An effective, well-organized workflow is an important asset of professional web designers. The more useful and time-saving your tools are, the more time you can focus on important things, thus creating a foundation for timely good-quality results. The problem is that there are just way too many tools, services and resources out there, so it has become difficult to keep track on them and find those tiny little time-savers that will spare you headaches and save time in a long run.

And this is where we come in. Back in old days, Smashing Magazine used to publish lists after lists, with plethora of links that covered different topics all somehow related to web design and development. We have undergone quite a development since then, and are now publishing almost only in-depth articles — written by some of the best professionals in the industry. However, useful, carefully prepared and filtered lists are still useful, and therefore we keep publishing them as well.

Below you’ll find 50 useful tools and time-savers for web designers and developers. Among other things, you will find recently released tools, useful reference sheets, articles and further resources. Such posts are prepared over months, each containing resources found, reviewed or bookmarked by the Smashing Editorial Team. We hope that at least some of them will help you improve your workflow!

Typography

Meet Your Type: A Field Guide to Typography (free PDF)
This eBook will help you better understand the foundation of typography and overcome common obstacles and problems when choosing type.

Web Font Specimen
This template lets you check the typography by analyzing the HTML-specimen in your browser. The specimen contains whole paragraphs in various line heights and font sizes, different headings, ordered and unordered lists, as well as italic and bold text. You can analyze the body size comparison that reveals aspects of the typeface that can’t otherwise be seen and study single glyphs, measure, grayscale as well as light on dark and dark on light previews. You may want to check out Good Web Fonts for the actual specimens of various legible screen fonts.

Font Anatomy Wallpaper
This wallpaper (1920×1200) covers the terminology of typography, showcasing indi­vid­ual parts of the char­ac­ters of the alpha­bet.

Web FontFont User Guide (PDF)
This Web FontFont User Guide contains information about typography aimed at different groups of people: web developers, system administrators and website visitors. You may want to consider giving it to your clients or colleagues.

AltFontPrev
This is a simple JavaScript bookmarklet that lets you view the font stack of any website and then deactivate each font with a single click. It makes it easy not only to make sure everything looks okay when certain fonts aren’t installed on a user’s system, but also to view the fonts included in the website’s font stack in a single click, rather than opening the source code. You can even specify a custom font, which makes it handy when you’re considering changing a design’s current font.

Typografix
This tool is an HTML re-processing script for creating beautiful typography. It corrects things like ellipses and smart quotes and adds tags for <script>, <pre> and <code> automatically. The en dash, for example, is created automatically when a hyphen is surrounded by spaces, and the em dash is created when two dashes appear in a row. Typografix is written in C#, requires Windows Installer 3.1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.

Unicode Codepoint Chart
This chart is broken down neatly by type of character and symbol (and by language in many cases), with a visual reference under each category. From there, just click on the symbol or character you want and you’re brought to a page with detailed information about the character, along with a browser test page, an outline (in SVG format) and a variety of encodings and character sets (HTML entity, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32, ISO-8859-8, etc.).

Bookmarklets

Quix
We have covered Quix several once already, but when one talks about bookmarklets, it is just necessary to mention Quix as well. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a powerful command line in your browser, some kind of shell that lets you use handy commands and shortcuts for a quicker and more productive workflow? That’s exactly what Quix offers. The tool is a clever extensible bookmarklet that lets you both access your bookmarks and perform various operations on other websites.

WP-Toolbar bookmarklet
This tool will save a lot of clicks as you edit or update posts on your WordPress-powered blog. The bookmarklet gives you quick access to the entire administrative back-end directly in your browser’s window. There is also a GreaseMonkey script that automatically loads the toolbar when you visit a particular website.

Print Friendly Bookmarklet
This bookmarklet strips advertising, navigation and all things that you don’t want to have when you decide to print out a page. It formats the content of an article or a document for great readbility and generates a minimal and clean PDF for printing.

Bookmarklet Combiner
This tool creates a master bookmarklet which can either run all bookmarks at once or display a menu at some area of the page. Nice service for users who wants to avoid using a special folder only to hold all bookmarklets.

The Printliminator
The Printliminator is a bookmarklet with some simple tools you can use to makes websites print better. One click to activate, and then click to remove elements from the page, remove graphics, and apply better print styling.

Bespin Bookmarklet
Using the Bespin Bookmarklet, you can replace any textarea you encounter with a Bespin editor, making editing the text much more pleasant.

CSS, HTML and JavaScript Tools

eCSStender
Extensions built with eCSStender simplify the design process because you can author modern CSS using advanced selectors, properties such as border-radius, or custom font faces and rest assured that your design will work — even in IE6.

CoffeeScript
This is a little programming language that compiles JavaScript while simplifying the code that developers actually have to deal with. It works with current JavaScript libraries and compiles clean code, leaving even comments intact. Once developers familiarize themselves with how CoffeeScript works, they could potentially save themselves a lot of time and headaches with the simplified code.

#grid
#grid is a little tool that inserts a grid onto the Web page. You can hold the grid in place and toggle it between the foreground and background. To display the grid, just press a hot key on your keyboard, and you can set your own short keys to switch views.

