blogging_tools Archives - Successful Blog

Stand-Alone Trackback Tool from WhizbangTech

February 22, 2006 by Liz 12 Comments

Good news for bloggers who work on platforms that don’t perform trackbacks to other blogs. Rather than hacking your template to do things it wasn’t meant to do WhizbangTech has a stand-alone trackback tool.

Trackbacks are a great way of building visibility for yourself, your business, and your blog. When you read a post on another blog and realize you’ve posted on the same subject, a trackback offers a chance to say, “Hey, I’ve had a few insights into that topic myself.” Without trackbacks, you’re missing out on another way to promote your business and your blog.

If your platform doesn’t offer trackbacks, bookmark this site and pull it out whenever you need to let that expert you read daily know you’ve written something that ties into the current conversation. If you do it with thought and not too liberally, you’ll find some folks will follow your trackbacks home to see what else you have to say.

To get the WhizbangTech Stand-Alone Trackback Tool, click the logo below.

Now you can let people know you were paying attention to what they said and add to the conversation too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Google Measure Map Tracks Readers

February 20, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Guest Reviewer: John Hamman

John Hamman, at the Ladder Project, has a fine review of Google’s newest purchase, Measure Map. Measure Map is a focused, real-time stats program for blogs that measures visitors and links, comments, and posts. Click the screenshot to get to John’s thorough and timely review.

The Ladder Project Article on Meaures Maps

Measure Map’s Features Look Attractive

This screenshot takes you to the Google blog discussion of Measure Map.

It’s good business to ask questions about our readers. Will Measure Map have the answers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

If Youâre Looking for Blogger Status

February 6, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

If you’re looking for Blogger Status, click the image link. . .

The URL is http://status.blogger.com/

You’ll note I’ve made this post into a page for Blogger users whenever you need it.
It’s there in the sidebar for you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: SEOmoz Beginnerâs Guide

January 26, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

seomoz_org logo

Great Find: SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide to SEO
Type of Article: A Series of Articles on SEO
Permalink: Beginner’s Guide to SEO
Target Audience: Any blogger who is curious about SEO and how it works
Content: SEOmoz, a Seatlle-based Search-engine organization has put together this series to help individuals, organizations, and companies who have little to no experience with search engine optimization and want to learn the basics of how search engines work. The organization states their goal as to improve your ability to drive search traffic to your site and debunk major myths about SEO. We share this knowledge to help businesses, government, educational, and non-profit organizations benefit from being listed in the major search engines.

From this list it appears that they take their goals very seriously. The first four (in purple) give you a quick look at what you might be interested in further down the line. All of the articles are short and written in clear, plain English, so they’re easy to follow and, well, interesting to read. Take a peek.

This is one fine reference to add to your library. It’s nice to bump into an SEO org that wants to share what it knows in such an organized fashion. Thanks SEOmoz.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Tlog Blogging Tips Series

January 24, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Great Find: The Tlog Blogging Tips Series
Type of Article: A Growing Series of Articles on Setting Up and Running a Blog
Permalink: The Blogging Tips Series
Target Audience: Any blogger who wants to think about blogging or rethink the direction his or her blog is going.

Content: Pedro Timoteo, the Tlog owner and developer of this series is a network administrator. I’ve read through these posts and they put out in sequence the step-by-step basics of blogging. It’s well worth looking over for a thorough blog review. The organization has a programmer’s knack of parsing out knowledge in manageable chunks. They are delivered in language that is clear, accurate, and respectful of the reader. This belongs in everyone’s survival kit.

Look at this list.

What’s not to love about this? The thought that went into this series shows in the list alone.
AND there’s a whole blog beyond this.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Have You Been Stumbled Upon?

December 2, 2005 by Liz Leave a Comment

This being Friday, I hadn’t planned on writing another post. I had a few lined up for the day and that MIT book I’m working on is staring at me.

But I was stumbled upon again—Successful Blog was stumbled upon last week and now this. I couldn’t help myself. My famous curiosity kicked in, and I had to check it out. Once I did, I figured you might want to play with Stumble Upon over the weekend. So here I am writing this post . . .

Stumble Upon is a more user-friendly, more organized, more social–yeah, that’s what I mean–a more social, social bookmarking tool. For the web pro, del.cio.us has an interface that offers the credibility and appeal of an indexing page. For the rest of us, Stumble Upon has that “Frosted Mini-Wheat” appeal–it’s visually pleasing and fun enough for the kid in me, but sophisticated and organized to satisfy the adult as well. For the social butterfly or the college kid this one wins hands down for it’s personal interaction features.

The time it takes to get up and running on Stumble Upon is short and sweet, and a quick check at Technorati shows that it already has 1500 users linked to it. I think this is the next sleeper hit. Well, just look at the difference. The developers have met most of the problems people have with using its competition.

You can edit the backgrounds, pick the categories, and do random searches to “stumble upon” sites under tagged themes. It’s addictive and fun. You can also meet people and share what you’ve found–if you so choose. More than that, it’s much nicer to look at and easier to find things.

If it’s not what you’re looking for, it might be the perfect thing for that friend or relative who finds del.cio.us overwhelming or visually intimidating.

Here’s what some of the big magazines said about Stumble Upon.

Give it a try. You might like it. I did, but then I stumble a lot even without it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss