Following is my A to Z of Professional blogging including blogging tools, blogging platforms, blogging services and ways of making money from blogging (in fact whether you blog for money or not much of what follows should help you improve your blogging).
I hope you enjoy it and feel free to share your own tools and services in comments (I’m sure I’ll have missed some). update – I’ve been adding your suggestions and we’re now up to over 130 blog tools and platforms.
Update: as there are so many blogging tools listed on this page I’ve made another shorter page with just my most recommended blogging resources and tools which might help if you want something with a personal recommendation.
If this is your first time to ProBlogger you might like to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter (see the top of the left hand sidebar) or RSS News Feed.
A
AdSense – contextual ad program by Google
Adbrite – sell text ads
Amazon Associates – popular affiliate program
aStore – add an Amazon Store to your Blog
AdGenta – text ads by Qumana (see ‘Q’)
AdRotator – WP ad rotating plugin
Akismet – Comment Spam Fighting Tool
Adhearus – pay per click advertising
AdWords – the advertisers side of AdSense – many bloggers use it to promote their blogs
AzoogleAds – advertising system
Audio Blogger – adds audio to your blog
B
Build A Niche Store- add an eBay store to your site
Bidvertiser – bid based advertising
Blog Ads – blog advertising network
Blog Jet - blog editing tool
Blog Desk - blog editing tool
Bloglines – Web based RSS feed reader
BlogPulse – blog search tool
BlogPolls – tool for putting polls on your blog
Blog Poll – another blog poll tool
Backpackit – useful organizational tool
Blogger.com – blog platform
Bloggers for Hire – bloggers looking for work and potential employers looking for bloggers
BlogSitter.net – service for find guest bloggers while you take a holiday
BlogBurst – syndicates bloggers content for mainstream medium
BlogFlux – blog services portal
BlogRolling – a blogroll management tool
Blogbeat – blog metrics tool
Blogger Jobs – a blog following the advertising of blog jobs
C
Chitika eMiniMalls – advertising program
CrispAds – blog advertising network
Creative Commons – copyright licenses
Copyscape – tool for checking for content theft/plagiarism
Clicksor – advertising program
Clickbank – library of many affiliate products
Commission Junction – collection of many affiliate programs
Casale Media – advertising solution
D
Del.icio.us – social bookmarking
Digg – social bookmarking
Drupal – blog platform
DomainsBot – a tool for finding domain names
Digital Point – useful forum for webmasters
E
Ecto – blog editing tool
Expression Engine – blog platform
Endo – News aggregator for Mac Users
Ether – lets readers book a consulting call with you from your sidebar
F
Feedburner – RSS feed management tool – also provides Feed Advertising
Feedster – RSS search Tool
FeedDemon – RSS reader from NewsGator
FeedBlitz – email blog and RSS subscription service
Flickr – photo sharing and hosting
Flock – a browser with in built blogging
Furl – social bookmarking
Free Blog Polls
FilmLoop – free photocasting network
Feedpass – RSS management – integrates with AdSense
Favicon Maker – make Favicons from photos
G
Google Analytics - Metrics Tool
Gabbly – add chat to your blog
Google Reader – RSS reader
Gnoos – Australian made blog search tool
Google News – tracking news – many use it as a source of content
Google Blog Search – Google’s…. blog search
Google Sitemaps – get indexed in Google
H
Haloscan – a free commenting system for blogs (a little dated but I was a tad desperate for a ‘H’
I
IntelliTXT - In text advertising
Ice Rocket - blog search engine
J
Jar (as in Tip Jar) – many bloggers ask their readers for donations/tips – but few make much from them
K
Kanoodle – Advertising program
Kontera – In text advertising
Keyword and Backlink Tracker - Search Engine ranking tool
L
LiveJournal – Blog Platform
Linkshare – Affiliate Program
M
Mars Edit - Blog Editing Tool
Memeorandum – Tracking and Aggregating news from blogs
MyBlogLog – Metrics Tool
Mint – Blog Metrics Tool
MovableType – Popular blog platform
MeCommerce – Sidebar shop – in beta
MSN Adcenter – Coming Soon – Contextual ads
N
NewsGator – RSS News Readers
Nichebot – keyword research tool
Nameboy – domain name generator
Nucleus CMS – open source blog platform
Netvibes – RSS News Aggregator
Netscape Beta – Social Bookmarking Tool
O
Only Wire – social bookmarking service
Overture Keyword Tool – keyword research tool
P
Performancing – great blog, firefox blog editor and metrics tools
Pheedo – RSS advertising
Post2Blog – Blog Editing tool – blog using Word, IE or Firefox
Pingoat – Pinging Tool
Pingomatic – Pinging Tool
pMachine – Blog Platform
Paypal – Payment tool – used by many affiliate programs and ad systems to pay publishers
PPCalc – Paypal Fee Calculator
PubSub – service that notifies you of new content
Photobucket – image and video hosting
Q
Qumana – Blog Editing Tool