Primer CSS
This tiny generator works online and has only one function: it extracts from an HTML page (copying and pasting will do) a framework of classes and IDs that can be used as the foundation of an external style sheet. This can be wonderful if you work by first doing the structure in HTML, and then the forms and colors in the style sheet.

CSS Usage
CSS Coverage is an extension for Firebug which allows you to scan multiple pages of your site to see which CSS rules are actually used in your site. Each time you run a scan, the CSS files that are included in the current page are shown with the number of times the rules has been found applied on your page before it.

JS.Class: Ruby-style JavaScript
JS.Class is a set of tools designed to make it easy to build robust object-oriented programs in JavaScript. It’s based on Ruby, and gives you access to Ruby’s object, module and class systems, some of its reflection and metaprogramming facilities, and a few of the packages from its standard library. It also provides a package manager to help load your applications efficiently.

JS Bin
JS Bin is an application specifically designed to help JavaScript- and CSS-developers to test snippets of code, within some context, and debug the code collaboratively. JS Bin allows you to edit and test JavaScript and HTML (reloading the URL also maintains the state of your code, new tabs doesn’t). Once you’re happy you can save, and send the URL to a peer for review or help. They can then make further changes saving anew if required.

jQuery 1.4.2 Visual Cheat Sheet
jQuery Visual Cheat Sheet is a updated version of the useful jQuery Cheat Sheet. It includes all the reference you will need for jQuery 1.4.2 API.

Turbine
Turbine is a collection of PHP-powered tools that decrease CSS development time and help you avoid headaches. Among other things, it has a simple syntax, automatic packing and gzipping of multiple style files, OOP-like inheritance and templating features as well as a shell for experiments and debugging.

Jo: JavaScript Application Framework for HTML5
Jo embraces JavaScript’s object model and leverages CSS3 to handle as much of the presentation and animation as possible. It also provides a consistent and modular event model between objects and plays nicely with other libraries like PhoneGap.

Sencha: HTML5 Mobile App Framework
Sencha Touch allows you to develop web apps that look and feel native on Apple iOS and Google Android touch screen devices.

Aloha Editor, The HTML5 Editor
Aloha Editor is an advanced browser-based editor that is faster than other editors and provides you with better and richer formatting in real-time in your browser.

JavaScript Regex Syntax Highlighter
Do you want RegexPal-style regex syntax highlighting on your webpages? This library takes care of it for you, so you can spend more time writing regular expressions and less time deciphering them. Currently, JavaScript regexes only are supported.

OpenStack Open Source Cloud Computing Software
The goal of OpenStack is to allow any organization to create and offer cloud computing capabilities using open source software running on standard hardware. OpenStack Compute is software for automatically creating and managing large groups of virtual private servers.

sweet-template
Sweet (Simple WEb front-End Template) is a lightweight JavaScript template with high performance. It’s small, fast, easy to use, and, most important, extensible. It also can be integrated with jQuery.

jQuery Deconstructed
The Deconstructed series is designed to visually and interactively deconstruct the internal code of JavaScript libraries, including jQuery, Prototype and MooTools. It breaks the physical JavaScript into visual blocks that you can easiliy navigate. Each block opens to reveal its internal code. Clickable hyperlinks allow you to follow program flow.

Alloy UI
Alloy is a UI metaframework that provides a consistent and simple API for building web applications across all three levels of the browser: structure, style and behavior.

Google JavaScript Style Guide
This document provides a set of conventions (sometimes arbitrary) that hold the style guidelines used for Google code. It covers general good practices for open-source projects and well-written and well-documented code. It covers a lot of ground, from “use camelCase for variable names” to “never use global variables” to “never use exceptions.”

gleeBox
Gleebox provides a way to navigate web pages via keyboard. For instance, it allows you to hit the ‘G’-key and every link on the page will be highlighted. This application is available as an extension for Firefox and Google Chrome.

shellinabox
Shell In A Box implements a web server that can export arbitrary command line tools to a web based terminal emulator. This emulator is accessible to every browser that supports JavaScript and CSS and does not require any additional browser plugins.

Juicer: a CSS and JavaScript packaging tool
Juicer is a new command line tool that helps by resolving dependencies, merging and compressing files. It can check the syntax, add cache busters to and cycle asset hosts on URLs in CSS files.

Jake: A Build Tool for JavaScript
Jake is a new build tool built entirely in JavaScript that runs on top of the CommonJS. As its name suggests, it is based on the existing and already popular Rake tool and benefits from the same simplicity.

Closure Compiler
The Closure Compiler is a tool for making JavaScript download and run faster. It is a true compiler for JavaScript. Instead of compiling from a source language to machine code, it compiles from JavaScript to better JavaScript. It parses your JavaScript, analyzes it, removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what’s left. It also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls.

Useful Online Tools and Services

ComparePSD (Win only)
This tool lets you compare two Photoshop files side by side and see every little difference. Look for differences by layer or by effect. You get a scaled view of the files, so you can see them next to each other and pick out differences more quickly. ComparePSD is available for Windows only and is free to download and use.

