburner – RSS tool that adds a variety of features to your blog’s RSS feed
• Picasa – find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC
• Flickr – Store and share your images - good way of hosting images if you don’t have a stand alone blog on your own domain.
• Flock – A browser that enables sharing and blogging from within it
• Copyscape – allows you to track down other sites that are stealing your content
• TalkDigger – ‘find, follow and join conversations evolving on the Internet.’
• Blog Flux – Stats, Pinging and Directory

• Backpack It – A place to organise your to do lists, notes, files, reminders and more - all online
• Basecamp – Like Backpack it (same people behind it) but great for collaboration on projects.
• Ice Rocket – Blog Search
• coComment – Keep track of the comments you leave on different blogs in a central place
• co.mments – Similar name to coComment but not to be confused with it - a way of bookmarking and following comment threads via RSS
• Gabbly – Add live chat to our blog posts (like real time comments combined with IRC)
• Del.icio.us – Social Bookmarking site - good for sourcing stories but also great if you get linked to on it to get traffic
• Digg – Another major Social Bookmarking site
• Only Wire – a bookmarklet that submits posts to multiple social bookmarking sites at once
• Odeo – a tool for recording and sharing audio/podcasting
• TagCloud – produces Tag Clouds for your blog from RSS feeds
• Indie Karma – a micropayment system for bloggers
• Tiny URL – Turns long URLs into tiny manageable ones
• Swicki – a new type of search engine that harnesses the power of a web community - sort of like a search engine and wiki combined
Filmloop – photo sharing
• Stock.xchng – Free Stock Photos
• Favicon Maker – allows you to make a favicon from a photo
• YouTube – a tool for putting video on your blog
• blip.tv – another video uploading tool

Do you know of other great blog tools? Feel free

Selasa, 20 November 2007

Monetizing WordPress Plugins

There are a lot of ways you can add ads to your WordPress blog. As part of my month long series on WordPress Plugins, I thought I’d take a glimpse into WordPress Plugins that help you monetize your WordPress blog.

WordPress Plugins that add ads to your blogs may assign advertising blocks to specific areas, or allow you to customize where they appear. Others will automatically inject them between blog posts or within the post content itself.

Note: For the most part, the following WordPress Plugins involve editing your WordPress Theme template files in order to add the Plugin template tag exactly where you wish the generated information to appear. For information and tips on installing any of these WordPress Plugins in WordPress Themes, see How to Install, Configure, and Use WordPress Plugins.

Adding Adsense Ads to Your WordPress Blogs
For a long time, AdSense from Google was one of the most popular methods of monetizing your blog. Thus, there are a lot of WordPress Plugins to help you add AdSense to your blog.
Adsense Deluxe WordPress Plugin place the above AdSense Deluxe screen to your Wordpress options panel. From there you can create multiple AdSense ad units and decide what parts of the site should have or not have ads, and what ad sizes to run. The Adsense Deluxe+ WordPress Plugin claims they go farther to help you customize your ad placement and improved performance.

AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System WordPress Plugin helps you track your AdSense earnings and impressions, including publicizing the information. Other WordPress Plugins that will help you track your Adsense income include
Adsense Clicks Tracker and Adsense Earnings WordPress Plugin.
Author Adsense Wordpress Plugin permits ads to be displayed by author, so the post author gets credit for the ads, not the blog itself. For multiple blogger blogs, this is an interesting way to share the wealth.
AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar
Adsense Injection Wordpress Plugin
Adsense Inline Wordpress Plugin
MightyAdsense Wordpress Plugin
Adsense Attachment WordPress Plugin
Mighty Adsense WordPress Plugin
Google AdSense Referral Rotator WordPress Plugin Widget
Adsense-Paster Plugin for WordPress

Amazon.com WordPress Plugins
There are several different Plugins that will help you add Amazon.com ads, wishlists, current reading lists, and other Amazon ad types to your WordPress blog.
The powerhouse of all things Amazon.com for WordPress is Amazon Media Manager WordPress Plugin. There is a lot of flexibility and customization in this Plugin. It’s been around for a few years and only gets better with time.

