Here’s a collection of most useful blog add-ons or extras that can be easily integrated with any website and will help in enhancing your visitors’ experience.
All these 15 add-ons are free and you don’t have to be a geek to use them on your site.
1. Google Talk Badge - This badge will enable site visitors to get in touch with you quickly. They won’t need a Google account and the badge is enabled only when you are online. Alternative is meebo me.
2. Web2PDF Online - Love this. People can download your articles as PDF files with a click. The PDFs are free of any advertising and you also get full access to stats so you know what articles downloaded most, etc. (example)
3. Zoho Creator - If you ever need to create web forms for your blog, use Zoho Creator. It lets you customize the form layouts, there are no data limits and best of all, readers can upload file attachments while submitting the form.
4. HP Blog Printing - This makes your blog printer friendly. Visitors can pick blog posts that they want to print and only the text + images get printed. Everything else including banners, sidebars, etc. are cut off from the printed version.
5. Outbrain Ratings - The is the best way to add ratings to your blog posts. Outbrain offers two extra advantages as well - your readers can find more stories related to the one they are currently reading and two, they can rate stories even from feed readers.
6. ShareThis or AddThis - They help reduce clutter on your blog by neatly arranging icons in a CSS drop-down that appears only on mouse hover. Both are similar though I prefer AddThis as it is loads faster and allows branding.
7. Google Feed Wizard - This is useful if you have to embed RSS feeds in your blog - you can create blocks in either horizontal or vertical format. If your need options other than AJAX, try these RSS widgets or the static Google Gadgets.
8. Skribit - This is again a great tool to get feedback and opinions from your site visitors.
For instance, you can put up a question like "What should I write about" or "How Can I improve" in the sidebar and readers can add opinions anonymously. They can even vote on suggestions left by other visitors. See example.
9. who.amung.us - This helps you and your readers know how many people are currently on the site and what pages are they reading. No sign-up required and amung.us will even tell you the exact location of different visitors on a map.
10. Eco Safe Badge - This badge allows website visitors to send a full copy of your web page to any email address in HTML or PDF format. Alternatively, they can download a PDF version of the page in a click. The whole idea is to discourage visitors from printing web pages.
11. Meebo Rooms - This allows visitors on your website to interact with each other inside a chat room. Other options worth exploring include Google Lively but again, Lively requires installation at the client’s end.
12. Scribd iPaper - If you frequently link to PDF files and Microsoft Office documents like doc or xls, the Scribd iPaper add-on will make sure that your content remains accessible even to readers who don’t have Microsoft Office or Adobe Reader.
You simply copy-and-paste a small block of code into your webpage, and QuickSwitch converts all the documents in your blog into Flash Paper format hosted on Scribd. If you only link to PDF files, try PDFMeNote script.
13. Yahoo! Media Player - If you have an audio blog or frequently link to MP3 files, integrate the Yahoo! media players in your blog template - this auto-detects any MP3 links and creates an embedded player so you are saved from all the hard work.
14. Translate Gadget - This lets your non-English speaking visitors translate articles from your website in their native language using Google Translation.
Alternatively, you can create your own translation box with language flags or through a different translation service.
15. Digg Your Blog - A good Digg widget that doesn’t get much attention.
Unlike the regular "Digg This" buttons, this widget creates a list of posts from your own blog that are currently getting votes on Digg. Put it in your sidebar to highlight "recently popular" content.
Also see:
1. How to Completely Test Your Website
2. Everything You Wanted to Know about a Website
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/useful-blog-addons-for-blogger-wordpress/4171/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Great list Amit,
I was looking for the PDF file & HP Blog Article print button only. I am sure it will help my blog user’s to save and print articles
Thanks Again
Written by Afzal Khan on 08.07.08
Yo, great list, but for a couple i guess i have improvements.
1. Gtalk badge -> mabber widget so that we can use our jabber client.
11. meebo rooms -> mibbit widget
Written by alfred on 08.07.08
Eco Safe Badge FTW!
Written by Manan on 08.07.08
Nice list of useful tools but neither you use them nor do i like to use them all…offcourse i use the google translate :)
Written by Rajesh on 08.07.08
Thanks for the mention (#5 - outbrain) Amit! Great post… I just wish I could have rated it here… ;-)
Written by Yaron Galai on 08.07.08
Wow! what a great post. I’ve used a few of these, but this list is just chock-full-of ideas.
I’m going to try a few other ideas.
Good job.
Written by VitaminCM on 08.07.08
Hi,
I was wondering what is the best and free blog counter. I would like to get some meaningful information about my visitors.