Secure Passwords Generator
The tool lets you enter parameters, including the length of the password, whether to include uppercase and/or lowercase letters or numbers or punctuation and whether to eliminate characters that resemble each other (such as i and l, 1 and I, and o and 0). Then, just select the number of passwords to generate, and it returns a list. It even includes phonetics for each password to make it easier to read out loud (in case you’re giving a password to someone over the phone, for example).

SwatchSpot: Random Color Swatch Generator
This tool creates random color swatches to inspire you. Lock in the colors you like and shuffle away the ones you don’t. Once you’re done, grab the color codes or download your palette.

Yuuguu: Instant screen sharing and web conferencing
This tool provides instant web-conferencing, online meetings and collaboration and enables you to work with your cusomers, partners and colleagues right away, without a single download. The free version allows for 100 minutes per month of web conferencing.

Web Form Recovery Firefox Plugin
Lazarus securely auto-saves all forms as you type, so after a crash or server timeout you can go back to the form, right click, “recover form”, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Which loads faster?
This tool lets you see two websites load side by side in real time. Then it shows how long each took to load and the percentage difference.

Faary
Faary is an online form builder that operates with the help of text lines, and the form is generated as such. The tool creates an HTML form with CSS, which can be downloaded as a ZIP archive.

Scr.im
Scr.im lets you use a shortened URL to give out your email address safely and securely on forums. Just enter your email address on Scr.im and it will give you a link to a page with your email address, with security to prevent bots from viewing it.

Name Checklist
This tool will help you find out if your brand name, username, domain and vanity url are still available online or they are already taken.

Quora – Web Design
Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. You can follow web design, usability and related discussions and ask your questions as well.

Todo.txt Command Line Interface
If you’ve got a file called todo.txt on your computer right now, this script is for you. You probably don’t want to launch a full-blown text editor every time you need to add an item to your to-do list, or mark one that’s already there as complete. With this simple shell script, you can interact with todo.txt at the command line for quick and easy, Unix-y access.

Note and Point
This gallery highlights beautiful Keynote, PDF and PowerPoint-slides on the Web (mostly Web design-related) which is great for inspiration if you are thinking about creating beautiful and attractive slides for your next presentation.

ManyBooks
This site offers a huge collection of public domain e-books, as well as other newer books that have been released in the public domain or under Creative Commons licenses, in a variety of formats.

Tweetment
This service allows you to design sexy web pages for your tweets.

Browser Cover Generator
This simple tool generates a browser preview of an uploaded image and can add address bar URL, window title, shadow, status bar and various browser skins to the image.

Linkification Firefox Plugin
Linkification Converts text links into genuine, clickable links. To view and set options, you can use the Linkification right-click context menu.

Useful References and Guides

Design Is History
This resource showcases the evolution of design through time. It was created as a teaching tool for young designers just beginning to explore graphic design and as a reference tool for all designers. As a designer it is important to understand where design came from, how it developed, and who shaped its evolution. The more exposure you have to past, current and future design trends, styles and designers, the larger your problem-solving toolkit. The larger your toolkit, the more effective of a designer you can be.

User Interface Style Guides
This page features some useful links to style guides used by large websites, corporations and news agencies (e.g. the BBC Style Guide), including editorial guidelines, quality guidelines and online standards.

Trademarkia
Trademarkia is a free search engine for U.S. federally registered trademarks on the Internet. They provide up to the minute contextual information about the current use of interesting business names, slogans, and logos through pictures, commercials, and conversations from Flickr, Google, Youtube, and Twitter for each U.S. trademark filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since the year 1870.

Icon Reference Chart
This chart, created by Jon Hicks, was created to collect the sizes, formats and the related information about icons used on different devices. At the moment it covers browsers, Android, iPad, iPhone, iPhone 4, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. And you can also download a template for iPhone and iPad icons. Useful.

OpenWith.org
OpenWith is a directory of existing file extensions and free tools to open them. You’ll find a free program for just about everything you would ever need to open, including source code, data files, disc images, spreadsheets and video files.

ScriptSrc.net
This site puts all the latest versions of script tags from the various JavaScript libraries in one place. Whether you use jQuery, swfobject, Chrome Frame, MooTools, Ext JS, YUI, Prototype, Dojo or Scriptaculous, you’ll find the most recent script tags here.

Colours In Cultures Chart
This map shows how colours are perceived in different cultures and nations across the globe.

Guidelines and standards manuals
Handy examples of guidelines and standards manuals used by companies and brands online. Also check Branding & Corporate Identity Design page.

Code Standards and Front-End Development Best Practices
This document outlines de-facto code standards in professional modern front-end development. The primary motivation of the document is code consistency and best practices. By maintaining consistency in coding styles and conventions, we can ease the burden of legacy code maintenance, and mitigate risk of breakage in the future. Nice and useful overview.

Essential Tools You Always have Handy When Fixing a PC Problem?
This forum thread features must-have tools that you should keep loaded on your thumb drive when asked to deal with a family member of friend’s personal computer issue.

