Posts Tagged ‘tools’
Make Your Blog Social Media Friendy with Boostpost
In the past few weeks, I have talked about how you can optimize your blog for the search engines and making it future proof. One of the best ways to do that is by optimizing your blog for the social media by giving your readers the option to share your content on top social networking website. Whether you are writing a technical blog or one about your own life, people may find your posts interesting enough to want to share them on Delicious, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Boostpost is a cool handy service that lets you give you users the option to do just that.
As long as you are targeting one of the more popular social media sites on the web, Boostpost should have you covered. It comes with a set of attractive button widgets that you can install on your blog to let your users share your stories and get you more exposure in the long run. Read more »
Find a Blog Domain with Nomaine
These days it’s very tough to find a blog domain that is easy to remember and brandable. Most straight forward domains seem to have been taken. After all, there are a lot of domainers out there that take pleasure in registering all kinds of domains only to sell them for huge profits in a short period of time. But there are tools out there that can help you find those hidden gems of domains that are still available. Nomaine is one of those tools. It’s a theme-based domain finder engine that can find you a decent domain (depending on your niche).
Nomaine is very easy to use. All you have to do is choose from the selection of themes available, define min and max limits for your domain and add your prefix and suffix words to optimize your results. The engine will go to work for you and searches for domains that are still available for pick up. The advantage of using this tool is that it can find you a general domain that applies to your niche. Keyword-based engines can be frustrating to work with and are often not that effective. With this tool, you can save time and find domain names that usually wouldn’t find with other tools.
5 Free Tools To Schedule Tweets Ahead of Time
I am personally not a big fan of automating Twitter tasks. Not the ones that don’t need to be automated (e.g. adding friends, tweeting, …). But sometimes, you’ll need to wait before you can tweet something. Sometimes, you are going to be away for a few weeks, but you don’t want your Twitter account to become stagnant. Whatever the case, having a tool that would allow you to schedule your tweets ahead of time could come in handy. There are plenty of paid tools that allow you to schedule your tweets for the future and even fully automate your Twitter accounts. While you don’t want to rely on these tools heavily, it’s nice to have them when you need them.
If you are looking for free tools to schedule tweets ahead of time, here are 5 free Twitter tools that could come in handy:
Hootsuite: the best Twitter management tool on the market hands down. I may be a bit biased here, considering that I have been using it for months. But I can tell you that as long as you don’t want to spam Twitter, Hootsuite has everything you need to manage your Twitter accounts more effectively.
Socialoomph: also known as Twitter Later. This service allows you to automate your welcome messages, schedule tweets in the future, and vet your followers at the same time. The premium version has even more flexibility to offer but you are not obligated to pay up to use this service.
Twitter Feed: another service that I have been using for months. It’s designed to help you connect your blog to Twitter. If you schedule future blog posts, this is a great tool to take advantage of to let your followers know about it. Read more »
Panasonic Professional AG-HMC40: My First Pro Camcorder
Filed under: Blogging Gadgets, Start a Video Blog | View Comments
You may have noticed in the past few weeks that I have been talking more about video-blogging and the tools that can help you get vlogging done more effectively. The most essential vlogging tool is your camcorder. If you intend to make a professional quality video for your web show, you are going to need a decent cam. The mini camcorders that you see in retail stores do a good job taking videos on the go, but if you intend to conduct interviews with the experts at conferences or professional gatherings, it’s always good to have a pro camcorder.
I have always wanted to own a pro camcorder to not only check it off of my wish-list but also capture better quality videos to share with others. I do have a Zi8, so I am all set for my road trips. But I have never really cared for paying $5000 or more for a pro camcorder. I have never wanted to be a director or professional producer, so spending that much money on a pro camcorder has never made sense for me. Besides, there are a lot of other things you can do with $5000-$10000. Read more »
How To Get Started With Video-Blogging: Top Tools and Resources
So you are ready to get started with your own video blog? Have no idea where to start? Video blogging is a bit different from regular blogging. You are going to need to capture videos and even edit them before getting them on your vlog. You also have to pay attention to the quality of your camera, microphone, mixers, and so on. This all may sound too daunting to handle, but in reality it’s just different. As long as you have the right tools and the dedication to succeed, you are going to have a lot of fun vlogging. With that in mind, here are a few tools and resources to get you started with your own video blog:
Camcorders & Video Cameras
Sony Webbie HD: Sony Webbie MHS-PM1 HD Camcorder is a decent mini camcorder to get started with vloggers.
Flip UltraHD: the Flip needs no introduction. It has been around for years and is great for vlogging.
Kodak Zx1 HD: An affordable mini HD Camcorder for those constantly on the go.
Manage Your Friendfeed Account on iPhone with BuddyFeed
Twitter and Facebook may be a bit ahead of FriendFeed, but they are not that far ahead. In fact, there are a whole lot of bloggers that focus solely on Friendfeed as they find it more engaging. Whether you love or hate Friendfeed, it’s another avenue that can not only help you drive more traffic to your blog but also build new relationships and find other professionals in your niche to interact with. Friendfeed may not be Twitter, but it’s as engaging and before you know it, you are spending hours on it everyday. Now thanks to BuddyFeed 2.0, you can manage your FriendFeed account on your iPhone or iPod Touch easily when you are on the go. That means you are going to have more time to network and share and review content while you are on the go.
BuddyFeed is one powerful iPhone application. The interface is not only easy to use, but you get to post messages, images, subscribe to others’ feeds right on your phone. Setting up the application is not difficult either. You are going to need your FriendFeed API to get this to work. You can easily get that online or on your iPhone.
