Back in 2005, I wrote a blog post that list blog tools that I use regularly to help me become more productive in blogging. As I looked at the list again, I realize that nothing change much since then, except a handful of them that I no longer use and some additions.

Rather than updating the old post, I decide to create another post. This time, I’ll categorize the tools into their own categories.

Productivity is one of the topics I am most interested in. Feel free to post your favorite blog tools below.

Graphic package

• Adobe Photoshop - This is the image editing software that I use for things that can’t be easily done with SnagIt.
• SnagIt - Still the best image capturing tool out there. It allows me to add special effects like torn edges with a click. A time saving tool.

Blog statistics package

• AwStats - This web application is built-in on my web hosting package. It is useful to give me a page of summary of what is happening on my site during that month or previous month.
• Google Analytics - I have just scratched the surface when it comes to using Google Analytics. Combine with a WordPress plug-in, it gives me summary of my blog statistics.

Data and idea capture tools

• Mindjet MindManager - Multipurpose mindmapping software that anyone can use for project planning, article brainstorming and others. Lately, I use it to summarize a tactical e-book so I find pieces easily. Really cool.
• Microsoft OneNote 2007 - A great program that allows me to jot notes, paste pictures, record voices and tons of other features. The fact that you can convert image to text and search audio are powerful. I also extensively use this software with Microsoft Outlook for my Getting Things Done system.

RSS/News aggregator and others

• FeedDemon - This is my favorite desktop based news aggregators. I have several hundreds of feeds that I track regularly.
• Mozilla Firefox - The first program that I fire up every morning, also the only browser I use for browsing.
• Microsoft Outlook - This is my email application now, thanks to Google I am now able to pop all my mail from Gmail.

The list is by no means comprehensive, but it should cover 90% of the tools I use actively for blogging.

What are your favorite blogging tools?

So you’ve started your brand new blog huh?

The excitement may not last long. After a few weeks or months, perhaps you’ve begun to experience burnout. Perhaps you like the feeling to be able to post your opinion on the Web, but writing becomes a chore rather than something fun to do on a regular basis.

Readership may not grow at the rate that you think the blog is worth the effort. Sounds familiar? I guess it is to many of us. It happens to some of my blogs too, in many times.

As with any other venture, it takes effort to succeed. While a blog turns web publishing into a very easy and convenient task, actually writing great content and building readerships — and later relationships — are the real challenges.

Below are my own 7 strategies to find, build and grow our blog readership:

1. Content is the king

Content will always be king. People turn off by a site or blog with excessive ads without solid substance. If you have been blogging for some time, chances are you have several “best” or “popular” articles that you are proud of.

Make the articles stand out, perhaps feature them in a sticky post at the top of the blog. This is easily done by modifying blog template or as part of a feature for other blogware. At the very least, place them as links on the sidebar or navigation bar.

These articles are what people will mostly read no matter where they come from. They help build your credibility and make them happy. This will result in returning visitors or increase in RSS subscriptions — i.e. more readers.

Having great content doesn’t guarantee traffic though. Many blogs with great content have troubles with attracting traffic.

2. Start commenting on other blogs (and other networking tasks)

Blog commenting is one of the best networking tool for bloggers. I have built relationships with many great bloggers just by writing a few good quality comments on their posts.

There are many other ways to establish relationships with other bloggers, including, but not limited to trackbacking, guest blogging, social networking sites like LinkedIn, or through placing widgets on your blog to connect with not only bloggers but also readers (MyBlogLog is a good example.)

3. Participate in your blog comment

Readers will feel appreciated if bloggers respond to what they have posted. The commenting feature on a blog is there for exactly this reason. Why give your readers the freedom to put comment if you don’t take that advantage and build a strong community out of the blog?

Bloggers should encourage readers to leave comment on their blog for the same reason.

4. Link to others

One of the core features of blogging is the ability to link to other related post easily. Blogosphere are linked to each other. Not only do you do some favor for your readers, it also shows that you are not being selfish.

If you link to others, even if they are your competitors, you have just established your credibility. This will reward you many times. If you are afraid to directly link to your competitors, find a complementary resource that you can link to. Adding value outside of your post is critical to demonstrate expertise and being resourceful.

5. Get links from other bloggers

Getting links is not easy. Otherwise, every blog out there should have certain level of readership.

The essence of getting links from other bloggers is by being resourceful, genuine and sincere. If you have great content and practice some of the networking strategies above, you are on the right track because people will notice what you have to offer.

6. Update frequently

I notice that once I stop posting, my traffic goes down slightly. This is due to the fact that regular readers that subscribe to my RSS feed don’t visit if there is nothing new on my blog.

Blogs that are less updated or on hiatus may lose readership as people may start to unsubscribe from your RSS feed. This is one of the biggest mistakes I have made with some of my blogs, including this one.