Project Management For Dummies
Because of the ever-growing array of huge, complex, and technically challenging projects in today’s world, project management has become a critical skill. This page provides a nice project management cheat sheet that will help you handle your project management assignments, such as confirming a project’s justification, developing project objectives and schedules, and maintaining commitment for a project.

Expression Engine Reference Chart
A quick and useful reference guide for ExpressionEngine users. A PDF-version is available as well.

Computer Hardware Chart
A detailed and handy hardware chart for notebook RAM, desktop RAM, CPU sockets, hard drives, ports, processor card slots, processor card sockets, peripheral cards, desktop card slots and power connectors.

Corporate Identity / Logo Usage Guides
A collection of documents that illustrate how organizations and companies ensure that their branding remains consistent online and in print.

ASCII: The Pronouncation Guide
ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Computers can only understand numbers, so an ASCII code is the numerical representation of a character such as ‘a’ or ‘@’ or an action of some sort. The non-printing ASCII characters are rarely used for their original purpose. This page features an ASCII character table and includes descriptions of the first 32 non-printing characters and the guide to their pronouncation.

Name Pronunciation Guide
Inogolo is a practical, easy-to-use website devoted to the English pronunciation of the names of people, places, and miscellaneous stuff. The site contains a searchable database of names with both phonetic and audio pronunciations in English.

Usability and User Experience

Hand picked UX related resources
UXMARKZ is a collection of hand picked UX related resources, updated daily. You will find interesting sites, articles, videos, images and slideshows from the field of interaction design, usability, information achitecture, user interface design and other. All submissions are moderated.

UX Myths
This ressource is supposed to help you build your website based on evidence, not false beliefs. UX Myths collects the most frequent user experience misconceptions and explains why they don’t hold true. And you don’t have to take their word for it, the site shows you a lot of research findings and articles by design and usability gurus.

User Interface Design Patterns for Ideas and Inspiration
A user interface design pattern library. It is a collection of Web design patterns and best practices which helps you to find inspiration and design interfaces with great user experience. It is also a user interface gallery full of real world examples of our patterns.

Last Click

How Do I Win Rock Paper Scissors Every Time?
Now, that’s a handy resource: have you ever gotten tired of being crushed by Rock, cut to shreds by Scissors, or smothered by Paper? This graphic has information compiled about Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) from the World RPS Society, the masters of Rock, Paper, Scissors, to help you overcome your opponents and understand the strategies needed to win Rock, Paper, Scissors every time.

The Universal Packing List
This tool generates a custom packing list for your journeys. You have to provide some basic information about the journey and a packing list appears immediately.

Ex-blocker
The Ex-blocker is a plugin that hides any information about your ex online. The tool is available as a Firefox and Chrome extension.

Not Beans Again
An online tool that finds a recipe from your ingredients. Enter what you have got in your fridge to the “Ingrediometer” and see if the tool can come up with a recipe for you.

A Coder’s Guide to Coffee
As most software and creative professionals know, coffee is an important technology for boosting mental acuity and maintaining peak on-the-job performance. But did you also know that coffee can be a damn tasty beverage? All you need is the appropriate amount of disrespect for the mainstream coffee industry and a desire to enjoy a better beverage.

Flipboard
Flipboard is a free personalized social magazine for your iPad. It allows you to quickly flip through news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter. The emergence of tools like this is what will make iPad a truly useful and handy device for many people.

