Top 5 Tools for Bloggers

Writer and podcaster Mur Lafferty recently posted a vidcast about essential tools for writers. Bloggers write but are their needs the same? Below are my top 5 pics for tools bloggers need to get the job done. Let me know if you agree or have a different set of tools that top your list.

1. Computer or mobile phone with internet access - bloggers need access to a computer or smartphone to use for creating notes and posting text, video, or audio.
   
2. Stickies, notecards, or napkins to scribble down sudden ideas for those times you forget to bring along your phone/camera/web enabled device
3. Social Networking accounts - Technorati, Twitter, Squidoo, Facebook - whatever your social tools of choice are, you'll need them to make new friends, find inspiration, and share what you are up to
4. USB/thumb drive or other portable storage device (Mur suggests using an iPod as well as a USB drive) to save all your choice posts - you are going to compile them into an ebook or other format someday, right?
5. Statistics tools such as Feedburner and/or Google Analytics to measure the reach and performance of your blog
   

Are there other tools that are essential for bloggers? I'm assuming that the blogging platform and internet connection is a given - is there anything I overlooked?

Blinged out Blogger blogrolls

We've all been waiting and hoping for a while now and finally we have a real blogroll widget for Blogger. The actual uses of the blogroll tool go way beyond basic text links. Anything that can be a feed can be added to the blogroll, along with a nice little icon that helps identify whether it is a typepad blog, a Blogger blog, an rss feed ... you get the picture.

Want to link to your twitter feed in style? Check. Flickr stream? Yep, that too. This is a huge step forward in functionality.

The Blogger folks took the time to put together a nice demo feed on how to use the new blogroll widget. You can find it here

Podcasting with Blogger Part One

I really wanted to include a section on the Enclosure link feature of Blogger in the Blogger:Beyond the Basics book, but ran out of space. Now I can take the time to give you all some extra info on how to use Blogger to promote and share your podcasts.
Setting Up Podcast Hosting
You still need to have somewhere to host your podcast. There are a lot of places to do this, and with regular web hosting packages running as low at $5 a month, you may want to consider just uploading the podcasts to a file folder. The big issues for podcasting are going to be:

• Bandwidth - As your podcasts become more popular, regular downloads from a growing audience can eat up the amount of file transfer bandwidth you have. Monitor bandwidth usage closely.
• Storage space - Podcasts are a minimum of 5mb on average, taking up as much as 20mb for a long podcast. Do some math based on how often you will podcast, and how long you expect each episode to run
• Finding a good place to host a podcast - and preparing to move if your audience outgrows the location. There are many choices out there.
  
• Gathering the right equipment and resources - If you're new to podcasting, check out http://www.podcast411.com/ for lots of tips
• Distributing your podcast - Podcastpickle (http://www.podcastpickle.com), Podiobooks (www.podiobooks.com), and of course iTunes are popular places to share your podcast with others. These distribution sites can also help grow your audience, since they are popular destinations.
  
• Providing production notes and info on the individual podcasts and getting feedback - This is where Blogger comes in. You can use Blogger to link to your podcast files (one post for each episode) then include production notes about the episode, such as an overview of what the episode was about, who was involved, that sort of thing. It is also another way to promote the episode, since it will be crawled by search engines.

Blogging your podcast
Now that we have all the prep work done, lets use Blogger to share our podcast.

1. To create a blog post for an individual podcast episode using Blogger, first login to Blogger and click the "Create" menu option under the Posting tab.
   
2. Type the title of your post, then enter the link to your episode by clicking "Add enclosure link" under the Link field.
   
3. You will need to type the URL (path) of your podcast episode. Then enter the type of file it is in the Mime Type field. You can add additional episodes to a single post by clicking the "Add enclosure link" text link.
   
4. Type your production notes in the Compose content box, just like you would normally do for a standard blog post.
   
5. Add some labels to your post to make it easier to find
6. Set the posting options for your post. Click the Post Options text link located below the content box. You can set Reader Comments to allow/don't allow, manage Backlinks settings for the individual post, and the time for your episode, if you want it to appear at a certain time.
7. Publish your post and let the fun begin.
   

Using OpenID to promote your blog

Did you notice the OpenID menu option on the settings tab of Blogger's admin panel? OpenID isn't just a great way to make it easier for visitors to post comments to your blog, it is also a way to seamlessly promote your blog on sites like Technorati. You can see in the screenshot below where I'm using this blog as my OpenID URL. The box below the url lists all sites which can see my OpenID URL. There could be social networking, bookmarking sites, or other blogs on this list. Notice I still need check up on a couple of the social networking sites I belong to, and make sure I'm taking advantage of OpenID with them.



Why OpenID with Blogger really? If you want to make it easy for people to find you and your blog in the blogosphere, taking advantage of OpenID will save you time and keep your identity consistent across multiple sites.

Find work as a Freelance Blogger for small businesses

Today our department at work got a call for one of our companies customers about blogging. They wanted to start a blog, but didn't understand what it really was, had no one set up in their company to actually do the blogging, and weren't sure what they were going to actually blog about. Seth Godin calls this situation a "meatball sundae" where businesses think just because they start using newer web tools, their business will automatically benefit.

The good news for bloggers: There is a gap, as many of you who freelance already know, for bloggers to fill. Small businesses with a web presence or who are looking to get started with one need your help. Whether you offer them advice as a consultant or become their "ghost" blogger, this is an area of freelance writing I think will continue to grow.

Speaking of writing, if you write an article for Packt Publishing and they accept it, they will send you two copies of books published by them for free. A good way for writers who need references to get them.

If you blog was a fruit, what would it be?

I was telling my personal trainer today all about Blogger and how a blog would be useful to a fitness professional like him. He could post articles about fitness and health, interact with potential clients, and build a reputation as an expert. This got me thinking of the different reasons people blog.

What kind of blog do you have now? Do you have a vision for what you want it to be like, and how you want other people to experience it? Below is the fruit "horoscope" for your blog.

Apple- Regular, down to earth, every day.
Peach - Simple, juicy, different but approachable
Pear - Refined, Corporate, formal, exclusive
Star Fruit - Unique, Geometric, Exotic, surprising

New Year, New Blog?

Did you start the year off with a resolution to share more stories with friends or get more news out to your customers with a company blog? Keeping a blog only takes a few minutes a day, but being consistent with it is tough. I just came off of a long break myself. I spent the time working on the Blogger book from Packt due out this Spring, working on a few hobbies, and even spending quality time with the kids.

This week I'm working on a chapter about bringing in additional revenue with your blog. I'll walk you through how to set up Google Adsense with your blog, give you tips on setting up the ads for maximum impact, and provide resources for additional revenue opportunities.