7. Participate in community projects

Popular blogs often hold blogging contests so that fellow bloggers and readers can participate. This allows you to get links from the blog but from other readers that happen to read your post.

Other projects including blog carnivals and guest blogging.

8. Blog promotion

Of course, you can get a lot of readers by promoting your blog. Some of the ways including by advertising, search engine optimization, writing and syndicating articles on article directories or publications, participate in web forums and mailing lists, encourage RSS subscription, podcasting, and so on.

Some strategies are slow in showing results, but they are long term strategies that will bring you constant stream of traffic, ready for you to turn into regular readers.

Bloggers who are enjoy blogging and passionate about the topic they blog about should find it easy to keep working on their blog albeit the slow result. Perhaps it is a good thing that only bloggers who like what they do will grow their blog to the point of satisfaction. Once the blog gains some momentum, the growth is almost unstoppable.

So stick with it and have some fun.

Like in any relationship, if you don’t constantly make deposits into the Emotional Bank Account (to borrow the phrase from 7 Habits), then the relationship will become insecure rather than grow stronger.

I think it is exactly the same thing about how you treat your blog readers.

It helps to think that every reader has a one-to-one relationship with you as a blogger.

It is your responsibility to make your readers happy or they won’t come back to your blog again. There should be at least one good reason for them to visit or subscribe to your RSS feed.

And no, I am not talking about being everything to everybody. That is impossible. I also learned that being bold and opinionated could turn regular readers into loyal readers. Not all them, some will hate you with a “passion”, but those who do will become great customers.

1. Focus on long term relationship

Every reader could possibly be an evangelist for your blog, considering how easy it is to start a new blog and leave comments on other blogs nowadays.

If you think your blog as a business, then every reader could just be your potential customer in the future.

2. Readers are customers

At least there are two reasons why readers are your immediate customers. In certain type of blogs, bloggers don’t necessarily have to nurture the readers to become prospects, and prospects to become customers.

• Participate as an AdSense publisher - AdSense publisher should treat their readers as customers because they are the one who click on the dispalyed ads and earn them revenue.
• Sponsorship and advertising - A bit like AdSense publisher, but this model depends on the readership to establish a strong profile about the site to attract sponsorship and advertisers.

3. Readers are potential customers

In other blogs, first time readers are not going to be paying customers. Getting the readers to the door is just the first step. In this scenario, you should have a strategy that turn first time visitors into regular readers and then customers.

This could possibly mean combining other strategies like RSS subscription, email marketing, podcasting, and so on.

Bloggers should be worried about retaining readership, just like they think about their customer retention strategy. It’s not only about fixing the leak in the marketing funnel but also get the readers to refer business to you.

For all blog platforms, even if you choose a hosted blog platform, you want a domain name. Rather telling people to go to myblog.mybloghost.com, you want a shorter and easier to remember name. If you can’t host your blog on your own domain, at least redirect the domain to the hosted blog domain.

It just looks more professional. After all, you are running a business.

Forget all the cheesy suggestion of obtaining a long and keyword full domain name. It used to work, but now search engines know better. It only contributes a small fraction point to your ranking, if at all.

In fact, using a short domain name gives you benefits. It is easier to remember and tell your friends about. Shorter name is easier to remember. If all you target is search engine traffic and regular readers who consume your RSS feeds, then domain name matter less.

Here are important factors to consider when choosing a domain name:

• Short, easy to remember and easy to spell. Imagine you are going to give away your domain in front of a group, or getting interviewed in local radio or teleseminar. Try to spell out your domain name.
• Don’t be afraid to use brand name. I don’t mean you must come up with a clever and sweet name, although that is entirely acceptable. Think about Staples, Google, Yahoo, and others. I personally like OfficeDepot.com because even a complete stranger who never hears about the company knows what it does. Thinking this is impossible to get? Think again. I never purchase a domain that costs more than $10 nowadays. Use some creativity. Nameboy has a tool that generates domain names with combinations of keywords you give.
• Get a .com version of a domain name. When people think of a website, they think of .com. Even if you want to use .net, or .org, buy the .com version and redirect that to your main site. Sometimes people will type websites onto the browser out of their head, and you don’t want to lose visitors that way.
• Plurals and singulars. For the exact same reason as above, you should also get domain names that are plural or singular form of your domain.
• Avoid trademarked names. Avoid troubles. You may have heard stories about people who buy domain names and resell them to companies at higher prices. The thing is, nowadays they prefer to call their lawyers. Play nice.

To summarize, if you can come up with short and clean domain name with your keywords in it, by all means go for it. But, don’t bother about switching your existing site just because it isn’t packed with keywords. The effort is not worth it.

Spend some time to think about a good name, but don’t waste too much! No matter how cool is your domain, chances are the excitement won’t last long. Besides, you have more things to do to develop and grow your site.

Another two cents for me: use a centralized domain registrar to register all your domains. One of the many examples is NameCheap. Another reputable registrar is GoDaddy.