The Amazon Media Manager allows you to select Amazon.com books, music, and products from within your WordPress Administration Panels and easily add them to your WordPress blog in a variety of ways. It keeps track of what you’ve added, and helps you choose how to display the ads, and so much more.
Now Reading WordPress Plugin incorporates data from Amazon.com and allows you to add a “review” or commentary about the book or product.
WP-Amazon WordPress Plugin lets you to search Amazon as you write your post and embed the Amazon information directly into your blog post or Page.
Last Amazon Review WordPress Plugin showcases your most recent review on Amazon.com, helping you to promote the book or product. It features customized configuration of the incoming information and is also available as a Widget to work with Widgitized WordPress Themes.
Amazon Wishlist WordPress Plugin lets you put your Amazon.com wishlist on your WordPress blog, a nice way of asking for books in lieu of money.
Other Advertising WordPress Plugins For Your WordPress Blog
A lot of advertising javascripts and links require no special features to add to your WordPress Theme, but sometimes, a little WordPress Plugin help goes a long way.
CafePress WordPress Plugin allows you to create an online store front for selling your blog products through CafePress.
eMiniMall WordPress Plugin works with Chitika’s eMiniMalls to integrate them into your WordPress blog.
Text Ads Link Sidebar WordPress Widget helps you add Text Ads Links to your sidebar.
AdKit24 WordPress Plugin adds an ad bar for your WordPress blog with configuration through the WordPress Administration Panels.
TicTap Ads WordPress Plugin helps you add TicTap Contextual Ads ads to your blog.
Bidvertiser WordPress Plugin for Bidvertiser ads.
Many large website and blog supporting advertisers feature their own WordPress Plugins to help you add their ads to your blog.

Ad and Banner Rotator WordPress Plugins
There are a variety of random generators and rotators you can use to feature random ads and banners on your WordPress blog. Some are simple scripts while others are easy-to-use and highly customizable WordPress Plugins.

WPAds WordPress Plugin provides rotating options but also allows you to define the ad positions on your blog. It supports AdSense, Yahoo Publishers Network, and other ads including image banners.
PHPAdsNew Integration WordPress Plugin helps to add an ad banner or other content to your WordPress blog.
Other general ad rotating scripts and WordPress Plugins include:
Photomatt’s Random Image Rotator
Image Rotator PHP from Automatic Labs
Andersdrengen - Randomizer WordPress Plugin
AdRotator

Shopping Cart WordPress Plugins
I thought I would find more WordPress Plugins that help you set up a store front or online shopping cart, but I only found two.
Instinct e-Commerce Light WordPress Plugin adds a shopping cart to your WordPress blog for selling products and services, or for accepting fees online.
YAK WordPress Plugin is simple to use, allowing association of products with specific blog posts and more. There are some customization options and it adds two Admin Panels to your WordPress blog for showing and fulfilling orders, helping you keep track of orders, and managing products.

Are you familiar with any other shopping cart style WordPress Plugins?
PayPal Donations WordPress Plugins
There are several WordPress Plugins and Widgets that will help you include a PayPal Donate Button on your WordPress blog, which is especially helpful for WordPress Plugin and Theme authors.
They include:
EasyPayPal WordPress Plugin
PayPal Donate Plugin for WordPress Widget
Simple PayPal Donate Plugin
Paypal Donate WordPress Plugin

Adding Ads to Feeds
While I’m not personally a fan of ads on feeds, here are some WordPress Plugins to help you add ads to your WordPress feeds. Be aware that some advertisers will not allow you to run their ads in your feeds. Check your Terms and Conditions before using any of these.
Better Feed WordPress Plugin supposedly offers an option for adding ads to your feeds. Other WordPress Plugins that allow ads on feeds include:
PostPost WordPress Plugin (Commission Junction and Adsense)
WordPress Plugin: Pre and Post Feed Content
Feedvertising WordPress Plugin for Text Link Ads

