10 Blogs every blogger should read

You’ve got your own blog, a proper domain name and everything. Now you’re looking to grow, spread out your wings and soar over the multitude of useless blogs that surround the Blog-o-sphere. What is the benchmark, what is my final goal? Any blogger will have these questions, when they start. And to find the answers, just look up. Look up to those bloggers who make a difference and whose voices echo across the blog-o-sphere.

I have compiled a list of 10 blogs across 3 categories, Blogging and Marketing, SEO and Blog Design. I have learnt a lot from these blogs and you can too, because, remember, no matter how big or small you are, the learning never stops.

Source

Blogging and Marketing

1) John Chow dot Com

I found about John through an internet controversy, the “John Chow effect”.(He doesn’t rank number 1 for his own name on Google!!) But put that aside and John is a really clever blogger. And the fact that there are so many John Chow clones out there just proves the point.

A prime example of the fact that any normal blog can make a good amount of cash through clever marketing. He has always given good blogging tips, documented his earnings, given out prizes for his readers regularly and every once in a while whips up a John Chow dinner post which adds his personal touch. (Inspiration, Elevate yourself to the status where people would love to know what YOU had for dinner)

2) ShoeMoney

The next big-guy-blogger I stumbled upon after John Chow. Turns out, Jeremy Schoemaker is an important dude in the Search Engine Marketing and an expert on Pay Per Click advertising. He also recently won the award for the Best Internet Affiliate marketeer.

He has branded his blog well and regularly doles out blogging advice. He also talks about his internet failures unabashedly as well, not something everyone can do!

3) Problogger

One look at the name and you know what it is all about. The front page looks like Darren Rowse means business. He serves up some really nifty blogging tips and goodies for the blogger masses. If you are a serious blogger, you can just not miss this one. Period

He won the award for being the most Influential Blogger from Performancing.com

4) Skellie

Skellie never fails to provide something refreshingly different. Sure, she talks about blogging, but very much unlike others. You can always feel her (yeah, the only lady blogger on this list) personal touch and the articles always have a positive feel about them. Do check this one out.

5) Zen Habits

Zen Habits is Leo Babauta’s page who talks upon a multitude of topics but all of them have one single goal. Getting your job done in the most productive manner and inculcate better habits. Thats why the name, Zen Habits.

If you think he’s just another blogger, Performancing.com named Zen Habits the Best Overall Blog of 2007. Reason enough for you to go and take a peek.

6) Seth Godin

Seth is an MBA from Stanford and a really smart one at that. One of his initial marketing companies was brought up by none other than Yahoo! themselves. His books almost always reach the best selling spots and he is considered as a marketing guru across the net.

His tips are always insightful and leave you with a trail of thoughts about how you could apply them in your own world. His posts might not always be long marketing epilogues like some would expect, but then, keeping it short and simple is the key.

Search Engine Optimization Blogs

7) SEOMoz

There are so many SEO blogs out there that you’d probably faint just reading the list of names. But Rand Fishkin and Co’s blog offers so vast a range of articles on SEO, that you wont need any more. The articles are well punctuated with such simple illustrations that even a Grade 7 kid wont take too long to become a SEO dude/ette.

His blog has been ranked the best SEO blog on the planet by Performancing.com and is truly valuable to anyone owning a big-ass website to a small blogger looking to grow in the search rankings.

8 ) Matt Cutts

I just said that you don’t need to read any more SEO blogs, but you do need to read what a prominent Google Engineer has to say. One of the few Google chaps to talk openly about Google and SEO-ing amongst a host of other stuff.

The whole world of webmasters and ‘SEO experts’ hang on to every word of whatever he has to say on Google and SEO-ing. And more often than not his posts are analyzed to the last letter. Thats why he put up a disclaimer on his site “This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer.” Chuckle.