I often pass out free domain offer from my hosting company just for manageability. Why?

If you ever heard horror stories about popular sites who forgot to renew their domains, you know what I am talking about. I never had this problem in the past and hopefully in the future. NameCheap sent me a 30-day, and consecutive notices on domains that are going to expire. Moreover, I log in to my account every 30 days. It is an appointment on my calendar. I renew domains that I like regularly. Simple tip to prevent major headache.

Happy domain hunting.

The next step if you choose to run your blog using standalone blog platforms or remote hosting options is selecting the appropriate hosting package to support the platform.

This article doesn’t apply to those who simply want a hosted blog platform. If you fall into this category, feel free to read or skip this post.

With the myriad of hosting services and packages out there, it is easy to get into troubles if you carelessly choose the wrong hosting company, or even the wrong hosting plan that the company offers.

If you are just starting out, perhaps shared hosting is something you should go for. It is amazing the kind of service you get for a low monthly fee. Beware though, a bad host could mean endless nightmares for you and your blog. Price doesn’t necessary show the quality of service. Even hosting that costs less than $10 could vary from bad to excellent.

Here are 8 steps to minimize your bad experience with a hosting company and make starting and running your own blog as pleasant as possible:

1. Look around
Ask around. Browse forums and resource sites. Get the feel of what hosting companies offer and charge in the industry. Don’t judge anything yet. The biggest and brightest is not always the best.

Hosting directories are great places to start, but some of them “sell” the top ten places for hosting services to bid for. It is a dirty practice, so it is important that you didn’t base your decision on that rating and ranking alone.

2. Know what you need
Everyone has different needs. This is when, like I told you in the first point, you should never assume that the biggest and brightest is the best.

Often, you will never use all the space and bandwidth promised. You can have a successful blog without owning a busy one.

Blog software is small. Image files are moderate to huge in size, depend on the quality. If you provide a lot of images or software for free download, you want to keep this requirement in mind.

Next is what features you need. To run WordPress, you need PHP support with MySQL database. MovableType requires Perl. Most hosts provide the features, but just in case they don’t, you want to know it before you buy.

Small footprint of a blogware doesn’t mean they require minimal processor resources. When your blog attracts more traffic later, you will find that it continually exceeds the limitation sets by the company. So, take this into account too.

3. Know the rate
The rate for shared hosting as of this writing is $5-$10 per month for multiple domain hosting. For better service, expect to pay $10-$20 per month.

Your mission is not to get the best band for your buck. Far from that, it is time to think in terms of priorities, how reliability is important to you. Do you need extra features that you will never use but in return you get an aggregrate of 2 days of downtime each and every month?

4. Research deeper and find other opinions
Find hosting forum and search for what they have already been talking about hosting companies. Dig through the archives to see what others have reviewed about them after using them for a few months, a year or more.

Again, don’t trust hosting review sites. You want to find as much people saying good things about a hosting company before it makes to your short list. At least take second and third opinions to backup the reviews.

5. Make a short list
Make a short list of hosting companies that have received solid and positive reviews. A few negative reviews are acceptable. No company will ever make everyone happy.

The decision is not final yet, but this time make yourself a list of 3-5 companies you think are great.

6. Test the support response time
Now is the time to visit the hosting site, one by one. Look into what they offer and see if they match the requirement you have at hand.

If they provide live support — they usually are — then test to see how they treat a prospective customer. See if they can answer some questions you still have.

Popular hosting companies have their own forum where their customers and support staff hang out and help others solving their problems or ask questions before the sales. Make use of that resource.

7. Research and monitor the host
My first hosting is a nightmare. I paid one full year and end up moving to another host, including a brand new domain, because downtime was a major problem. The free domain that was registered through them is almost impossible to bring with me because of the responsiveness of the support.

Other tools you might want to try:

• If the host is popular, you can check and see how stable they are, the uptime of their servers, and other information through Netcraft.
• Alexa offers tracking of site popularity among those who install their toolbars — it is popular, since they are owned by Amazon.
• Check the response time of one or more of the sites hosted by the company using Vertain’s website speed test. See how it compares to others. Note: You are limited to only three free speed tests per URL per day.

8. Search for integrity
Finally, my little advice is that you should always go for companies who do business with integrity. They usually don’t over-promise and under-deliver.

For instance, 2 terabytes of bandwidth transfer per month cost much more than they charge. Although most sites won’t ever reach that, chances are the hosting service will disable accounts for domains which are consuming a quarter of the promised bandwidth or disk space.

I know hosting providers who follow the crowd but really have great services though, so it really depends on a lot of research and discussion with others who experience it directly.

Generally, 20GB of bandwidth is a lot for a blog which consists of text content most of the time. With that amount of bandwidth, you can serve more than 60,000 pages per month, with the assumption of 30K per page.