Monitoring Other People’s Money
There are only a few WordPress Plugins that will help you monitor other people’s money, and maybe some of your own, though there are a lot of Google Gadgets you can use are similar to Widgets and Plugins, and integration into WordPress is fairly easy.
Stock Quote Tooltip WordPress Plugin allows you to create a hover mouseover effect over the link of any business to display the stock quotes in an AJAX mini window, similar to the Snap Preview effect.
Stock Quote Sidebar allows you to customize which stocks you want to follow and displays them as a list of stock quotes in your sidebar.
Stock Chart Widget displays a chart of your stock quotes in WordPress Widget.
Web 2.0 Rubble Widget is a regular Widget you can add to Widget-enabled WordPress Themes that tracks 10 Web 2.0 type stocks that are considered “popular”.
Move The Markets Post Stocks List WordPress Plugin isn’t the name of this Plugin which the author hasn’t yet named. Still, it’s an interesting stock market and investment oriented WordPress Plugin. It scans your post for stock market symbol names (like Exchange: SYMBOL, NYSE: CSX, Nasdaq: SUNW) and creates a table at the bottom of each post with links to search results for that ticker symbol on Yahoo, Google, and StockTickr.
Monetizing Your WordPress Blog

I’m sure I’ve missed a few good WordPress Plugins that help you add ads and money-making fun to your WordPress blog. Any tips, tricks, or recommendations?

A - Z of Professional Blogging Tools

A
AdSense - contextual ad program by Google
Adbrite - sell text ads
Amazon Associates - popular affiliate program
aStore - add an Amazon Store to your Blog
AdGenta - text ads by Qumana (see ‘Q’)
AdRotator - WP ad rotating plugin
Akismet - Comment Spam Fighting Tool
Adhearus - pay per click advertising
AdWords - the advertisers side of AdSense - many bloggers use it to promote their blogs
AzoogleAds - advertising system
Audio Blogger - adds audio to your blog
B
Build A Niche Store- add an eBay store to your site
Bidvertiser - bid based advertising
Blog Ads - blog advertising network
Blog Jet - blog editing tool
Blog Desk - blog editing tool
Bloglines - Web based RSS feed reader
BlogPulse - blog search tool
BlogPolls - tool for putting polls on your blog
Blog Poll - another blog poll tool
Backpackit - useful organizational tool
Blogger.com - blog platform
Bloggers for Hire - bloggers looking for work and potential employers looking for bloggers
BlogSitter.net - service for find guest bloggers while you take a holiday
BlogBurst - syndicates bloggers content for mainstream medium
logFlux - blog services portal
BlogRolling - a blogroll management tool
Blogbeat - blog metrics tool
Blogger Jobs - a blog following the advertising of blog jobs
C
Chitika eMiniMalls - advertising program
CrispAds - blog advertising network
Creative Commons - copyright licenses
Copyscape - tool for checking for content theft/plagiarism
Clicksor - advertising program
Clickbank - library of many affiliate products
Commission Junction - collection of many affiliate programs
Casale Media - advertising solution
D
Del.icio.us - social bookmarking
Digg - social bookmarking
Drupal - blog platform
DomainsBot - a tool for finding domain names
Digital Point - useful forum for webmasters
E
Ecto - blog editing tool
Expression Engine - blog platform
Endo - News aggregator for Mac Users
Ether - lets readers book a consulting call with you from your sidebar
F
Feedburner - RSS feed management tool - also provides Feed Advertising
Feedster - RSS search Tool
FeedDemon - RSS reader from NewsGator
FeedBlitz - email blog and RSS subscription service
Flickr - photo sharing and hosting
Flock - a browser with in built blogging
Furl - social bookmarking
Free Blog PollsFilmLoop - free photocasting network
Feedpass - RSS management - integrates with AdSense
Favicon Maker - make Favicons from photos
G
Google Analytics - Metrics Tool
Gabbly - add chat to your blog
Google Reader - RSS reader
Gnoos - Australian made blog search tool
Google News - tracking news - many use it as a source of content
Google Blog Search - Google’s…. blog search
Google Sitemaps - get indexed in Google
H
Haloscan - a free commenting system for blogs (a little dated but I was a tad desperate for a ‘H’
I
IntelliTXT - In text advertising
Ice Rocket - blog search engine
J
Jar (as in Tip Jar) - many bloggers ask their readers for donations/tips - but few make much from them
K
Kanoodle - Advertising program
Kontera - In text advertising
Keyword and Backlink Tracker - Search Engine ranking tool
L
LiveJournal - Blog Platform
Linkshare - Affiliate Program
M
Mars Edit - Blog Editing Tool
Memeorandum - Tracking and Aggregating news from blogs
MyBlogLog - Metrics Tool
int - Blog Metrics Tool
ovableType - Popular blog platform
MeCommerce - Sidebar shop - in beta
MSN Adcenter - Coming Soon - Contextual ads
N
NewsGator - RSS News Readers
Nichebot - keyword research tool
Nameboy - domain name generator
Nucleus CMS - open source blog platform
Netvibes - RSS News Aggregator
etscape Beta - Social Bookmarking Tool
O
Only Wire - social bookmarking service
Overture Keyword Tool - keyword research tool
P
Performancing - great blog, firefox blog editor and metrics tools
Pheedo - RSS advertising
ost2Blog - Blog Editing tool - blog using Word, IE or Firefox
Pingoat - Pinging Tool
Pingomatic - Pinging Tool
pMachine - Blog Platform
Paypal - Payment tool - used by many affiliate programs and ad systems to pay publishers
PPCalc - Paypal Fee Calculator
PubSub - service that notifies you of new content
Photobucket - image and video hosting
Q
Qumana - Blog Editing Tool
R
Rojo - RSS feed reader
RocketPost - Blog posting tool
Right Media - advertising
Rmail - subscribe from any RSS feed to email
S
Sitemeter - a free website stats tool used by many bloggers
Six Figure Blogging - learn to make money blogging (one of my blogging resources)
Shoplinc - add a Chitika store to your blog
Scoopt Words - service to sell bloggers content to mainstream media editors
Sitening - Search Engine ranking tracker
Sparklines - sidebar widgets/graphs
Skype - VOIP tool for networking, podcast interviews etc
Spam Karma - WP comment spam tool
Sitepoint - Forums for webmasters
Slide - photo hosting, slideshows etc
SoloSub - RSS feed management tool
Squidoo - good alternative place to put content, make money and promote your blog
Snap - a preview tool to give your readers a preview of external links on your blog
T
Text Link Ads - text link advertising system
Technorati - Blog Search engine
Topix - News service - used by many bloggers to find stories
TagCloud - tool for making tag clouds
TinyURL - make long URLs tiny ones
TypePad - Hosted Blogging Platform
Tribal Fusion - Impression Based Ads
3bubbles - live chat on a blog
U
Unobtrusive Sidenotes - a way of putting sidenotes in your posts
V
ValueClick - Impression Based Ad Program (was FastClick)
Vizu - blog polls tool
Vox - a new blogging/social bookmarking platform from Six Apart (in beta)
W
WordPress - Blog Platform - very popular
w.bloggar - blog editing tool
Webpad - web based text editor
Weblogs.com - recently updated blogs - aggregator
WebmasterWorld - forums for webmasters
X
Xanga - Weblog Community
Y
YPN - Contextual Advertising Service
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
YouTube - Video Hosting/Sharing
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
Yahoo News - Tracking News from around the Web
Z
Zookoda - RSS to Email and Newsletter tool
Zoudry - blog editor

