50+ Useful Resources for Bloggers

The blogging is widely used over the internet these days. There’re so many things you should know about it. If you’re new to the blogging or if you are an experienced blogger you can use the following resources to learn something more. I’ll include the resources for all popular blogging systems and services online.

50+ Useful Blogging Resources

No matter if you’re a professional or amateur in the blogging, these resources can help you a lot.

WordPress Themes

Below, You’ll find the best places on the internet where you can find the themes for WordPress:

• Official Theme Directory – A great collection of the themes originally supported by WordPress. Integrated with the new version of the WordPress.
• Top WP Themes – A very good and quality website which allows you to easily browse, download and use any of the listed free themes. Nice and simple interface.
• Themes Preview – This website has a very simple and intuitive interface. Allowing you to choose your theme among the others, including many good and quality themes in the related categories.

Worpdress Plug-ins

I’ve picked up for you the best plug-ins for the WordPress which you can install from the below links:

• Aksimet – The ultimate plugin which protect you from the comment spam.
• Ad-minister – This plugin allows you to place the banners in the rotation on your blog.
• Blog Icons – Use favorite icon to describe your blog – supports Apple iPhone too.
• FD Feedburner – Redirects all your feeds to your Feedburner address!
• Google Sitemap Generator – The most advanced plug-in to generate XML sitemap of your blog.
• HeadSpace2 – It’s for sure one of the most-featured SEO-based plug-ins for your WordPress powered blog.
• IntenseDebate – The powerful plugin that extends your comment form.
• Recently Popular – WordPress plugin which allows you to easily add the most popular widget to your blog.
• Twitme – Automatically connect your blog with your Twitter account.
• WordPress DB Backup – Allows you to automatically back-up the blog database! Very useful.
• Viper’s Video Quicktags – Integrate video sharing sites with your blog.
• WordPress Stats – Statistic plug-in independent from your blog database.
• Super Cache – The great way to save your blog bandwidth and improve blog speed!

MovableType Styles

From the below sites you can download and use styles on your MovableType powered blog:

• MovableType Style Library – Nice collection of the free Movable Type styles.
• CMR MovableType Styles – WordPress themes converted to the MovableType styles.
• MovableType Style Generator – Create and generate your own MovableType style.

MovableType Plug-ins

The below plugins can be used on your MovableType powered blog for free:

• TypePad AntiSpam – It’s a new free tool in the fight against comment spam.
• Pagination – Plugin that enables you to paginate lists of entries.
• Cache Block – Dramatically speed up publishing by caching blocks of built template code.
• Comment Subscribe -  A plugin which provides function to allow users to subscribe on your comments.
• Simply Threaded – Brings down a new type of comment threading to Movable Type.
• Automatix Lightbox – Add the Lightbox tag to your blog pictures.
• Poll Position – Adds a fast and easy way to create polls in Movable Type.

There’re so many free blog hosting services on the internet. I’ll list only the most powerful ones.

• WordPress – For sure one of the most popular free-hosting (and self-hosting) service on the internet. Allowing you to create a blog on their own servers completely for free. But, you don’t get such features and options like with the self-hosting wordpress solution. Anyway, it’s free and it’s very good after all.
• Blogger or Blogspot – A service owned by mighty Google. Allows you to use more customization options than with free WordPress hosting solution. Also, allows you to use Google AdSense and your own domain completely free on your blog created with this service.
• Xanga – It’s a very popular blogging service on the internet. Allowing you to create your own profile and share anything you want with large community. It’s a community of online diaries and journals after all.
• LiveJournal – It’s a very popular service too. Allowing you to create your own simple online diary. Actually, it’s specially oriented to the users and bloggers which likes to write an online diaries and journals. Very simple and easy-to-use service.
• Tumblr – It’s a relatively new service on the internet. Allowing you to blog using the very easy interface. Allowing you to post many things from text to multimedia files to your online blog. Allows you also to attach your Tumblr blog to your own domain name with some basic customization options.

Below, I’m going to show you the best ways to search for other blogs – related to your niche:

• Technorati – It’s one of the most popular blog search engines on the internet. Allowing you to see which blogs are the most popular today and let you to discover more blog similar to yours.
• Google Blog Search – This is one of my favorite destinations when I’m going to find the most recent “trends” through the blogging world. Good way to get an idea for your blog posts.
• Sphere – It’s a great blogging community with the huge amount of blogs. Allowing you to add an widget to your blog to let your visitors see most related posts from the other blogs.
• IceRocket – The blog search engine similar to the Google blog search engine. Let you to find the posts from other blogs. Good way to find the related post to your search query.
• MyBlogLog – A huge community of the bloggers. Get you to place an widget to your blog to see who visit your blog. Good place to make some new friends and connections.

Using tools and services below, you’ll know who visit your blog anytime, anywhere:

• Google Analytics – This is my favorite tool. It’s a full-featured statistics and analytics tool on the internet you can find for free. It’s a bit slow and only display you results for the day-before – not in the real-time.
• SiteMeter – An advanced tool to keep the real-time stats of your blog visitors. Very nice features and options included. Have two plans – free and premium.
• StatCounter – A completely free statistics tool where you can gather the stats from your blog. Allowing you even to place the cool counters on your blog that visitors can see how much visits you have.
• FeedBurner – Service owned by Google. Give you the opportunity to see the variety of stats, including feed statistics and also some basic website stats. Very popular service on the internet.
• Alexa – Allowing you to see the stats for all websites on the internet. Give you the rank of your website to and ability to compare your site with another one.
• AwStats – Professional open-source traffic analyzer which give you the advanced analytics of your website. All necessary information are included to know which visit your site.

Tools and services below gives you opportunity to make money from your blog – for free:

• Google AdSense – The most popular advertising network for the bloggers through the internet.
• PayPal – Allows you to setup the donation module or to use direct-advertising on your blog.
• Chitika – Chitika has better Click-Through rate and payouts than Google AdSense.
• AdBrite – Allows you to sell links and ads on your site and make money from them.
• BuySellAds – A very popular service among bloggers, very good and simple to use for sure.
• Bidvertiser – Contextual advertising network that allows you to set a bids for your ads.
• ReviewMe – A service where you’re allowed to sell the reviews on your blog.
• PayPerPost – Another popular service to sell the reviews on your site or buy them from others.
• Yahoo! Publisher Network – Similar contextual advertising service to AdSense.