Widgets And Plugins for Blogger

Search Engine Marketing -
Blogger platform has undergone major improvements in last two years. Not only the blogger development team has added several new features to the platform,, but countless new blogger templates are being developed around the globe. Here are some best widgets and plugins for blogger powered blog that can spice up your blog for better reader experience.

1. Top Commentators Widget by BloggerPlugins - This excellent plugin has two versions. One for blogs having small number of comments and the second variant for blogs receiving lots of comments.

2. Translation Widget by BloggerPlugins - This one click install widget add multiple language translation support to your blogger blog.

3. Recent Post Widget by BloggerPlugins - This is highly customizable widget. You can set number of posts to display, post summary and it's length.

4. Recent Comments Widget by BloggerPlugins - A highly customizable widget. You can set the number of comments to display, author name, date and size of comment. You can also use CSS to gel it with your theme.

5. Label Cloud Plugin by phydeaux3 - This is one of the most popular label cloud generation plugin for blogger. You can customize various options after installing this plugin.

6. Archive Calendar Widget by PurpleMoggy - Very impressive archive calendar widget with customizable options.

7. Archive Calendar Widget by phydeaux3 - Another very popular archive calendar widget. Highly customizable for better browsing experience for the readers.

8. Recent Posts Widget by Feed2JS - This excellent plugin makes plugin installation and customization very easy. Just fill in the form and click the button to generate widget code.

9. Recent Comments Widgets by Blogger-Templates - Just fill in the options in the form and one click widget code generation. Excellent plugin which is highly customizable.

10. Picasa Web Albums Slideshow Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - A unique plugin to show photo slideshow from any picasa account. Ideal for personal blogs, photo blogs and web design blogs.

11. Search Form Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - If you want to add site search box in your blog's sidebar, install this plugin.

12. Google Talk Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - This plugin adds the Google Talk client to your blog so that your readers can directly converse with you.

13. Recent Comments Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - Yet another recent comments widget with customizable options and one-click install.

14. Sudoku Game Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - Want to add some interesting puzzle games for your visitors? Then install this plugin to integrate sudoku puzzle game in your blogger blog.

15. Google Translate Mini-Flags Widget by MadToMatoe - Very useful translation plugin powered by 'Google Translate'. One click install with multiple language translation facility.

16. Recent Comments Widgets by MadToMatoe - One more recent comments widget for blogger blogs. Again you can customize the number of recent comments to be displayed.

17. Reactions Mini-Poll Widget by ThemeLib - Want to host a poll on your blogger blog? Install this plugin and get customizable polls for your readers.

18. Alexa Traffic Widget by TechKnowl - Display your Alexa stats with this customizable widget.

19. Snow Flakes Widget by TechKnowl - Add a stunning snowfall effect in your blogger template in the festive season.

20. Popular Posts Widget by TechKnowl - A very simple popular posts plugin using Yahoo pipes to filter out popular posts on your blog.

21. Flash MP3 Player Widget by TechKnowl - This cool plugin allows you to embed flash mp3 player in your blogger blog. The player is very light with custom options.

22. Rating Widget by Outbrain - If you want to integrate rating system with your blogger posts, then this excellent plugin is the best choice. It has rating system plus related posts integration in same widget.

23. Multi-tab TOC Widget by Beautiful Beta - If you want to display multi-tab table of contents section in your blogger blog, then install this widget. Very popular among blogger users.

24. Tab View Widget by Hoctro - The coolest plugin showing tabbed posts with animated post excerpts. A must for your blog's sidebar.

25. Random/Rotating Banner Widget by FreeYaSoul - Very useful widget for displaying rotating banners in your blog's header. You can customize and can choose any number of headers.

26. Social Bookmarking Widget by Lasvak - This is perhaps the most easily installable bookmarking widget for blogger. Just copy and paste a single line of code in your blogger template and your bookmarking icons are ready.

27. Paypal Donation Widgets by Etienne - Integrate different types of paypal donation widget in your blogger blog with ease.

28. Podcating Plugin by Talkr - If you want to integrate podcasts to your blog, register for this service and get free podcasting plugin for your blogger blog.

29. What's Next? Section Widget by eblogtemplates - Integrate a Wordpress style 'What's Next' section below blogger posts with this excellent widget.

30. Twitter Profile Widget by BloggerBuster - Add your twitter profile and twitter updates with this useful plugin developed by Amanda Fazani.

