Archive for the ‘Blogging Tools’ Category:
5 Analytics Tools You May Have Missed
When people talk about Analytics software, many think about Google Analytics or Compete.com. In reality, there are plenty of less known analytical web apps that can help you find out more about your blog, social profiles, and much more. In most cases you won’t have to spend a fortune to get your hands on them.
If you have tried Google Analytics and Woopra in the past and want to try other tools to gather even more knowledge about your visitors, these 5 analytics web tools are worth a try:
Klout: a wonderful Twitter analytics tool that shows you what you have been doing wrong and helps you figure out things you need to do to take your Twitter strategy to the next level.
Mouseflow: records your visitors and shows you how they interact with certain elements on your website. Great tool if you are planning to set up a landing page or optimize an existing one.
Add a Forum To Your Blog with Tal.ki
Adding a forum to your blog is a great way to get your visitors to stay on and continue engaging other members in your community. There are plenty of third-party solutions that bloggers can take advantage of to implement a forum on their blogs. If you are not technical, that could be a bit complicated. That’s where Tal.ki comes in. It’s a light-weight forum script that you can add to any website to keep people talking without leaving your website.
Tal.ki may be a forum script, but it has a few social features as well. For starters, your visitors can use their Twitter or Facebook credentials (just to name a few) to log on to your forums. The fun part is, Tal.ki automatically detects your website’s background and font and customizes your forums accordingly.
DirectoryPress: Add a Web Directory To Your Blog
In the past, I have talked about ways you can add more features to your blog and provide more value to your readers, as a result. It’s all about finding ways to evolve your blog. Adding a web directory to your blog (as a resource for your visitors) is one way to do just that. DirectoryPress is a cool WordPress script that lets you accomplish that task in a flash.
Web directories may be the old school way of organization information, but it’s still very effective. No matter what niche you are in, you are not going to be the only player involved. It pays to do some research and find out about goods and services that your readers may find handy. DirectoryPress is designed to let you organize your information in a more effective fashion.
iThoughts HD: Create Your Own Mindmaps on iPad
It always surprises me when I see bloggers who are just “winging” it. Most successful bloggers have a clear content strategy for their blogs. They spend a lot of time improving their plans and adding new dimensions to their business strategy. Of course, those who are just winging it are much more susceptible to blundering and falling into traps. Bloggers need to wear many hats, making it easy to miss those smallest details and important things. That’s why I always use mind-maps to plan my next moves more effectively. Mind-maps not only make it easier to gather my thoughts, they also let me discover new ideas and areas to address on my blog.
iThoughts HD is a wonderful iPad application that lets you take create and modify your mind-maps on your tablet on the road. It enables you to visually organize your ideas and stay on the right track at all times. It’s also compatible with MindManager, NovaMind, and FreeMind. So once you have designed your mind-map on your iPad, you can transfer it to your desktop for further changes. Read more »
Read Like a Pro On Your iPad with GoodReader
As a blogger, you are going to have to read a couple of books each and every week (at least!) to keep yourself up to date with things that are going on in your niche and learn new things. The more you know about more topics, the better chance you have of coming up with unique blogging ideas. After all, you can’t always talk about the news and need to add your unique insights to your blogs from time to time. The iPad is your friend in that regard. It makes it so easy to keep up with the latest blogs and even helps you manage your blogging business on the road (if a president can run a country with an iPad, you can definitely run your blog with it). Unfortunately, the iPad is not exactly very flexible when it comes to working with your files. You can always drag and drop your files to iTunes and sync your device that way but wouldn’t it be nice if you could just use your iPad a big flash drive? That’s where GoodReader comes into play. It’s a very easy-to-use document reader for your iPad that lets you transfer your large PDF and text files to your iPad (from your computer) without too much hassle.
Opening large PDF files on handheld devices could be quite a hassle. GoodReader can open those kinds of files without keeping you waiting for minutes. It also supports .doc, PowerPoint, and Excel files. So you can go through your blog charts and presentations on your iPad. It is capable of handling mixed content (text + video or audio), so that is a plus.