R
Rojo – RSS feed reader
RocketPost – Blog posting tool
Right Media – advertising
Rmail – subscribe from any RSS feed to email
S
Sitemeter – a free website stats tool used by many bloggers
Six Figure Blogging – learn to make money blogging (one of my blogging resources)
Shoplinc – add a Chitika store to your blog
Scoopt Words - service to sell bloggers content to mainstream media editors
Sitening – Search Engine ranking tracker
Sparklines – sidebar widgets/graphs
Skype – VOIP tool for networking, podcast interviews etc
Spam Karma – WP comment spam tool
Sitepoint – Forums for webmasters
Slide – photo hosting, slideshows etc
SoloSub – RSS feed management tool
Squidoo – good alternative place to put content, make money and promote your blog
Snap – a preview tool to give your readers a preview of external links on your blog
T
Text Link Ads - text link advertising system
Technorati – Blog Search engine
Topix – News service – used by many bloggers to find stories
TagCloud - tool for making tag clouds
TinyURL – make long URLs tiny ones
TypePad – Hosted Blogging Platform
Tribal Fusion – Impression Based Ads
3bubbles – live chat on a blog
U
Unobtrusive Sidenotes - a way of putting sidenotes in your posts
V
ValueClick – Impression Based Ad Program (was FastClick)
Vizu – blog polls tool
Vox – a new blogging/social bookmarking platform from Six Apart (in beta)
W
WordPress – Blog Platform – very popular
w.bloggar – blog editing tool
Webpad – web based text editor
Weblogs.com – recently updated blogs – aggregator
WebmasterWorld – forums for webmasters
X
Xanga – Weblog Community
Y
YPN – Contextual Advertising Service
Yutter – RSS/Blog Subscription Service
YouTube – Video Hosting/Sharing
Yutter – RSS/Blog Subscription Service
Yahoo News – Tracking News from around the Web
Z
Zookoda – RSS to Email and Newsletter tool
Zoudry – blog editor
About Darren Rowse
My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like 
Darren any reasn you left sxore out of the list? I have not used just heard a few people talking about it and wondered if there was a reason for the absence in the list.
absent:
B2evolution – popular blog tool
Semagic – the most popular client for livejournal- and metaAPI-compatible blogs
I must appreciate your time and effort writing this post.
great, complete, and REAL informative one!
Darren,
Thanks for the post. Very useful. I was looking other RSS feed readers and came across this resource which list quite a few more RSS Readers for both MAC and Windows.
MAC: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-reader-mac.htm
Windows: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-readers.htm
They also have lists for Linux and hand helds. You may want to add these to the list.
Cheers…
For those readers looking for an easy software tool to create, host and deliver Video Advertising, then take a look at the StreamerNet Mobile Video Producer.
The company has released the first “plug-and-play, click-and-stream” software program (WinXP) that lets you create your do-it-yourself sales commercial and upload it to your private StreamerNet video library. Simply place the provided link within web sites or AdBoxes and subsequent click-thrus will stream the video ad to the viewer.
More details at http://www.streamernet.com/html/videoad.html
This product is a swiss-army knife which enables simplified creation and management of all things video, such as video email, live streaming, media conversion, video blogging and more.
Great list. I didn’t see StatCounter in the list – Free web stats.
I m only used Adsense and I will Make is good before…
Darren:
I just wanted you to know that I included a link to this particular article in my ebook “Blogging for Business: A small business guide to getting started”.
Great post!
http://verusnova.com/Blogging%20for%20Businesses%20(final).pdf
Consider putting Autopinger (http://autopinger.com) into the ping tool list – it can do automatic pinging for blogs and podcasts.
Great list boy. I think it looks nice from a blogger\’s perspective.
I just migrated to blogger beta at NEWFORM which now has labels [tags] that classify subjects the next step is to get stats on archive export to del.icio.us/sarchi for example
Darren,
I’m looking for the ideal notetaking companion and I am unsure if “Only Wire” fits the bill.
I found some nice free software at Donation Coder: http://donationcoder.com :
“Clipboard Help and Spell” and “The Form Letter Machine”
but what I really want is a clip saver and a preprocessor, where I can collect everything so as I work, I have a ‘spot’ to park my brain and think and organize before I regurgitate it on a blog.
Which one of these tools fit that bill!
Thanks
Mary
http://thatdamnpc.com
http://chowrescuedogs.org – chow rescue, Maryland DC area
http://adoptachow.wordpress.com (adopt a dog from a shelter, save a dog’s life)
Let’s not forget Federated Media — for bloggers with a unique voice, who’ve developed a high quality site voice and audience reach.