Flickr Tools

• Flump - simple application that allows your to download all of the public photos for a specific Flickr account.
• Compfight – uses Flickr’s API to search the database of photos and then feeds back the results as live clickable thumbnails.
• Foldr Monitr – a free tool that runs in the background and watches a selected folder (and optionally subfolders) waiting for you to add photos to it. When photos appear in the folder, Foldr Monitr automatically uploads them to your Flickr account for you.
• Phlogre – is Photo Organizer for local photos and flickr photos. Meant to replace the official Flickr Uploadr.
• Girls of Flickr – Browse around for sexy photos on Flickr babes and Flickr girls
• Flishr – is a primer application to Download, Upload and Search photos from one central command console on your PC.
• PicMarkr – lets you to add custom watermark (image or text) to your images online and free.
• Flickr Hive Mind – is a data mining tool for the Flickr photography database, allowing search by: metadata tags; Flickr photography groups; Flickr users, contacts, and favorites; text annotation; the Flickr Explore algorithm for interestingness.
• Merkitys�Meaning – application for Symbian S60 smart phones that automatically adding contextual information and allows one click publishing from your phone to your Flickr account.
• Flickr Cover Flow – A cover flow slideshow ala iTunes for your Flickr photos.
• nFlickrViewer – SimpleViewer with full Flickr thumbnail and full-image support
• Flickriver – it allows viewing Flickr photos as an infinite �river of photos�. Also has new ways to explore and view Flickr photographs.
• GratePic – a cross platform tool for posting, commenting and rating photos on flickr.
• Flickr photo owner finder – Helps find who took a particular Flickr photo that you have saved.
• FlickrSync – is a photo synchronization application for flickr users. Manage all your photos locally and FlickrSync will keep them updated in flickr.
• Statr for Flickr – collects data through api calls and allows you to track and plot page views statistics for your Flickr account.
• imageloopR – Get your favourite Flickr photos in your slideshow.
• Smark – fast ajax interface for tagging pictures on Flickr.
• rTagger – helps organize your Flickr photo collection by allowing you to modify tags offline.
• Desktop Flickr Organizer for Gnome – The application allows online/offline mode management of your photos. You can upload, search and download photos, through the easy to use interface.
• flickrSLiDR – allows you to easily embed the classic flickr slideshows on your website or blog.
• Dojo/Flickr Image Gallery – an Ajax image gallery built on top of Dojo Ajax Toolkit.
• Original Size of Flickr Photo – Insert Flickr photo ID and retrieve original size URL of image.
• Invitr – allows you to specify one (or more) private pictures to be shown to as many/little people as you want.
• Flickr Anywhere – allows you to put flickr in your myspace account or on any webpage with just a quick search. It takes all your public flickr photos and displays them in a compact flash player.
• Flickr Notifier – a RSS notifier that displays images. The pictures pop up on your desktop in real time.
• AlphaLearnr – Flickr Mashup which helps children to learn English Alphabet through photos.
• Mosaica – is a customizable screensaver with a content generated by users of flickr.
• Flickr4Writer – is a simple plugin for Windows Live Writer that enables a user to browse a Flickr user repository and insert an image from Flickr into a Writer post. Application of this tool in Flickr4Outlook and Flickr4Word
• UploadrXL – is a program to upload one or more images to Flickr and add them immediately to your Sets of Groups.
• Pictobrowser – widget to display flickr photos on your blog.
• Flickr set manager – allows you to automatically create new sets on flickr based on various criteria such as interestingness, date posted and tags, or even from a random set of photographs.
• The Most Interesting Pictures By – displays the most interesting pictures of a flickr user.
• Gickr – create an animated Gif from your Flickr photos
• GMiF – embeds a Google Maps in Flickr photo page and displays where the photo was taken on the maps, if the photo is geotagged.
• Fireflix – a flickr uploader / manager extension for Firefox web browser.
• FlickrStorm – a better way to search Flickr. Search for photos in Flickr by Creative Commons license, compile them in a batch and save them.
• WorldInPictures – find pictures close to any specified location.
• FlickrFaves – utility for downloading high-resultion versions of your Flickr favorites to your hard drive.
• Flickr Color Selectr – Find Creative Commons licensed photographs from Flickr by their colors and rate them.
• Flickr Panel – plugin displays images direct from flickr user’s, groups, or tags or a combination of them.
