ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.
Install ScribeFire Now
...a lot of bloggers swear by it.
Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch.com
Jon Mills at affiliatebusinessadvisor.com has posted a video review of ScribeFire that covers most of the basics of the ScribeFire editor:
See Jon's site for the text accompanying the video review.
Many blogs highlight their favorite or most popular blog posts on the sidebar of their blogs. But if you have a mountain of content that is being relegated to the depths of your archive because they were written so long ago, it is probably time to create a single page that links up your top blog articles.
What’s the best?
First, determine what your top blog content is. If you have kept analytics since the beginning of your blog’s existence, look and see which blog entries have had the most number of cumulative page views. Those should be included. Then consider other blog entries you feel are the best, but for some reason just didn’t make the most-eyeballs list, or perhaps they were really well received by a smaller niche than your blog generally serves. Aim to have at least 20-25 blog entries.
Categorize them
Perhaps the simple blog categories you use for regular blogging just isn’t the best way to break down your content. Or maybe you tagged many of your posts with 3 or 4 categories each, and you need to figure what one would be best suited to the blog. Just don’t do it by date… people can use the date archives if they want to know what you wrote back in June of 2006. Now that you have categorized them, divide each blog entry into a single category. And if you have a couple categories with only a single entry, go back and find a couple more to put in each. You want to make sure you have at least two entries in each category.
Write snippets
You don’t necessarily want to have just a page of links, especially if you have a lot of best posts to show off. So write new and unique snippets for each blog… really avoid the temptation to just copy the first sentence from each post. And make the snippets enticing as well, so that the combination of title and snippet make each one irresistible to readers.
Create a new page
Now that you have everything you need, create new page on your blog (a page rather than a blog post per se which would send it off into the archives. Call the page “Most Popular Blog Posts” or something similar, so that if people see it in the blog sidebar, they know exactly what it is if they clicked it.
Regularly update
Once you have created the page, do make sure you go back and update it. It doesn’t do much good for your readers if the page hasn’t been updated with any new popular blog hosts for the past six months. So make a habit of updating every month or so, or adding an entry after you notice it has a traffic spike.
If your blog is new
If your blog is fairly new, and you only have a handful of those most popular posts, there is no reason why you can’t have a best blog post page. Just leave out the categories and perhaps slightly lengthen the length of your snippets so it doesn’t look too bare. Then as you add new blog posts, you can add categories later and shorten the snippets to organize it better.
Promote it
Make note of it in your forum signatures. Comment and link to it from your own blog so that the longtime readers know it’s there. Include it in your resume or “about me” page on other sites. Share it when you are at industry conferences and add it to your speaker bio.
Automate it
There are a few plugins that add article pages with plugins. While not completely automated, it makes life easier for the lazy blogger.
When you create a best blog post page, it helps new readers who have just discovered your blog to find the best you have to offer. This also makes it more enticing for those readers to subscribe to your blog, since they can easily see just how much great content you have to offer. And since new blogs can easily implement this kind of blog strategy, it makes sense to add this to your blog.
How many of you don’t subscribe to your own blog feed? Probably not very many. But in reality you should definitely subscribe to your blog feed since it can highlight any blog issues you have so that you can catch them much faster than you might otherwise.
How does it look?
How do your entries look in Bloglines, Google Reader, etc? When you subscribe to your own blog you can see how it looks, and you can notice things such as the fact you are only offering partial feeds when you thought you offered full. You can also check to see if there are weird formatting issues going on or anything else that makes your content look less-than-perfect when viewed in an RSS Reader.
Tech issues
Did you Wordpress bork your RSS feeds? What if you have been blogging daily for the last three weeks, but none of your subscribers knew it because their feed for your blog wasn’t updating? Programs aren’t fail safe and it is much better to notice on your own that your feed is not updating than to rely on your subscribers who might have thought you just must have gone on an extended vacation.
Hackers
Depending on your RSS settings, your RSS feed will update when something is changed on your blog. This means if your site falls victim to an injection attack where 10k worth of spammy hidden links are added to each entry, you should see each of those blog posts updated in your feed reader (however, it won’t show up if they are added in your blog footer, unfortunately). If you wake up in the morning and see that all your recent blog entries have been mysteriously updated overnight, that is a definite flag that something nefarious probably went on during the night. And if you spot a brand new blog entry by a hacker coming through, you will be on top of it too, rather than not noticing until the next time you logged into your blog.
