Bloggers do not just write articles! They have to do a lot of things to manage and promote their blogs. These activities range from commenting to finding useful design and software tools. Often such tools are life savers, allowing more time for the business of writing and keeping readers happy. But at the same time, finding perfect tool for a task is difficult and time consuming. So, we searched internet for best free blogging tools and services for bloggers and summed them up in this post. Content:Image Credit: ABContentOnline.comZemanta: Zemanta is a content suggestion tool that searches for related content (articles and pictures) around the web and also suggests tags and links. Zemanta has been one of our favorite plugins...Feeds:
- Google Reader: Online feed reader to read feeds from favorite blogs.
- Feed Compare: Lets you compare feed numbers with competition. Both new and old Feedburner are supported. Note: You have to give full feed address for new feedburner. e.g. http://feedproxy.google.com/feed-name
- Feedkiller: Merge multiple feeds and read all your favorite blogs in one universal feed.
- FeedIcon20: Lets you generate custom feed icons for your blog/website. Here is an example:
about Feed - ZapTXT: Sends you a notice via RSS, E-Mails or SMS when your favorite website is updated.
- Page2RSS: Lets you create RSS feeds for websites that do not publish feeds. You can then subscribe to created feed and stay updated.
For Hosted Blogs:
- Down Or Not?: Lets you check if a website is down or not.
- DingIt’sUp: Notifies you via SMS, E-Mail or Twitter if your blog/website goes down.
- Sitonomy: Ever wanted to find which tools are used by big guys to power their blogs? This website lets you check the technologies that they use. For example, you can find that ProBlogger uses Google Ad Manager and six statistics counters!
- ServerCheck: Checks if a server is down, the IP of a domain and number of websites hosted on server(useful when deciding host).
HTML:
- Meta Tags Generator: Generates meta tags for your blog which you can paste into your blog’s head section for better SEO.
- IdTabs: Lets you add tabbed widgets to your blog. Note: You need jQuery before adding it.
- Drop Down Menu Generator: Lets you create a drop down selection box for your site. Copy the code to your blog and you are done.
- SikBox: Lets you make a live search box for your site. It is extremely lightweight. Just test the sample menu on their homepage by entering your blog address. However, this tool does not work for hosted blogs ( I tried Blogspot but it did not work, however m.bloggingwithsuccess.net worked out fine.)
- Headline Animator: Displays animated recent post titles. No additional service, just go to FeedBurner–>Publicize–>Headline Animator.
- Tabelizer: Converts data from Excel cells to HTML tables. Useful if you don’t know how to create tables.
- WidgetBox: World’s largest source for widgets for blogs and websites. Widgets are available in every category from music to technology. You can even create tabbed widgets with your feeds (from RSS, Twitter etc.) Lot of Widgets can slow down your Blog
- Plus2net.com : An alternative to the converter tool above. Also has other CSS and color conversion tools on the sidebar.
Images:
Image Credit: Masters.com- WetFloor Maker: Lets you create a wet floor effect for images.
- Imgur: Simple and fast image hosting. no need to register, just upload and get the hotlink for image.
- MakeAGif: Lets you create animations from given images.
- Free Banner Maker: Lets you make a banner by just dragging and dropping. you can choose or upload background and customize fonts. Lot of unique fonts available.
- Logo Maker: Generates text and logos with cool effects.
- Web 2.0 Stylr: Generates logo/banner with wet floor effects.
- Flickr: Find the right image to accent your post content. Tools allow you to hot-link to the image in different sizes.
- Photobucket: Online sharing for your photos and videos.
- DailyWebshots: – similar to Flickr, upload your own photos, or link to others that fit your blog content.
- Web Shots Pro: Easy software for creating thumbnails of your home page. Free account has limits on how often you can get an updated thumbnail. The software generates 4 image sizes which you can download: 100 x 75, 267 x 200, 400 x 300 and 640 x 480.
- Shrink The Web: Similar to Shrink the web, creates thumbnails of web pages. Also expect a large queue of requests on both sites. Running them side by side, Shrink the web finished well ahead of the other one. It returned images in six sizes like 75 x 56 and 200 x 150px, making it more versatile.
- Simplythebest : Contains free fonts for downloading. Use them to create custom logos and stylized font graphics for your blog.
- DreamsTime: Contains access to low priced images as well as ‘royalty-free stock photography. Must register for free items; has quality images.
- Public domain photos: Over 5,000 photos at this site are public domain, which you can use for any purpose, including commercial web sites.
- FreeFoto: This site has a huge collection of free photos. All require attrition type linkbacks. The image can be hotlinked instead of downloading.You select from four different image sizes.
- Acobox: Another website for free pictures. You do not need to copy or resize photos, just paste the code in post. Also available as WordPress Plugin.
For Further Reading,
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