• Localize Bookmarklet – bookmarklet that enables mapping, geocoding and geotagging directly in your Flickr photo page.
• Preloadr – Online image processing and phot optimization of Flickr photos
• Printr Killr – printing out instantly-designed card decks and calendars from Flickr
• Photo Desktop for Flickr - allows you to edit images before upload. Rotate, flip, tag, name, batch resize, and then batch upload your photos from one simple application.
• Flickstrs – All time greats are selected by factoring in the number of images users have in the flickr explore pages, number of people calling them contacts, and percentage of images that are on the explore pages.
• Flictionary – Type your stream of guesses, Flickr will listen and help you draw new photos.
• Flickr Finder – for Mac OS X Tiger. Easily naviagte your Flickr images.
• GlobeFeed Maps – The geotagged photos from flickr are integrated on Google Map.
• Flickr Flash Puzzle Zone – creates jigsaw puzzle to solve from your searched flickr images
• FlickrViewer – allows you to view a Flickr photo set in SimpleViewer, a popular flash photo viewing tool.
• FlickrFont – converts any text to images, fresh each time the page loads.
• Splashr – a tool for presenting Flickr photos..
• Flickr2Photocast – generates an iPhoto-compatible photocast feed from Flickr containing up to 500 images in their original format/resolution.
• Travelr – lets you display your Flickr photos geographically on a world map.
• FlickrFly – is a script that can be linked from the description or comment of a geotagged Flickr Photo to fly you that location in Google Earth.
• phpFlickr – a PHP client for the Flickr web service. It has functions that return the responses from Flickr’s API in a meaningful way for PHP developers.
• Bubblr – Create comic strips using photos from flickr.
• Sprinklr – allows users to easily and quickly add their photos to various groups.
• Favcol – the background of this page is flickr’s favourite colour
• h4ppierphotos – helps find photos that are not already in sets and/or filter by date and then add them to a new or existing set or tag them.
• Twaingle – a tool that allows you to search for images on flickr or yahoo and insert them directly into an application.
• Flickr Original Viewr – view originals of all flickr images
• Flickr Leech – loads all interestingness photos for a day on a single page. Sort by user id, photoset and group pools.
• ZoneTag – can automatically tag your photos with the location, based on the cell tower, in which they were taken.
• Flickr Mixr – uses RSS feeds provided by flickr and parses them to generate new images.
• Tiltomo – play with their Visual Search code using two sample databases from flickr.
• TagMan – a hangman game for Flickr tags.
• John’s Background Switcher – periodically changes the background image on your computer to a photo from flickr at intervals.
• FlickrLilli – Enables searching for Creative Commons content on Flickr.
• RSS2PDF for Flickr – create PDF archives based on any Flickr newsfeed. The photos must be made public.
• Flickr & Webimager – Screen capture image upload tool based on flickr API.
• We Map Flickr – mashes up Google maps with Flickr to display a map with pictures from around the world.
• Spahk – MobileMashup to View photographs from Flickr based on keywords (tags) or a random sampling of interesting photographs on Java-enabled phones with MIDP 2.0 support.
• Gtalkr – intergrates google talk, gmail, flickr and you tube together.
• Flickrball – is a six-degrees-of-separation game, using Flickr thumbnails and tags for clues.
• Fastr – a game where you are shown a group of pictures from Flickr and have to guess the tag before other people do.
• FlickrFling – displays the text of news feed with accompanying images from flickr.
• Flickr Logo Maker – enter text and it generates a flickr style logo image
• Loopy – a desktop screensaver application that loops and shows flickr pictures at random.
• Flickr Sets RSS – Created RSS streams for sets of a user on Flickr.
• Flapper – is a Flash 8 interface for Flickr.
• Flickeur – �retrieves random images from Flickr.com and creates a stream-of-consciousness type of video clip�.
• Findr – Find photos on flickr by browsing and refining related tags.
• Wickr – is a widget for browsing through photos on Flickr. You can browse by supplying tags or by giving a Flickr user’s username or email.
• Tickr - scrolls images on your desktop until flickr runs out of images to show you which match the tags you’ve specified.
• Tagnautica – is an experimental navigation tool built to explore the space of related Flickr tags.
• Clockr – see the current time with flickr photos.The Flickr image urls will be stored locally, refreshed every three days to save bandwidth and speed up the start-up time.
• Retrievr – lets you search for photos on flickr by drawing sketches of them.
• Slickr – Flickr screensaver shows images from a user, group, tags, etc. from Flickr.
  
