PUMP UP your website or blog with a few add-ons that will help you get under its bonnet, add functionality or just provide a bit of fun. You won’t need a degree in HTML coding to install any of these little helpers: cutting and pasting is as technical as it gets.
Counters
Statistics counters not only track the number of site hits, unique visitors and returnees your site receives, but they tell you whether your readers are from Leytonstone or Lima, how long they browse your site, what browser and operating system they use, and whether they take one lump or two.
StatCounter www.statcounter.com Sitemeter www.sitemeter.com and eXTReMe Tracker http://extremetracking.com are three options. All offer basic free versions as well as paid-for upgrades. StatCounter has the most configurable counter icon and can be made invisible to readers of your site.
EXTReMe Tracker and Sitemeter offer real-time reporting and no traffic limitations, handy if your site suddenly becomes very popular.
If you get 9,000 page loads per day with Statcounter, you will be asked to remove the counter or upgrade to the paid version. All provide emailed reports.
Gimmicks
The Truth Laid Bear Ecosytem www.truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php will let you know where you stand, crawl or sliver in Blogdom. Let the narcissist in you take over and add the “Who links to me” code
http://wholinkstome.com. Technorati
www.technorati.com offers a similar, more sophisticated service.
It displays an attractive patchwork of pictures recently uploaded to Flickr, all in your sidebar.
More interaction A tagboard is a message box that sits at one side of your blog. Readers leave notes, which encourage conversation. They differ from a comments box as they are not post-specific. Tagboards run throughout your whole blog. Tag-Board
www.tag-board.com and Chatterbox
http://chatter.flooble.com are popular and free.
Add a poll and ask readers to vote on issues of the day or issues with your blog. Go to
www.freepolls.com or
www.pollhost.com for the free tools you need.
Skype me If you use Skype
www.skype.com, the free internet telephony software, add a Skype Me button. Readers, friends and colleagues can call you straight from your site to tell you what a great post you just made, so long as they also have Skype installed. See
www.skype.com/community/skypemebuttons.html.
Live Message Alerts! Let your readers know in real time when you update your blog. Live Message Alerts!
www.messagecast.net is free. Add the icon to your site and readers can opt to receive alerts by email, desktop alert, mobile phone, or PDA. Readers receive a headline and can click through to read your new post.
License your work Adding a Creative Commons licence
http://creativecommons.org lets everybody know what they can and cannot beg, borrow or steal from your blog. You choose whether your words, images, sounds and videos are available for commercial purposes.
RSS feeds A blog isn’t a blog without an RSS feed. Adding a Bloglines
www.bloglines.com or a Newsgator
www.newsgator.com feed to your site allows readers to sign up quickly by hitting the icon you install and adding your feed to their RSS reader or online Bloglines account. FeedBurner
www.feedburner.com is another option that offers easy set up.
Stop spam Foil the spam robots crawling your blog for email addresses with SpamPoison
www.spampoison.com. — Dawn/The Guardian News Service
PUMP UP your website or blog with a few add-ons that will help you get under its bonnet, add functionality or just provide a bit of fun. You won’t need a degree in HTML coding to install any of these little helpers: cutting and pasting is as technical as it gets.
