Web Log Tools
- Weblog tools help give blogs added functionality.internet image by arabesque from Fotolia.com
Weblogs (blogs) have evolved from online diaries to information portals and magazines on a wide variety of topics. The number of tools and blogging applications available can be overwhelming. For those who are just starting out, trying out the most popular blogging applications and a few of the tools needed to make a weblog run efficiently can make starting a blog less daunting. - The most popular weblog applications are WordPress and Blogger. Both are free and fully customizable. WordPress is more popular because of the sheer amount of themes and plugins that are available to help you customize your blog.
You may install WordPress from the Fantastico utility inside the administration of your web host platform. Alternately, you may download it from the WordPress.org site and upload it to your server.
Blogger allows you to create a custom template directly on the blogger.com website. You can run the Blogger software on your domain without having to install it on your server. - Weblog statistics tools such as Google Analytics and Awstats tell you how well your site is doing in terms of the number of visits your pages have received, the duration of the visits, users' searches by keyword, the geographic location of your visitors and much more.
Both programs are free. Setting up Google Analytics takes a bit of work, because you have to register your weblog and install some code in the page's header to activate the tool. Awstats is included in most web hosting packages. If your host does not include it, you may download it from the Sourceforge.net website and install it on your server. Awstats starts collecting statistics data once you make your first post. - Daily backup tools, such as BackWPup, are an essential feature for weblogs, because disasters do happen when you try to update your weblog's software or inadvertently make an error when adding code to your sidebar.
Contact forms are another essential tool because you want your readers and/or customers to be able to contact you if they have a question or comment about your blog.
Sitemaps offer your visitors an organized structure of links, especially if you have a large weblog. - Many people prefer to write their blog posts offline instead of directly into the weblog interface, so that they can edit their posts before publishing them. Qumana, Ecto and Mars Edit are among the popular desktop blogging clients because they are compatible with many operating systems and are simple to use.
