Yesterday I posted about choosing the right platform for your blog & your budget.  So assuming you have made that choice what other tools do you need to help you launch your blogging efforts?

The first thing you will want to do is actually get your work read. So promotional tools are the thing you are looking for.  Some of these will be built into your blogging platform, depending on which route you go.  Wordpress has some great SEO plugins that will help you ensure that your blog gets ranked within the search engines.

But don’t leave it all to SEO, there are other tools that will help you get the word out about your blog. Firstly, make it easy for people to get your content. Adding an RSS feed will ensure that you get a broader distribution not just readers subscribing (don’t forget to add the email option as well). Services like FeedBurner are very useful for this.

Don’t forget to use tools like Delicious to occassionally boost your page views - though don’t over do this, you don’t want to appear as a complete self promoter.

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WordPress is definitely one of the best blogging tools available to mankind. If you’re starting out as an Internet entrepreneur or if your on the way of becoming a really famous one, you should stop and check it out. If you already know it then you should definitely upgrade it to the last version available. WordPress 2.7 has been released about 10 days ago and it’s going to get you a totally new blogging experience.

WordPress 2.7 has been totally redesigned. The Dashboard has been completely revamped and you’ll be quite surprised. The elements of the dashboard have been rearranged in a more friendlier layout. The menu is on the left of the page while in the center you will find all the current stats of your blog: number of posts, number of pages, tags and categories, the number of comments and comments pending, etc. There’s a QuickPress feature on the right where you will be able to quickly write up a draft of a post. Below the center stats the recent comments are displayed. Everything sits logically on that dashboard page.

The comment section is also quite amazing. You can edit comments and manage them better than in previous versions. After all comments are an important marker of your blog’s success. You should pay them a great deal of attention.

One more useful thing is the the Google Gears integration which isn’t that new but it will definitely improve the speed of your blog. Install Gears and have your blog run so much faster than it used to. How it works you ask? Gear will download stuff from your server and you will be able to manage your blogs a lot faster.

As for security, and that’s the most important factor in light of recent events, WordPress 2.7 will make your blog a lot safer. Nothing is perfect out there but you should definitely upgrade your WordPress to the last version. WordPress rolled various security updates earlier this year, like WordPress 2.6.5, so you should definitely stay updated when it comes to your blog’s security. You’ll find that out the hard way if you don’t take care of your blog immediately.

I could be telling you a lot more about WordPress 2.7 but you should try it on for yourself. I can’t think of any reason why it should fit you just fine. But I am just discovering it myself so I’ll keep you posted if stuff doesn’t go according to plan!

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The webmasters from AffiliateTips.com contacted me to see if I can review their affiliate directory website. When I looked at the site, there was no way I was going to turn down writing this review for my readers. If you’d like to get started with affiliate marketing or would just simply like to learn what the top affiliate programs are on the web and what they offer, read on to see what AffiliateTips is all about.

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Do you know how to build links to the sites that you own? Link building is something that is a very important part of internet marketing, especially for site owners like us who want to get more exposure for their site. It helps with SEO, getting traffic, and increasing the readership of your site. Check out LinkBuildingWiki.com and you’ll find all the great resources on link building.

What Is Link Building Wiki?

Link Building Wiki is a, well, wiki full of resources about link building from the people who brought you TextLinkBrokers. The whole site is divided into different sections like how you would see in any wiki from Wikipedia. From compilations of blog and forum posts to sites and tools all about link building, this wiki helps users like us to find what we want.

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All bloggers, new or experienced, need to be able to use many blog tools and services. Without some of these tools, it would almost be impossible to have a successful blog. Here are a few blog tools that will help with your blogging success.

Technorati

Every blogger needs to have a Technorati account. It’s the search engine of the blogging world. For every blog that links to your blog will give you an authority. The higher your authority is, the higher your blog will rank in Technorati. So if you have started your blog a few weeks or months ago and haven’t claimed your blog on Technorati yet, go ahead and get one! You have already wasted a few links to your site that could have given your blog some authority ranking.

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Like to make money online? Head on to Mashable.com to see their great article about making money online. They have compiled over 100 tools and resources that will help you make money online in many different categories. The list is very nicely organized into categories like “Get Paid to Blog”, “Advertising Programs”, and “Affiliate Networks”. After checking out all the money-making list, you’ll see that there is other ways to make money online than just Google Adsense.

Link: Make Money Online: 100+ Tools and Resources
Source: Mashable.com

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This is the third and final search engine optimization tip in this series. From SEO tip #1, you learned how to use keyword selector tools when choosing the right keywords for your search engine-optimized posts. SEO tip #2 talked about how to incorporate those keywords. Today, you’ll see a list of where to place the keywords you find.

When I say “where” to place keywords, I’m talking about more places than just the article itself. Keywords don’t just belong inside posts and post titles, but also in many different places that search engine crawlers look at. Here’s a little list to show you exactly where to put keywords.

• Like I said, place keywords on post titles (which will also be the page title).
• Have keywords in different formats: bold and italics
• In the URL of the page
• In image “alt” tags
• In links
• In meta tags
• Last but not least: in your content

There is more to SEO than the three tips that I have given you. Those 3 tips are the stepping-stones to having your articles on the front page of search results. Even if you don’t do anything else, applying these tips are over 80% of what having great SEO articles.

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This is the first search engine optimization tip out of the 3 tips that I’m going to be sharing. Every webmaster knows that SEO is very important when it comes to getting visitors from search engines like Google. Making search engine-optimized articles and sites not only guarantees you traffic, but also makes your time of writing those articles worth-while. So to move on here’s SEO Tip #1…

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