Check snippets
If you are not including full blog entries, you can start optimizing snippets by seeing how they are appearing in your reader, and so you can continue to tweak as necessary. You can also check and see how excerpts are displaying.
RSS ads
If you are using RSS advertising, you can check your entries to make sure the ads are not only relevant, but that any advertisements you do not want displaying your ads are not showing up. And it gives you the opportunity to blog any ads from showing before most of your subscribers see them.
Quickly spot problems before everyone sees them
If you make a habit to refresh your RSS reader right after you post to your blog, you can also spot problems and fix them immediately, before they show up on everyone else’s reader. While you might not catch them all before they update, you could fix that embarrassing typo you made in the RSS excerpt before most of your subscribers download the feed.
Me, Myself & I
Do you have a lot of blogs? It makes sense to set them all up in the same folder, whether you call it “mine”, “me” or “vanity” in your RSS feed reader, then you can quickly scan them regularly. (Yes, mine is called Me, Myself & I… I suppose I was feeling creative that day!) But just don’t forget to regularly check the feed… subscribing to your own feed doesn’t do any good if you are not checking it 
There are a ton of reasons to subscribe to your own feeds, especially when you are following other blogs in a blog RSS reader as well. So go and add every feed - including the comment feeds - to your RSS reader so you can be the first to spot potential problems, so they can be fixed before others spot them too!
There are some things that all bloggers should do on a regular basis… but probably aren’t. You know, those pesky little things called backups and upgrades. Whether it is a lack of time, an “I’ll do it sometime”, or “It won’t happen to me” mentality, here are the things you should be doing regularly for the health of your blog. And if you aren’t one of the few who do these regularly, start putting a plan in place to do them. Because the time and problems that will arise from not doing them will be far greater than just making a habit of doing it in the first place!
Backing up your database
Bloggers are pretty lax at backing up their blog database. But what if a catastrophe occurs? Hackers, corrupt databases and a blog host that ceases to exist are all things than unexpectedly happens to bloggers, and they can take your entire blog with it. Having a backup of your blog’s database means that if something goes wrong, you will still have a copy of not only all your blog posts but also all the comments and trackbacks made as well. Not sure how to backup? Check for instructions with the blogger platform you use, or if you use Wordpress, you can also install a backup plugin that will do all the dirty work for you.
Backup your template files
You should also regularly back up your files too, especially your template files. This means that if a hacker exploits your template and adds thousands of spammy footer links or something happens with the host, you have a nice clean backup of your files, including any changes you might have made to the original template.
Upgrading Wordpress or your blog software of choice
After you have backed up your database and files, the next thing you should be doing is check for updates to your blog software. And most likely, it also means upgrading Wordpress, MovableType or whichever blog software you are using for your blog. Don’t just assume that upgrading to the next version is simply to give bloggers more features… chances are extremely good that the new version was made to close holes that could allow your blog to get exploited or hacked. Nearly all cases of blogs being hacked is because the blogger was lax in upgrading. And it is far easier to upgrade than it is to de-hack your blog it once it has been exploited.
Upgrading plugins
While not as critical as upgrading the blog software itself, upgrading plugins can be pretty important if there is a security loophole created with the version you are using. And as a bonus, the new version of WP 2.5 notes in the plugins page which plugins have new versions available. So you just need to remember to check the page… and upgrading plugins is usually just as painless as it was installing them in the first place.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to do these things for your blog. You don’t want to lose 2 years worth of blogging simply because you didn’t get around to backing up and upgrading. And a single exploit that has been done by hackers on your blog will take much, much longer than the amount of time it takes to simply upgrade and backup everything over the entire life of your blog. And as an added bonus, it will keep your sanity too 
Dealing with the consequences of not doing the above is not very much fun at all!
Sometimes we get so focused on our own blogs that even when we are actively reading other blogs in the industry, we just end up not commenting on them, even if we have something interesting to say on it. But commenting on other blogs is a large part of any blogger’s marketing strategy, especially if your blog is fairly new with a low subscriber rate. Here is why you should really be commenting on other people’s blogs and how you should do it.
Become known by the blog you comment on
It can be a great way to introduce your blog to another blog in the industry you want to connect with, especially if your blog is brand new. I tend to visit all URLs from new commenters on my blog, and yes, I have subscribed to some of those feeds. And in this world with what seems like 20 gazillion active blogs, chances are I might not have found those blogs if they hadn’t commented on my blog first.