• Gnickr – manage photos on your Flickr site as if they were local files on your Gnome desktop.
• Captioner – add comic captions for your flickr photos
• Flapi – an open source Flash image gallery that uses Flickr to manage the images.
• Daily Zeitgeist – displays recent photos from Flickr on your website. Built in Flash.
• Wikinews Flickr License Searcher – searches flickr for images licensed under a specific license. Meant to help users of Wikinews find free images for use on the site.
• Yahoo Widgets for Flickr – get flickr related widgets on your desktop after downloading the Yahoo! Widget Engine.
• QuickrFlickr – a quicker way to generate HTML code of Flickr pictures for use in Xanga, other blogs, or any HTML Page.
• CloudTagFlickr – This script pulls your tags from flickr, and arranges them in a number of ways according to the relative counts of the given tags.
• FlickrBuddy – See and download the most interesting pictures of your flickr contacts.
• Most Interesting Pictures – Enter Flickr username to see their most interesting pictures.
• FlickrWallpaper – is a simple desktop wallpaper changer that downloads photos based on tags from flickr.
• FlickrSavr – downloads images based on the criteria specified and creates a slideshow of images and titles.
• Flickrmap – Put a flash based world map on your own website or blog.
• Embedded Flickr Slideshows – All that�s needed is a bit of code to embed them within your website to give your readers something dynamic.
• Flickr hack: All Sizes for all pics – The public API gives directions for constructing the url of any photo based on information in the HTML of every photo page.
• Flickrfs Virtual Flickr Filesystem – Create a virtual userspace filesystem which allows easy uploading/downloading/searching of images through flickr.
• Projects on the construction of identity and flickr – a series of three projects investigating what constitutes the self. egoshotr, fixr and mixrrr
• WordPress Flickr Post Bar plugin – easily insert your Flickr photos into your blog posts.
• Phlickr – is an open source PHP5 based api kit used to access the Flickr API.
• Flickr AutoDownloadr – view Flickr photos in a fullscreen slideshow (Windows). Handy for showing off photos to a group of friends with a laptop and TV.
• Flickratr – vote from 1-10 for different flickr images.
• KFlickr – A standalone Flickr.com uploader for KDE
• FAlbum – a WordPress plugin that allows you to display your Flickr photos and photosets on your site.
• Flickr Album Maker – Make photoalbums using Flickr photos. Based on the php tools by Oberkampf.
• flickrRSS Plugin – This plugin for WordPress allows you to display a flickr style badge (for a tag, user, user tag or group pool) on your WordPress site.
• Flickr Greasemonkey Scripts – a huge collection of scripts that modify and enhance Flickr.
• EgoWalk – see geographically where all your Flickr contacts live in the United States on a Yahoo! map.
• flickrsavr.py – is a python script that automates the process of saving the URLs (of public photos), and also saves a local copy of thumbnails, and stores descriptions, dates, and tags in a database.
• Photo Comment Tool – One-click grab and publish any Flickr photo into a Flickr photo comment stream or forum post.
• BreadKrumbs – Build instant page to page journeys across Flickr photos. Also works as a good group promotion tool.
• Flickr at Userscripts – More greasemonkey scripts tagged with flickr.
• FlickrFavs – an application for downloading your favorite photos.
• Flickr Explorer – Mass photo downloader for Flickr.
• Flickr Importr – a tool for Windows that allows you to upload images to Flickr and automatically add them to groups and sets.
• Flyr – search flickr for geotagged photos.
• Steeev’s Flickr Projects – a collection of flickr greasemonkey scripts and other Flickr programming projects.
• FlickrRandom – presents randomly-picked photos from Flickr.
• Flickr RSS Widget – a Javascript button you can put on your website that displays thumbnails of the latest photos in any Flickr RSS feed.
• Flickr module for CMS – allows you to integrate your photo albums at flickr.com into you CMS Made Simple based website.
• Mobup – a small J2ME application that manage mobile photo uploads on your Flickr account
• fd’s Flickr Toys – fun tools for Flickr image editing
• QOOP flickr Photo Printer – online photo printing service for your Flickr photos in book form.
• GLFlickrShow – uses OpenGL to produce fullscreen slideshows with transition effects.
• Flickr idGettr – find your Flickr user id number. For some reason, the only way to figure it out is by looking at your RSS stream address.
• Flickr TopToolbar – a Greasemonkey script or a Firefox extension, that insets a toolbar across the top of all Flickr pages.
• Flickr MiniToolbar – a Greasemonkey script or a Firefox extension, that insets a small toolbar above the title of a photo on the photo page.
• Steganography with Flickr – See how steganographied images can be shared with Flickr friends to pass on documents or other files.
• Notifyr – subscribe to a Flickr photo page and get email notifications whenever new images are added.
• Flidget – is a dashboard widget for tiger that allows you to upload your photos.
• Flickr RSS Reader v2 – is an application built in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Professional that reads RSS Feeds from Flickr.
• FlickrDown – downloading photos from Flickr to save locally easier.
• Flickr Album - an alternative fun way to view images at Flickr.
• Associatr – A tool for browsing related tags on Flickr.
• Lfvr - A light weight flickr viewer.
• Flickr Montager – create photo mosaics using flickr tags.
• Search Plugins:Flickr – searching flickr.
• Glimmr – is a photo uploader for the Flickr web service.
• Longline Tool – composes long line mosaics from the Long Line group pool over at Flickr.
• Grabbr – is a small application to smooth the task of uploading screenshots to Flickr.
• Flickr search plugin – for Mozilla/Firefox browser.
• Flippr! -is a simple application that grabs pictures from Flickr and puts them on your desktop.
• Flickr.rb – Ruby interface to the Flickr photo-sharing service.
• Flickr People Finder – a way of finding people on the big flickr visualization.
• FlickrJ – Java wrapper for the Flickr REST API.
• Flickr Automator Action 0.1 – Automated uploading to Flickr.
• Flickr .NET – A .NET wrapper around the Flickr API. Allows desktop and web applications to provide direct image upload functionality to Flickr and its services.
• Lickr – Flickr causes delay as flash loads. Lickr strips the Flash before the user can even see it, and replaces it with an equivalent interface in pure HTML and Javascript.
• Flickr Screensaver -Turns your computer into a slideshow of Flickr photos when you’re not using it.
• Flickrfox -is an extension for Firefox (version 1.0) that lets you browse your Flickr photostreams in a sidebar.
• jUploadr -is a cross-platform uploader for both linux and windows.
• Degradr -is a Firefox Greasemonkey script to replace flash representations of photos on flicr.com with the image files embedded in those flash files.
• FlickrExport – is a plugin for iPhoto 4 which provides a direct export interface to Flickr.com
• Photoupload – Image uploader to flickr. Upload photos directly to photoset, Use IPTC and EXIF fields in photo description, and generate tags from IPTC keywords.
• flickrate! – is an attempt to give flickr a rating system. Displays most aesthetic, funniest and original photos.
• uploadr.py – Upload images to your Flickr account in Python. Once this script is running, simply drag and drop images into the specified upload folder and watch as your images appear on your flickr account.
• Flickr Tag Related Browser -Just type a search tag and see amazing view of flickr images and browse related tags.
• FlickrClient is a Python interface to the Flickr API.
• FlickrUploadr – is a tool to upload your pictures to Flickr.
• 50 people See – is a program to blend Flickr images which share the same tags. No human is involved in choosing, positioning, or blending the images.
• Spell with Flickr -Generate one picture per letter.
• Flickr Postcard Browser – Browse Flickr Postcards
• Flickr Graph is an application that explores the social relationships inside flickr.com. It makes use of the classic attraction-repulsion algorithm for graphs.
• TripperMap – automatically search your photos at Flickr for location information and plot the photos on your own Trippermap, on your own website.
• dFlickr wraps most functions of the Flickr API and provides the necessary classes to access users/photos/photosets/groups/pools/blogs in Flickr.
• Mappr is an interactive environment for exploring place, based on the photos people take.
• Flickr Color Picker – Using images from the Color Fields group, just click on a color, use the slider to adjust lightness and darkness, and it will show you photos with that color.
• 1001 – is a Mac OS X application for uploading and notifying you when new photos are added to streams you want to watch.
• Flickr Rainbow – displays most recent images from all the users at Flickr which have been tagged with the colours of the rainbow.
• Flickr photos on your TiVo is an application for the new TiVo HME which can display Flickr pictures on your TiVo
• flickReplacr bookmarklet – to swap a flickr pic for that word.
• Kubrickr is a tool that lets you replace the header of your WordPress blog with a nice photo from Flickr.