Free Essential Tools for Blogger Blogs

So you have decide to create your first blog on Blogger. It has a simple and fine interface that takes care of many things for you. This is my suggestion to you for your first free essential must haves for your blog.

1. Feedburner - It generates an smart feed compatible with all feed readers for free like my feed. It allows you to put easy subscribe buttons for XML, Add to yahoo, Add to Newsgator, Add to MSN etc. Read about how their single feed policy can benefit you.

It can give you a cool feed count chicklet button to show how many readers are using your feed to read your blog. It also gives you a headline animator which you can attach to your blog to display the recent 5 posts in a nice animated fashion. You can get an authentic Creative Common license, get a browser friendly RSS feed, Splice photos and links and more…

2. Haloscan - Trackback is an essential component of blogging these days. Unfortunately Blogger does not have trackback. Haloscan provides you with a seamless way to integrate free trackback in your blog by adding a small code. You can also integrate their comments component if you like to replace the Blogger comments. Read about Haloscan or Blogger comments.

The benefits are that you can edit Haloscan comments, and open them in a pop up and keep them separate from your post (Blogger allows you to only delete comments and not edit them, also on the post page all comments will show whether you like it or not).

The main disadvantage is it will not email you these comments (like Blogger) for free and it is difficult to track where these comments were made. Another major benefit is that it allows you to send pings and trackback to other sites when you mention about them in your posts.