Recognition
You know the old saying that ads need to be seen 7 times before they generate a response from the consumer? The same thing applies to blogs. If someone sees you commenting regularly on blogs - especially multiple blogs in the same market -eventually people will get curious and click on your link to see what it is you do or write. So while that comment you left on a blog might not actually result in a clickthrough to your own blog, there is a good chance at least a few people read it and your name (or your blog name) will be in the back of their head for the next time they run into one of your comments.
Traffic
Yes, you can actually get a significant amount of traffic to your blog simply by including your URL when you make a comment. And the faster you comment after the blog post goes up, the more likely people will click your link. Just make sure you are including your URL in the URL field… don’t add it as a signature which can seem pretty spammy and could end up resulting in your comment being disapproved.
New Subscribers
Yes, you can get new subscribers simply by leaving comments on other’s blogs. First, you have to make sure your comment is good, insightful and top quality. Anytime I come across a really good comment someone has made on a blog, it makes me interested to know what else that person has to say in their own venue. And if I find their blog quality backs up the quality of the comment, I will subscribe to their feed.
Backlinks
Yes, not all blogs automatically nofollow links made by those who comment. Some have requirements to make it followed, such as X number of comments or approval by the blog author, so make a note of those blogs and comment more frequently on those, especially if they are considered authority blogs in your space.
Pay Off
Some people complain it takes too much time to comment on another blog. But if you have read the article anyway, it doesn’t take much time or effort to post a quick comment or response on what you read. Don’t think you have to write something lengthy, even a “Yes, I had the same response when I did XYZ on my blog a few months ago” is fine. The return on the time investment is one of the best things you can do for your blog.
It is important to comment on other’s blogs regardless of the popularity of your blog. But when you are starting out, commenting can be a crucial component that can actually make or break your blog. What do you think is harder? Encouraging a blogger to link to your brand spanking new blog, or getting traffic from that blog by people who read your comment there? Commenting by far! Then the traffic and links will naturally follow.
I still remember the rush that I felt when I realized that someone was reading my first blog... and that it wasn't my Mum!
Bloggers love to know that there's someone reading the posts that we write.
Whether we're blogging on a personal blog about the quirkiness of our pet ferret or blogging for money on a blog analyzing stock market trends in Tokyo we all have at least some interest in growing the numbers of those who log in each day to read what we have to say.
"But how do I grow the number of readers to my blog?"
It's a question that I asked a lot of more experienced bloggers when I first started out and one that these days I get asked regularly too.
Over the coming weeks I'd like to explore this topic here at the Scribefire blog in a weekly post.
This week I'd like kick things off with a question that a blogger asked me in my first months of blogging that I believe has been responsible for me growing my blogs to have over 90,000 subscribers and 50,000 daily visitors.....
Would You Read Your Blog?
Hold on Darren.... where's the traffic generation tips? How's this question going to bring me readers?
I hear you - I wasn't that impressed with the question either when it was directed at me. I'd asked the blogger for a tip on how to bring in readers and he answered with that!?!
I'l be honest - I discarded the question to the 'trash' in my email setup and didn't give it a lot of thought.
Years later I realized the wisdom of that question.
Sometimes we have to learn the hard way and when it comes to this topic I tried a lot of ways to grow the readership of my blogs. I started blogs on topics that I thought would be popular, I wrote posts that were controversial with the hope that they'd draw in readers, I networked with bloggers, I begged for links and spent hour pouring over my source code attempting to get things just perfect in terms of SEO.
Some of these things paid off to some extent - but the lesson that I ended up learning was that I should stick to blogging about things that I was interested in and that I should blog on those blogs in a manner that was authentic to who I was. Ultimately my success came from developing blogs that... I would read.
If you wouldn't read your blogs - why would anyone else?
There are a number of reasons why this question is important:
• Sustainability - building a successful blogs takes a concerted effort over the long haul. It takes years to grow a blog up to the potential that it has and if you don't have an interest in the topic or are writing in a style that isn't reflective of who you are it can be difficult to sustain a blog for longer than a few months.
• Readers catch passion - blog readers are a fairly intuitive bunch and if you're heart isn't in your blog then you're unlikely to write in a way that engages them in a way that will convert them to loyal readers. Someone recently told me that they read ProBlogger because they could tell that I loved my topic. I think that says it all.
• Reality is Important - as I look at the posts that generate the most traffic for my blogs it strikes me that they are usually around the problems that I have had and how I've overcome - the posts emerge out of my real life. One of the main reasons that people use the web is to search for ways to overcome problems or fulfill needs that they have. To find how someone else has fixed an issue that you have is something that people will reward with loyalty (and some free word of mouth marketing).