Hi,
Awesome tools. If you heard about Tag And Ping I would like to know what you think about it. Now you are a PRO in Blogging :) your opinion counts a lot!
Karl
This is so awesome Darren, and exactly why your site is so spectacularly successful. You are not afraid to show us what we want to know – and that brings us back again and again. Obviously it has not slowed down your income to share with us many of your “secrets”, and hopefully more and more people will realize that the example that you are showing is the way to do it. I am in a whole different realm of blogging, and I still find that your site is invaluable to bloggers, whatever their subject matter is! Thanks!!
Thank you for useful links. I would like to suggest very interesting news platform “Serendipity Weblog System” You can find it here http://www.s9y.org/
Awesome! Thanks for putting this together. This is a very helpful guide given that it is simple, straightforward and logical. As a novice blogger, I am still learning and will check back pretty frequently. Brilliant! Thanks.
Nice list Darren, but I would like to suggest making the list by category instead of alphabetical order by name.
It would make the list far more useful and easier to locate what a user is looking for. Just a suggestion and cheers.
…Blog Bloke
True and good idea BB – although then it wouldn’t be the A-Z of blogging…. :-)
Actually – I made a similar list previously by category, although I can’t find it right now for some reason. Will try dig around for it.
… the A-Z of blogging (by category) :-)
Posts are searchable, savable, ratable, and commentable within a single site. Interactive, super-simple interfaces, minimal setup, Flynote aims to unscare even the least techy folk.
Great list. its like a key to the blogsphere
An amazing and wonderful resource.. all at one place !
Can I get BlogKits added Darren?
Hello 2 all. Really Nice site. I will begin creating my own site in some days. Hope it will be as good as yours.
These links are great!
Awesome list! Linked from my blog! So much stuff in your list Darren… it’ll take days to check out all of this! Which is a good thing! :)
Jonathan-C. Philllips
http://www.smartwealthyrich.com
[...] I was reading through Darren Rowse’s blog archives, at problogger.net, and found a post where Darren lists[...]
Very interesting to follow the multiple and very good organized links structure of this blog. Cool correlation between elements of this rich blogging structure.
After spending hours and days reading, you return back again and again.
I also love the color scheme and font. Of course, the content is the most important, but the good aesthetics adds to the pleasure.
really good links, thanks.
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Good tips, I recommend you read these reviews to know the best directories to submit your blog: http://blog-dir.blogspot.com/
Many Blog Directories will link back to your blogs but others are only trying to increase their own PR (page rank)by requesting inbound links and they don’t link back!
Interesting theme have mentioned. With pleasure I shall support.
And in general, good blog
whow!!! that was long! nice links though thanks darren
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/06/27/a-z-of-professional-blogging/
Nice list, but you left out webjam.
It’s pretty new and would be great to add to the list.
This list is amazing. When Darren said A-Z he ment it and probably could have gone into roman numerals. Thanks again!
I’m a cricket blogger and apart from some nice tips, keyword sense & linkback – you’ve helped me find a good topic to write for my readers.
Keep blogging.
This list is amazing. I think revealing this information would cost a lot for beginners. But, you have given it absolutely free. I really appreciate that.
I would like to add one more useful and popular tool. It´s called Picasa and is a free software which helps you locate, organize, edit and share your photos easily and free.
I am %100 sure that you knew it. Anyway, it´s a good tool for bloggers to share their photos.
To your success!
It´s a very useful article. Thanks!
A great glossary for the blogosphere…
Blogging makes the world go round… very useful and great glossary. Keep the good work coming!
Fantastic article covering some points I really needed some good usability info for.
Great list! You forgot 9rules though.
Darren, you have a great list! I’ve bookmarked it. And share this bookmarked link at my blog.
great site with very good look and perfect information…i like it
Great list!, many thanks for the effort making it.
Great list! You forgot 9rules though…thanks
Virtualization has long been the domain of large enterprises. Beginning with time-sharing technology on massive mainframes, virtualization required large data centers and larger IT budgets. The advent of high-performance workstations and servers based on Windows, Linux and similar technologies brought the benefits of virtualization to small- and mid-size businesses that might have only a limited IT staff and an even more limited budget.
Hey all!
Quite nice tools in the list, I would like to offer one more semantic tool, you might find interesting – bookmark toolbar for Internet Explorer.
It is a convenient tool both for effective information search over the Internet and for productive work with big texts using Internet Explorer. By using the toolbar, you get access to the prominent search engines, such as Google, MSN and AltaVista directly from your browser’s toolbar.
Good luck, guys!
Great list. As you have mentioned some advertising sites in your list, you can also include ABC search for advertising, which is also a good site for ppc ad.