3. Imageshack - Dont you want to fill your blog with images without hassles of registration. Imageshack provides an excellent interface to take care of your free image hosting needs. Maybe it is this the fastest way to host an image on the web. Allows lots of image format, hotlinking, transloading from other sites. Its a good idea to register to keep track of all your images in one place. It is much convenient than the proposed Hello and Picassa options…

Update: Blogger enabled hosting of images on its own webspace making it easier to host images in your posts. But you cannot manage or edit / delete your blogger images in any way

4. Technorati - Create and add a technorati profile. It allows you to claim your blog in this huge blogosphere. It allows you to put an excellent technorati search on your blog. The best part is that whenever someone mentions or links to any page of your blog, technorati knows and a search for your blog on technorati shows exactly how many sites link to which pages of your blog and when they were added with a small description. See why you need a technorati account.

5 - Sitemeter - Just takes 5 minutes to get a free tracker which gives you realtime site traffic statistics to check the quantity and quality of your site traffic with detailed referrer and geographic data. I have checked out several other tracking sites, but this one seems the best. Although you need to keep a counter visible (as a logo, visitor counter) and the statistics can be made private too.

StatCounter gives much more detailed statistics and the counter is totally invisible and free totally till you start getting large traffic, when you need to pay. But the disadvantage is that both of these track the last 100 visitors only, while another free service Extreme Tracking tracks them all… but you statistics cannot be made private. More options I like are Google Analytics for deep traffic statistical analysis and it is hidden too.

6. Feedblitz - It quickly allows your blog visitors to subscribe by email to your new posts. They just have to enter their email. You decide which page opens after they press Subscribe. A quick confirmatory email to them and they get 1 email daily with all your new posts. You can decide if you want to send the full post or short posts with defined number of characters. Very good to keep your subscribers informed of new posts. It allows them to unsubscribe easily also. Example for our blog.

7. My Blog Log - Tracks outgoing links to let you know where your traffic is going. The free limited version data is not in much detail, yet provides a good idea. You can also add a Top 5 Our Links module to your web site. Now they have a MyBlogLog community to get some extra site traffic too.

8 AudioBlogger- Audioblogger allows free unlimited audio posts from any phone to your Blogger blog. You call the number (Currently a US phone number), record a post, then your blog is updated with an audioblogger icon and a link to your recorded audio.

9. w.bloggar - It is a Post and Template editor, with several features and resources that the browser based blog editors do not offer. It enables users to have only one interface to several accounts hosted on several different sites, using different publishing systems. Helps to manage multiple blogs on Blogger very effectively.

10 Blogger Mobile - opens a new concept of Moblogging i.e. blogging by your mobile phone. When you send text or photos from your mobile device to go@blogger.com they’re automatically posted to your new blog page.

11. Blogexplosion - helps you get confirmed traffic to your blog. The principle is simple, you visit other peoples blogs and they visit yours. For every 2 blogs you visit, one visitor comes to you. This is very good if you are new blogger and have hardly any traffic. Definitely try the Rent a Blog advertising swap service.

12. Pingoat - Pinging lets dozens of blogging services know you’ve updated your site and increases traffic to your blog. Just enter your blog name and blog home page, check the blogging services you want to ping, just click ‘Submit Pings’ and in one click it pings all of them. Pingoat offers a wide variety of such services and is fast too. See many more one click pinging services.

13. Creative Commons - It offers a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists. They have built upon the “all rights reserved” of traditional copyright to create a voluntary “some rights reserved” copyright. They are nonprofit and all tools are free and useful to highlight the way in which you want others to use you content.

14. Google Adsense and Search - When you take all effort to write for a blog, why not optimize it to make some money. Let users search for good posts in your blog. And now it even helps to monetize you feeds.

Free Blogger Template

Blogspot is one of the favorite blogger program. In this case DStudio Bali try to participate and make a free blogger template.
All free template we provide here are optimise for better SEO and we have add another widget from several site. If you use this template please leave the link back to our site.
And here the list of my Free Blogger Template :
Clean Grey and Blue Blogger Template
Free Blogger Beta Template - Simple All Bali
GreenandBlack - Free Blogger Beta Template
 
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