Ten Blogging Hacks

Steve Rubel has written a good post on Ten Blogging Hacks that every blogger can find useful. Let me list out the main points.

1. Blog Alone or Together with Writely

   Writely is a full-fledged web-based word processor that you can access from anywhere. It can be thought of as Microsoft Word for the Web.

   Using Writely you can draft blog posts, spell check them and then with one click - post to Blogger, Moveable Type/TypePad, Wordpress and others.

2. Automatically Post Your Daily del.icio.us Links
   

   As I find things to share, I use my del.icio.us bookmarklet to file it away on the bookmark sharing site. Then around midnight eastern time, del.icio.us automatically takes the day’s links and turns them into a new blog post

3. Auto-Insert Technorati Tags Using ecto

   ecto is a desktop blogging application for both Mac and Windows. It has tons of features, including the ability to automatically insert Technorati tags. This ensures that your blog post is amassed with other blogger’s posts under the same tags. Technorati explains this here. ecto can also ping all of the major search engines that you have updated your blog. This makes you easier to find more quickly.

   
4. Blog from Your Cell Phone

   I am sure many bloggers get ideas on what to blog while not at home or near a computer. Well, you can blog from any email-capable phone on both TypePad and Blogger and perhaps others as well. Each platform provides instructions how to accomplish this. Read this article in PC Today for a thorough overview.

5. Get a Cool Icon for Your Blog

   Many people run photos of themselves on their blogs. Here’s another idea. Get your own custom icon from iconize me! For $50 iconize me will custom create a color charictacture from one of three different artists for all of $50. You get to pick the photo. The artists will send you your line drawing in several formats, including blog-friendly jpegs.

6. Tell the World Where They Can Find You
   

   Where’s Waldo? Who cares. Where’s Stowe Boyd? Ah, I definitely care about that. Normally it would be hard to know when this blogging legend is actually in a town near you. But Stowe, being the enterprising guy that he is, he has a map on his blog that gives us his coordinates. You can add one to your blog using Plazes. Here’s a related bonus hack. You can find other bloggers who live near you using feedmap.

7. Meet Your Blog Neighbor
   

   Every once in awhile you meet one person who you say, damn, we’re separated at birth. Why wait for that moment when Findory can tell you who your blogging neighbor is. This helps you hang out with fellow birds of a feather.

8. Make Money with Your Own Blog Schwag Store

   Most bloggers know how to make money by signing up for and it’s alternatives, but there are other ways.

   For example, the simplest is to add a tip jar. However, there’s another. You can build your own store of blog-branded merchandise using Cafe Press. Slacker Manager, for example, sells some cool schwag. It helps to have a cool name for your blog that people will want to wear.

9. Create a Blogroll in One Click

   Both Newsgator and Bloglines make it a snap to convert your existing RSS reading list into a blogroll that you can share with the world. Instructions for Bloglines can be found here. An overview for Newsgator subscribers is located here.

10. Give Readers the Option to Subscribe to Updates via Email

    Give your blog readers the option to subscribe to updates via Email. You can do this with FeedBlitz. Simply follow the instructions on their site and integrate the HTML code they give you into your sidebar and you’re good to go.