| Once you have created your blog, there are essential | | | | share with others if they find your post resourceful. |
| blog tools to add to your blog to make them more | | | | It's a good way to get more exposure for you and |
| user-friendly and appealing for your visitors. | | | | more traffic to your blog. |
| Some blog platforms don't require a RSS setup as it's | | | | To enhance your blog and make it interesting and |
| already done, but if you created a blog on Blogger | | | | visually appealing, you can integrate images, photos |
| the first thing to set up is your RSS feed. RSS | | | | or video. You can buy stock photos or go to stock |
| stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple | | | | exchange for free photos. Remember to read the |
| Syndication. This is a format used to publish updated | | | | image license agreement before using them. |
| blog content in RSS readers like Google Reader. | | | | One last and very important blog tool to have is web |
| The easiest way to set up a RSS feed is to use | | | | statistics. All self-hosted blogs have these statistics |
| Feedburner.com, a free RSS service. Feedburner | | | | available in their hosting cPanel, but for non |
| offers a lot of great features and information like | | | | self-hosted blogs you have to add this. You can get |
| which posts were the most viewed, how many blog | | | | popular web stat trackers at Stat Counter, Feedjit or |
| subscribers you have and other feed statistics. They | | | | Add Free Stats. Stat Counter and Add Free Stats |
| also offer feed icons to put on your blog. | | | | offer invisible tracking buttons. |
| You can create a free account and follow the | | | | If you want more in-depth blog stats, you can use |
| instructions. Your Feedburner URL should look like this | | | | Google Analytics, a free tracking system that |
| feeds.feedburner.com/yourdomainname. Once it's set | | | | generates reports of your site. You can also monitor |
| up you can log back into your Blogger account and | | | | your marketing effectiveness, AdSense placements |
| click on "Setting" then click on "Site Feed" and enter | | | | and Adwords campaigns. It's quite extensive, but it's |
| your blog's feed URL in the box "Post Feed Redirect | | | | a valuable tool to have. |
| URL" and save. | | | | There are many more blog tools you can use as you |
| You can add social bookmarking and share icons that | | | | become more experienced in blogging, but for now |
| appear after every blog post. Social bookmarks act | | | | these four applications are must-haves for every |
| much the same way as your favourites on your | | | | newly created blog. |
| computer except it is public. This allows visitors to | | | | |