Posting messages and exploring rooms can’t be easier with this app. And the inline browser to view links in messages makes this app much more fun. FriendFeed can be a very addictive social networking community, and that’s where BuddyFeed comes in. Not only it makes it easy to participate in the FriendFeed community’s activities, but it also doesn’t require you to jump through hoops to post images and explore new areas.
Becoming a success story on Friendfeed is not that easy. It takes time, and you’ve got to work at it. You can’t afford to ignore your Friendfeed account for days or weeks and expect getting value out of it. If you are on FriendFeed (which you should be), you can’t afford not to use BuddyFeed. BuddyFeed not only saves you time, but it makes it easier to grow your presence on FriendFeed. It’s just a no brainer!
Blog More Effectively With Zemanta
Filed under: Blogging Tools | View Comments
Professional bloggers are always on the lookout for ways to blog more effectively and get more done in less time. There are only a limited number of hours in a day, which means to take your blog to the next level you need to use tools that allow you to get your blog posts done faster without you having to cut any corners. Zemanta is a cool new service that allows professional bloggers and professional media members to research more effectively and find appropriate content faster.
You can install Zemanta on your server (for Wordpress) or just use their browser extension. There is really no difference between the two. Zemanta is truly a life saver as it allows you to find content for your blog posts fast. Here is how it works. Once you download Zemanta, it adds a bunch of tabs to your blog’s sidebar. From there, you can search for images, news, and other type of content and import them to your blog fast.
How To Use Zemanta
Zemanta is simple to install. You can easily add it to Firefox or Internet Explorer. You can also download the plugin for Wordpress and put it on your server. I personally prefer the browser extension. Here is what you can do with Zemanta once you install it:
- Find images for your blog based on your keyword term.
- Tag your posts like a pro. Zemanta automatically suggests targeted tags based on your content.
- Link out to other sites that address the same topic as yours.
- Use the Reblog button to create reaction posts to what other bloggers have had to say about your topic.
You can also use Zemanta to write e-mails more effectively. You get the same features you get on your blog on Gmail as well.
Zemanta is truly an exciting tool for bloggers. Not only it allows you to find content for your blog, it helps you optimize your blog posts for search engines as well. Best of all, it comes in many formats allowing you to install it on your browser client or on the server side. If you are looking for a tool that helps you become a more effective blogger, you should try Zemanta.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=648a1fb1-c5e9-47b4-bb99-86ce631787bc)
Desktop PC Blogging with Blogjet
A lot of bloggers do their blogging on Macs. There is nothing wrong with that. Mac OS is the superior environment to Windows, and there is no doubt if you can afford a Mac, you should go for it. But if you are like me, and you want to stay loyal to your Windows machine too, then Blogjet is a desktop publishing program that you should consider. 
Blogjet makes it easy to manage multiple blogs with ease. You can easily add each of your accounts to it, and then navigate through the accounts by using the list box at the top. I personally like the graphical editor as it is much more flexible than the one provided by Wordpress. But perhaps the best thing about Blogjet is like ecto, you don’t have to log on to your blog interface ever in order to post blogs.
I have been using Wordpress for quite sometime, but you get tired of dealing with the interface. Using Blogjet makes it easy. You can also test drive Blogjet before buying it, which allows you to figure out if Blogjet is right for you. Desktop blogging is not only easy on me, but it makes me much more productive, and who wouldn’t want that?
Submit Your Blog To Social Bookmarking Sites In A Snap
I remember when I started blogging, there were not many social networks out there. It feels like yesterday but I remember all the excitement about the then little service known as MySpace. But today, things have changed. People use social networking sites on an everyday basis to stay in touch with their friends. Social bookmarking sites are also used to tag and share interesting sites with the community members. So there is no question that if you have a blog, you can gain some decent traffic from social bookmarking sites (if enough people bookmark your site).
Social Marker is a free service that allows you to automate some of the submission tasks, so instead of wasting 10s of hours submitting your site to social bookmarking sites, you can use social marker to do the very same thing in less than 30 minutes. What you need to do is create your accounts with major social networking sites, and then let social marker walk you through the submission process (remember not to ovedo it). Now you can get fancy and get a software such as Social Submitter to automate even more things or outsource the whole process, but Social marker is a great free service to submit your blog to social networking sites (I am all for using free tools as long as they do the job).
How To Use HitTail To Get Ideas For Your Blog
Filed under: Blogging Services, Blogging Services, Blogging Tools | View Comments
If you haven’t heard of HitTail before, it is a graphical analytics tool that is made for people who are not necessarily into crunching numbers but would like to track how searchers get to their sites. But what people miss about this excellent service is the fact that you can use it to find ideas for your future blog posts. Take the example below for instance:
This is what HitTail shows me for a tech blog that I have been running for quite some time. It tell me that tech deals or western digital hard drives are the main area of interest for my readers. So if I am a smart blogger, I try to stay on topics that interest my readers. This is very useful if you are stuck and don’t know what to blog about. By knowing exactly what you need to go after, you can save yourself time and spend more of it on research and development.
Another very useful feature that HitTail has is graphs that you can get for your longtail keywords and top ten keywords. You can get the graphical representations for all search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN (see below).
These graphs not only show you what the hottest keywords are on your blog, they can also give you an idea how to use longtailing more effectively. Longtailing SEO is very underrated these days but with the low level of competition out there, you should definitely take advantage.
HitTail is very affordable and does cost about $99.95 a year for their introductory service. If you want to get really deep within your data, you can pay them about $300 a year to get features such as “organic vs. paid” searches and adwords integration. But this service has been so useful in generating ideas for me that even at $300 a year, it is a steal.