Regards
Written by Alok on 08.07.08
Nice list… Probably you can add stumbleupon, technorati and Mybloglog widget ?
Written by Kevin on 08.07.08
such a great list thanks again amit….I really like the google transaltion widget…
Written by Roshan Bhattarai on 08.07.08
It is a wonderful list and very much helpful .
Just from few days i am wondering how to get the pdf output at the end of post.
Thanks a lot Amit.
Written by suresh on 08.07.08
Yes.. good article, I’ve using some of them
And the other is new for me, maybe I must try
thanks
Written by ebta on 08.07.08
Very Very useful tools for bloggers.
Thanks for the review Amit.
Written by hemu on 08.07.08
Outbrain’s tool is quiet useful…. and so is web2pdf…
Written by bizztra on 08.07.08
Maybe you find this widget interesting (http://www.3dlivestats.com/widget/) it will show the visitors of the blog on a 3D Globe which you can give a spin with your mouse.
Written by Arturo on 08.07.08
Great list! Thanks!
Written by Fernando on 08.07.08
Very useful to improve visitor experience. Stumbled :-)
Written by Satbir Singh on 08.07.08
Thanx Amit.!
Well yahoo media Player is a definitely a good stuff ..
Thanx for Sharing
I will use many of these addons on my blog.
Thanx
Written by shankar on 08.07.08
This is definitely a great list. I’ll check-out the Web2PDF.
Personally, I don’t like to put too many gadgets on my site to clutter the layout. I like simplicity and don’t like to put even a single link/icon that doesn’t add significant value to the blog.
Written by Ramesh Natarajan on 08.07.08
awesome stuff.
tnx amit for the list.
cheers
satish
Written by satish on 08.07.08
Amit,
I used web2pdfonline in my blog, but the Google ads still appear in the pdf file. Thanks for the information anyway.
Written by Expatguru on 08.07.08
I m using Gtalk badge on my blog and has chatted with many live readers . This is a very great tool for increasing interactivity of one’s blog .
Written by ArpitNext on 08.08.08
Amit - Every now and again I come across a well-thought out blog post with a list of tools, utilities and/or programs which, when I test them, just hit that sweet spot and leave me with a 360 degree grin - this is one of those times. :)
I’m stoked! Many thanks for taking the time and effort to share your knowledge, it is greatly appreciated.
Mark
Written by Mark on 08.08.08
How many of these will work on Wordpress.com blogs?
Written by Tech Search Maniac on 08.08.08
Pretty nice post. Bookmarked it.
Written by Ky on 08.08.08
Some of the plugins are really nice. On some, you are late on sharing, is it? You have been using for a long time…. and this is the time u thought u could share at your best. Whatever, still they are the best add ons. KIO.
Written by Ekendra on 08.08.08
Useful list. Have tried many Social Bookmarking plugins for WordPress, but the AddThis one is probably the best!
OutBrain looks interesting too!
Thanks!
Written by Andy Patmore on 08.08.08
Cool list. Especially Ecobadge and Google Translate are awesome!
Written by Ashwin on 08.08.08
Hi Amit,
If there are any plugins for the Wordpress.com blogs, pl tell….
Written by Tech Search Maniac on 08.08.08
Very helpful post, thank you!
Written by Yogini on 08.09.08
Great collection amit,
I am really searching for this kind of post from a long time.
Written by sandeep on 08.11.08
As usual, another great list, Amit! And thanks for reco’ing Zoho Creator to your your readers.
Written by Arvind on 08.11.08
Thanks for the list, I’ll try some of these tools on my blogs.
The main problem I have with this kind of stuff is that the gadgets doesnt always integrate smoothly (on a visual point of view) on any given site. Especially those working in Flash (the HTML ones are easier to customize to your own colors and fonts).
Add too many of these gadgets on your site and it’s a real mess for the eyes.
Written by Stéfan on 08.11.08
Well, Amit thanks for the list, I’ll sure check them out :0
Written by Rohan on 08.13.08
Great list - thanks a lot. The only caution I would make is to be careful you don’t over-clutter your blog with gadgets - that can be a turn-off for readers.
Written by Sarah Stewart on 08.13.08
Hi Amit,
I am not able to integrate Gtalk badge with my Wordpress blog. Do you know how to integrate it with wordpress widgets?
Thanks
Chintan
Written by Chintan on 08.19.08
These are very useful add ons. In fact I used the printing and the eco safe ones. Thank you for the recommendations.
Written by Tony Chan on 10.02.08