Over the course of my blogging, there are some tools I use that I could not blog without. These are the products I have used to grow my blogs and to continue to improve upon techniques for the future.
Sliqua – At the bottom of my blogs, you will see a link that says “Wicked Fast Hosting by Sliqua” and that is because it is true. The crew over at Sliqua keep my blogs up and running 24/7 with incredible backups. You pay for that speed and top level service, but…in my world…downtime is money so I am willing to pay a little bit more to get that security.
MacBook Pro – I am a Mac junkie…so it would make sense that I am running everything on a 15.4″ MacBook Pro with 4 gigs of ram. I don’t know what I would do without it honestly. My entire online life is compiled on the MBP and my iPhone 3GS. My blogging would me much harder without either of those tools.
CyberDuck – CyberDuck is a Mac program that handles all of my FTP file transfers. It has an easy to use interface and – best of all – it is free! When it comes to uploading files to my servers, I could live without this rubber duck in my dock.
Ramped Blogging – Yes…I use the ebook I published as a resource to improve my own blogging. As much as we all wish we could remember everything to do at all times…that just isn’t possible. So, I created Ramped Blogging as a resource for myself (188 page cheat sheet) as much as I created it to help out other bloggers.
Mint – Stat Tracking from Mint is a bargain at only 30 dollars per domain (one time fee). I get a detailed, inside look at my stats and with a bunch of free bolt ons…you can really tailor this web site tracking package to your specific needs. It is also easy to use via my iPhone for peaking into my sites on the go.
Photoshop CS4 – I use a lot of images and graphics in my articles for my blogs, so I need a powerful imaging program to handle compression and image generation. Photoshop is the leader in this industry and for good reason…it is the best. There are a lot more cost effective options out there, but Photoshop still does the best job.
Tweetie for iPhone – The latest version of Tweetie for the iPhone has really streamlined my Twitter use by making it easy to accomplish almost all Twitter tasks on the move. Let’s face it…the times you want to update Twitter the most are when you are away from your computer. Tweetie gets that done for me.
TweetDeck – When I am using Twitter on my computer, it needs to be quickly and efficiently. With multiple Twitter accounts with thousands of followers, TweetDeck allows me to view all accounts at once and create different groups. With an easy to use layout, TweetDeck saves ma a lot of social media time.
Skype – Skype is a life saver. Part of dealing with an internet business is having to make calls all over the world. Skype allows you to do this and for an extremely low price in comparison with the competition. I even have my own phone number and voice mail! I also use Skype to record interviews for my sites. If you are planning on doing any recorded interviews, Skype will be the preferred method by most people.
MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate – The Ninja Affiliate plugin is probably my biggest asset in affiliate marketing as it has paid for itself about 50 times over. Not only does it allow you to make pretty affiliate links, but it completely manages all of the links in your site, tracks the stats and automatically inserts them via keywords so you do not have to dig through every post to insert links (or go back and change them when your affiliates change). A must have for any blogger considering affiliate marketing.
Acrobat Pro – I use Acrobat Pro for all of my PDF viewing, PDF file compression for web use and basically everything that has to do with eBooks outside of actually designing the book. Adobe is the leader in PDF technology so it would only fit that they have the best app out there for it.
How To Launch The **** Out Of Your eBook – What to not have to learn eBook production and publication the hard way like I did? All of the testing and trial and error I went through could have been drastically reduced if I would have picked up a copy of “How To Launch the **** Out Of Your Ebook” first. Dave and Naomi did an incredible job and I still use their techniques today.