Design and Development

9) Pro Blog Design

If you want to make sure your blog looks good and you are not committing a web-design faux pas, read Michael Martins blog. He talks on topics such as readability, general design, advertising and everything else to do with the look and feel of your blog. The site even reviews interesting blogs around the net and tries to analyze their highlights.

10) Smashing Magazine

This is another extremely popular design and development blog. They dish out lists of designs, themes, tips, tricks and what have you… The content on their site is sure to satiate most web developers and designers alike. Their lists are huge, informative and almost always get to the front pages of sites like Digg.

Think of some more bloggers who could have been on this list? Do post it in the comments section.

Also do tell me how this list has helped you. I’d be delighted to know.

10 WordPress plugins to make life simpler!

We love our custom stuff, don’t we? We like to see things that are tailor made to our purposes and Wordpress is one such fine example of a suit that fits everybody. The level of customization that Wordpress offers is what sets it apart in this world of Content Management Systems. Today, we shall take a look at my list of 10 Wordpress plugins that reduce our collective headaches and let us concentrate on what we bloggers love doing best, write!

Please note

• The plugins listed below cut down on administration time and are in no particular order, all are dead useful, get ‘em all!
• The bold link is the plugin page
• The “down arrow button” indicates direct download link. Click it, and the plugins all yours.
• And, oh yes, I don’t think its necessary but you need to upload all the plugins in the /wp-content/plugins/ folder, tee hee!

1) Wordpress Upgrade

Upgrading WordPress manually can sometimes be mildly nerve-wracking, but with this nifty plugin, the whole upgrade takes less than 2 minutes. It puts the site in maintenance mode, downloads the files, de-activates all the plugins and does your job cleanly. It also offers you an option to backup the database and your content to hard disk, in thegoddamned case something does go wrong.

2) WP-Contact Form

How many times have you wanted to contact the admin after reading something? WP-Contact form helps you do just that. This easy-to-setup plugin is a smart contact form with anti-spam features and with great accessibility. You can edit its CSS too, to jazz it up a bit.

3) WP-Stats

Numbers don’t lie alright, but I hate too many numbers. Data can be overwhelming at times and that is where this plugin helps. It gives you real time data of page views per post, search engine terms, links people clicked and your referrers. Exactly what you’d like to see.

You will need a Wordpress API key for this, which can be obtained by registering at WordPress.com

4) EXT JS Admin Menu

extJS or Extended Java Script is the new Web 2.0 interface hottie and I simply love it. What it does is, replace the boring and rather irritating Admin panel navigation with a supremely functional drop down list which will surely cut down on your navigation times within the Admin panel.

5) FeedBurner FeedSmith Plugin

What this plugin does is really simple. It detects all ways of accessing your RSS feed and redirects them to your Feedburner feed, so that you can keep a track of your RSS data with consummate ease.

6) All in one SEO Pack

This plugin allows you to easily edit the title, description and meta tags for any page or post in the blog, optimizing it for the search engines.

7) Shylock AdSense

Lots of AdSense plugins out there, but I’m really used to this particular one. It allows you to place ads within posts, which would have otherwise taken a load of template editing.

8 ) Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a XML sitemap automatically, with options on how much priority to give to a particular kind of page. Like a post, homepage, static page etc. It generates a new sitemap everytime a new post is made and notifies the 3 biggies of the search engine world; Google, Yahoo and MSN. Definitely boosted my rankings, this one.

9) WP-YouTube

Posting a YouTube video in WordPress without any mods is a right pain in the neck. But with this plugin, you get to post videos using a simple syntax which makes use of YouTube video ID. Et Voila!!

10) Akismet Spam

This one’s a no brainer, really. If you have a WordPress blog that is listed on the search engines, then you do get a LOT of spam. The Akismet Spam plugin takes care of just that and hardly any spam escapes the long hands of Akismet. Created by Matt Mullenweg, the brain behind Wordpress, all hail him!

If you know of similar plugins which make an Admin’s life easier, do post it in the comments, ok?

Also, do tell me, if you found this useful.