31. Bookmarking Widget by SocioFluid - One of the best social bookmarking plugin for blogger. Big animated icons with one click installation.

How To Get The Easiest Instant Traffic For Your Blog

Search Engine Marketing -Getting instant traffic for blog is not as hard as some people may think. By applying some clever techniques we can gain some good traffic for our blogs in no time. Some of these techniques are very easy to implement, while others requires some preparation before applying them effectively, Let us see how to take our share of pie from the traffic explosion on Internet.

Image Credit: joiseyshowaa

Comment On Popular Blogs of Similar Niche

This is the most effective way to get instant traffic for your blog. Suppose you own a tech blog, and you are among the top 5 commentators on well known blogs in your niche, rest assured that you will get good traffic from there. Readers have the tendency to click on commentator's hotlink to know more about them. But having said that, one must keep in mind the correct way of implementing this method. Following things must be followed while commenting on high traffic popular blogs.

1. The blog should be of similar niche.
2. Give a useful and constructive comment.
3. Subscribe to 'Follow-up comments' and actively take it further.
4. Keep unique identity and use your Gravatar profile wherever possible.
5. Learn the art of taking criticism in positive way.

Engage in Discussion with Big Guns On Social Media Sites

Create and build up decent profiles on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Initiate a discussion with a popular blogger in similar niche. You can start by replying his public comment or tweet. Or can straight away ask some question. As soon as you get the response, try to build up the flow and exchange messages as long as you can. Your friends, communities and networks on social media site will notice this discussion, as large number of people will be following the big gun. The effect of this discussion will be that people will notice you exchanging views with the popular blogger, and they will try to know more about you, giving you the required traffic along with a little recognition.

Initiate Constructive Thread on High Traffic Forum

This is yet another excellent technique to get instant traffic for your blog. Sign up on various high traffic forums of similar niche. If you are a new forum user, it will take some time to get accustomed with forum etiquette, else you can start straightaway. Identify popular threads and jump into the bandwagon. You can also initiate your own thread with some hot topic. Remember, if you managed to create a popular thread on high traffic forums like Digital Point Forum, you will get tons of traffic for long time to come.

Use Social Bookmarking Tools

Build a network on Digg, StumbleUpon and similar sites, and use your network to bookmark and promote your blog posts. Digg and StumbleUpon are known to send huge traffic, once the post gets enough votes from the community. Make sure you do not misuse it and take care of usage guidelines; otherwise your blog may be banned on these sites.

Advertise

And last but not the least is an advertising option. If you have the required budget and if you are desperate for instant traffic, you can sign up for some good CPC campaigns on poplar advertising networks like Google Adwords.

Over To You

We can clearly see, that the first three methods require patience and time. I have often noticed that some of my fellow bloggers are not ready to invest time in these 3 methods, and still want traffic and popularity. Do you use these methods in diverting traffic flow to your blog? What other techniques you often use to achieve the same?
(Source : http://www.mintblogger.com/)

The Easiest WaysTo Promote Your Blog On Facebook

Search Engine Marketing -Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. It has millions of members with a large user base of professionals, readers, bloggers, intellects and casual readers. Recently, facebook has revamped its interface and provides immense opportunities to promote your online business. There are several techniques to promote your blog or website on facebook.

Make Your Profile Visible

Make sure you do not restrict your facebook profile from getting indexed in search engines. Update the privacy settings and make it open for everyone, including the whole facebook community.

Add Blog Info To Profile

Needless to say, adding your blog information to your facebook profile is one of the most important settings in your profile. Add your blog URL to your basic information section and make it visible to all.

Use 3rd Party Apps

There are tons of 3rd party applications for facebook that can be easily integrated with your profile. You can browse the categorized application catalog and can use the selective applications that can promote and highlight your blog. Most famous are RSS aggregators and social media services mash up applications.

Publish RSS Feeds

Use RSS feed aggregator applications like Simplaris Blogcast and Blog RSS Feed Reader to publish your blog feed in your facebook profile. Customize it according to your needs and integrate it with your profile page.

Join Relevant Groups

This is one more method to give more exposure to your blog. Browse through various groups on facebook and take membership of those groups that provide promotion of blogs, social networking and social media marketing services to members.

Make a Facebook Page

Facebook page is an excellent strategy to promote your online business. With page application you can create a dedicated page for your blog and fill it with tons of added sections. People can subscribe and become fan of your facebook page, and can take part in polls, discussions, forum posting, photo uploading and tagging and much more.