But What About the Reader?
Some might read about this post and think that I've got it all wrong. Am I saying you should ignore the needs of your readers? Should you start with them and write for them primarily?
Of course your reader needs to be in the front and centre of your focus if you want to build a popular blog. It's important to be in tune with them, be interacting with them and writing about things that apply to their lives - however unless you're also writing for you you might just find that others are not drawn to your blog in the first place.
*Darren Rowse is a guest blogger for Scribefire. He blogs professionally at problogger, part of the b5media family.
Writing a killer blog title can make or break a blog entry. Yes, if you have two identical blog posts, one with a fantastic title and the other with a boring one, the one with the best title will get more traffic and has significantly higher chances of getting submitted to social sites. So now that you know why they are so important, here is how you can make your own titles into killer blog titles that will make everyone want to click on it and read whatever it is you wrote.
What makes a killer title?
Have a look at sites such as Digg. All the front page posts have well written titles, titles that are meant to arouse interest in whatever the article is about. Now take a look at Fark.com. While those are a little longer, they are written with humor and designed so that people cannot resist from clicking on the link.
Capture attention
Your blog post must be well written enough so that people want to read more about what you have said. You need to not only be able to engage the reader, but make it irresistible for people who have an interest in the topic area - and hopefully interesting enough for people who aren’t in the topic area to want to click too. There have been many cases where I have clicked on something on Digg - even things I am not even remotely interested in - simply because I couldn’t help but click because the headline was that good.
Deliver the promise
Anyone can write a Digg-worthy title, but nothing will get it buried faster than not delivering on what the headline promised. Think of it as false advertising… how ticked off would you be to discover that 52″ plasma TV you paid for was actually a cheap 14″ dorm room TV? Well, people will be just as ticked off at you when they expect something entirely different from what your article actually delivered.
Keywords, keywords, keywords
Yes, those pesky search engines love keywords. But since users search for those keywords, you want to make sure that your title has the pertinent keywords in it without going overboard. Instead, make sure your title also reflects what people would search for to find the content offered in the article. That said, don’t go overboard to the point of sounding spammy. On the other hand, don’t go overboard on the fluffy language so no one knows that the blog entry is about at all.
Avoiding duplication
If you tend to write articles around the same content area, make sure that you don’t have too many similarly titled blog posts. So mix them up a bit so that people don’t see the next blog title on the same subject and simply assume that it is the same one they just read.
Avoid naming similar to other’s popular blog post
So your competitor just wrote a blog post that hit the front page of Digg and got blogged seemingly everywhere. And ironically, you have a blog post on the exact same thing… or, more likely, you wrote your own version that you believe is 100x better than your competitors. But the same with duplicating your own blog entry titles, you need to avoid doing the same here. So name it something completely different to increase its odds of hitting front pages because people will tend to not vote or submit it if it seems to be exactly what they voted for two days ago. Or best yet, keep your killer blog title and entry and wait a couple of months before publishing it, when everyone would have long forgotten your competitor’s version on the same thing.
Many will argue that the title of your blog is the most important part of any blog entry, and you should spending time on creating a title that is as perfect as it can be. Because a well written title - so long as it has decent quality content to back it up - will do wonders for the success of your blog overall.
Just a heads-up that in the coming weeks, we will be featuring posts from guest bloggers who will write on topics such as improving your blog, honing your writing skills, and other topics central to blogging. We hope that these posts will allow you to use ScribeFire to blog more efficiently as well as start some discussion around topics other than bug reports ;-). Look for the first in this series of posts later today.
We're pleased to announce the release of ScribeFire 2.1. You can install it at Mozilla Add-ons.
The biggest change in this release is that ScribeFire now supports both Tumblr and MySpace blogs. Both can be added via the Account Wizard. Many bugs have also been fixed thanks to your great bug reports and feedback. Here's a full list of the changes since version 2.0.2:
Once again, you can install this latest update by going to Mozilla Add-ons and clicking "Add to Firefox."
Do you know more than one language? Why not help us translate ScribeFire into as many languages as possible?
There are about 400 words/phrases that make up a full translation, but you don't have to translate all of them yourself. Multiple translators can work on a translation, and any phrases you don't translate will still appear in English.
If you want to help out, just sign up at Babelzilla, select a language, and start translating!