Become an Organized Blogger with ToDo.ly
There are some folks who can operate in total chaos and can stay productive at the same time. I prefer using to-do lists and reminders to keep on the top of the tasks I need to tackle on a daily basis. I have found out that using check lists and to-do lists has made me more productive. The problem that I have had with some of the to-do lists software packages on the market is the fact that they don’t allow you to sync your information online and access them on the go. That’s something you won’t have to worry about with ToDo.ly. It’s a simple-to-use to-do management web application that lets you keep track of your daily activities and get more done no matter where you are.
ToDo.ly is an intuitive all in one task management solution that lets you keep track of your projects and your daily tasks online. For starters, it’s free of charge. So you won’t have to spend money to take advantage of it at this point. The interface is very easy to use and the drag and drop feature comes in handy. The service makes managing projects a whole lot easier. It’s a powerful task manager too as you can use smart filters to tackle things that matter the most and need to get done first. Read more »
Track Your Blog Niche on iPad with The Early Edition
The iPad is one heck of a life saver if you are a blogger. Blogging and keeping track of the news on iPhone is fun, but it’s not exactly ideal as the screen is small and typing and reading is not that easy on the eyes. The iPad can not only act as an e-book reader, it can also help you keep track of the latest news and feeds in your niche. Tools such as The Early Edition make the process much easier. The Early Edition enables you to make a daily newspaper out of your favorite blogs, websites, forums, and Twitter streams. So it’s a news tracker on steroids.
The Early Edition checks for the latest news and updates based on the items that you have added to track, and it will gather the data and presents it in form of a newspaper. You can then skim through pages to find stories that interest you or get a sense about what the web is buzzed about.
Create an iPhone App for Your Blog with Blogapper
In case you haven’t noticed, many top bloggers have started offering iPhone applications for their blogs. While many of these apps are pretty simple and not too fancy, they do allow their owners to reach out to more people and give their readers more ways to read their content online. Many assume that you have to be a super programmer or invest a lot of money to take advantage of the iPhone platform to take your blog to the iPhone community. That can’t be further from the truth when you can use apps such as Blogapper to create an iPhone application around your blog fast.
Blogapper gives you an affordable way to create an iPhone app for your blog without having to know iPhone programming. All you have to do is choose the layout for your blog, upload your graphics and customize every section of your iPhone app to get the job done.
3 Powerful Social Toolbars For your Blog
In case you haven’t noticed, many bloggers are now adding social footer bars to their blogs to let their visitors communicate and connect with them more effectively. Whether you have a Facebook fan page or just a Twitter account that you want your blog visitors to take notice of, social app bars can help you get more people to pay attention to your other online presences. Social toolbars have been around for a while. I was never a big fan of them as I found to be detrimental to my sites’ usability. But the latest wave of blog toolbars are much more user-friendly and don’t slow sites down either.
If you have multiple social profiles that you want to promote on your blog (in your footer section), here are 3 blog toolbars you should consider:
Wibiya: Wibiya is my favorite social media toolbar. It’s not only very easy to install no matter what platform you are using to run your blog, it also comes with a ton of apps that you can use to promote almost anything on your blog. Read more »
How To Track Your Clicks with ClickMeter
Whether you are posting affiliate links to your blog or want to make sure how many clicks your banners get, it’s always nice to have a tool that lets you know exactly how many clicks you have gotten, and how many of them are possibly fraudulent. ClickMeter is an innovative service that is designed to help you figure out just that and more. If you have a URL that you want to track more closely, ClickMeter has you covered.
You can essentially think of ClickMeter as a URL shortening and management tool. It allows you to add your own links to your dashboard easily and track unique clicks and possible fraud clicks at all times. Once you have added your URL to the system, you can use the links on your dashboard to upload your link to social networking website or just map their links (see above image). Read more »