Advertise On Facebook

Running a PPC campaign on facebook is one more option to give good exposure to your blog. You can get low cost advertising solutions with ad customization and filtering targeted readers for your ad.

Socialize and Network

And last but not the least, create a strong network of friends and keep your profile updated. Spend time in sharing and posting things on your wall, and interact with communities.

Over To You

Do you use Facebook as one of your blog promotion strategies? How much time you spend each day on facebook? What other techniques you use on facebook for promoting your online presence?
(Source : http://www.mintblogger.com/) 

How To Get Backlinks To Your Blog (more and more)

Search Engine Marketing -Every blogger try his very best to acquire backlinks for his blog in different ways. Links coming from various sources that are relevant to the niche elevates the ranking of your content in SERP's. Although there are so many ways to gather backlinks, I would prefer not to discuss about various less popular and black hat techniques to acquire backlinks. Let's see how can we inflate our backlink count using some very effective techniques.

How To Get Backlinks For Your Blog (more and more)

Comment On Do-Follow Blogs

There are hundreds of do-follow blogs that are a good source of acquiring backlinks for your blog. Create a list of do-follow blogs that are relevant to your niche and religiously comment on these blogs. Do not spam the blog and devote some time in giving useful and constructive comments. Blogs having do-follow links enabled have strict commenting policies, and any spammer is instantly kicked out.

Guest Blogging

I myself use this method to acquire backlinks as well as exposure for my blog. Build relationships with fellow bloggers and submit a guest post for their blogs. Often some bloggers commit a mistake of creating a filler post for the guest post. Remember, its all about your credibility and reputation. If the content is not for your own blog that doesn't mean you can afford to create a filler post. Giving your very best gives you the required traffic and of course a backlink.

Co-Author a Blog

Once you get popular and start to get known in your domain, there are many blog co-authoring opportunities. You can also search on Google about various opportunities of co-authoring a blog. Negotiate a fair deal that is a win-win situation for both the blog owner and you. It will give you exposure, linkbacks and money, all at one time.

Article Marketing

At weekends you can submit couple of articles to various popular article directories like Ezine Articles, GO Articles and Search Warp. Create a resource box and linkback to your blog. Apart from gaining a backlink, article submission also sends some good traffic back to the blog.

Create Linkbait

More and more bloggers try their hand on this technique to get massive number of backlinks in quick time. Having said that, one must keep in mind that its an art and comes by experience. You may or may not succeed in your various attempts of creating viral content. Still, you must try your hand at it and all will follow by experience.

Offer Free eBook or Theme

Create a good ebook or a blog theme (template). Offer it for free to your readers. I myself have used this technique by designing a free blogger template called - Mint-Classic. It is now on several blogspot blogs and the credit link in the footer is adding to the backlinks to my blog. If your giveaway is really good and becomes a hit, you will get a good number of backlinks very easily.

Break Some News

Create Google Alerts and keep yourself updated with current happenings in your domain. If you manage to break some news on your blog, you can acquire massive backlinks in no time.

Participate In Do-Follow Forums

Like do-follow blogs, there are dozens of do-follow discussion forums that can be a good source of acquiring backlinks. Daily keep an hour aside for these forums, and build up your links by taking active part on a regular basis. Again the forum should be relevant to your blog's niche.

Cross Link Your Blog Network

If you have more than one blog or your blog is a part of a blog network, you can easily cross-link the blogs. Put more stress on contextual linking within posts across each blog in the network to get the maximum benefit. Internal cross-linking on the same blog also increases the backlink count. Make sure you do not do it excessively and pay special attention on the relevancy and anchor text while creating a contextual link, whether its an internal link or a cross-link in the blog network.

Blog Carnivals

Create some good articles containing contextual links to your blog and submit them to blog carnivals. Once a month, I submit couple of articles to blog carnivals that gives me valuable linkbacks and decent traffic.

Create Quality Content

And last but not the least is your blog content. The best way to organically build backlinks to your blog is to create consistent quality content. Piling up massive amount of pillar articles automatically generates backlinks when people quote, refer and discuss about your articles and posts.

Here I must stress that this process takes time and patience, but the returns are equally rewarding. In the long run, these organic links referring your quality content plays a big role in bringing regular traffic to your blog.

Over To You

What other similar techniques do you use to acquire backlinks for your blog? Do you use black hat techniques for the same or play safe?
(Source : http://www.mintblogger.com/)