Changed the way we find information. Before Wikipedia, most online encyclopedias were either sorely lacking in information, or required you to have a paid subscription to access their content. Wikipedia changed all that by not only allowing anyone to view the content for free, but also by allowing individual users to review and update content, making it more complete and accurate overall. Wikipedia also brought crowdsourcing and user-generated content to the mainstream online, making both much more viable and valuable.

With more and more people using the internet for a wide variety of reasons, many businesses these days are carried solely using the online mode. But recent research has shown that over 90% of these online businesses do not make any profit. Even after spending a lot of money on advertisements, promotions etc, these companies seem to falter. The reason is ineffective copywriting. Copywriters are generally employed by companies to provide textual depth to an offering and more importantly, help the company in selling that particular product or service. However, ineffective copywriting can mar your prospects of impressing a potential customer, which in turn won’t result in the lead being converted into sales. Remember – almost all successful online businesses thrive on effective copywriting, which is why you need to know about some skills that are required to become a successful copywriter.

The first thing is to write in a crisp and concise manner, where you go into elaborating facts only to a certain extent. Going into too much of details might result in confusing readers and might even bore them. Jargon should be avoided as much as possible and sentences should be short and simple to understand. Long sentences with a lot of jargon words tend to test the readers’ patience. You should also put in adequate research to create an article or web copy that’s both unique and precise.

Though many copywriters often use a lot of keywords into their copy – all in their enthusiasm to match the SEO standards, you should learn to focus more on your human readers. Focusing on the search engine spiders alone or keyword stuffing in your write up will not help. The key is to use a balance blend of targeted keywords without tampering with the natural flow of your copy.

Another important aspect of online copywriting is focusing on the readers. The readers play a pivotal role in making an article a hit or a flop, indirectly affecting the fortunes of the company. Thus, articles must always be written in accordance with what the readers want to read. Before writing, you should identify the target audience so that you get a better idea of what words to use, etc. Humility and sincerity must always be maintained in writing an article, because these are the two qualities that appeal to a reader the most. You should put some effort into your written words to turn them into something believable. Copywriters, through their articles, should actually try to ‘talk’ to the readers. The web copy should also have a “call to action” for the readers where they are encouraged to take the desired action, be it clicking on a special offer or signing for the newsletter etc.

To write an effective web copy or article, you should have a good knowledge on a wide range of subjects. So, wannabe copywriters should read a lot. Exposure to various forms and styles of writing can help a writer create a new approach to writing, which results in an unmatched freshness that is showcased in every web copy. Even when you have gathered some experience as a copywriter, you shouldn’t neglect to invest time for reading and knowing more about the various tools and developments that are happening in your sphere of work. Having an updated knowledge of the latest developments, styles of writing and tools that can make your copy better and more effective will always serve as an ace up your sleeves.

Last but not the least, always proof-read your copy before submitting it so that typos, grammatical and spelling errors are done away with. Remember that if your readers find your copy to fall short of their desired standards where lots of mistakes – grammatical or otherwise are there, they are likely to leave it mid-way. So, show some respect for your readers by turning a good and interesting web copy.

This list represents those who have worked to earn that power of influence in our lives. These people are making a difference in the lives of people around the world. The people are influential.

Influential Bloggers #1: Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is the New York Times bestselling author of Trust Agents and he’s a master of social media. He’s working hard to transform the way people interact and do business online. His philosophy can be summed up by this simple concept: being human from a distance. His unique look at online relationships is attracting huge crowds.

Influential Bloggers #2: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse is the online authority when it comes to successful blogging. He’s the founder of several hugely popular blogs. Perhaps his most popular, Problogger, is the online authority when it comes to providing bloggers with the resources and information necessary to build powerful blogs.

Influential Bloggers #3: Brian Clark

Brian Clark is the driving force behind CopyBlogger where he educates people on how to write compelling content to vastly improve online marketing. He focus on teaching people how to get traffic, attract links, gain subscribers and sell stuff. His sites can be summarized by these two simple concepts: content strategies

Influential Bloggers #4: Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is our link into the world of Google. He serves as the head of their spam prevention department and as such he has an intimate knowledge of what Google favors and what they frown upon. He shares blog posts, videos and interviews educating bloggers and webmasters as to the best ways to build great content that Google pays attention to.

Influential Bloggers #5: Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin is the founder and mastermind behind SEOmoz. Since it’s inception, SEOmoz has developed into one of the most visible online websites dedicated to search marketing. Rand has built SEOmoz as the go-to resource for all things related to Search Engines and the tactics necessary to get your site noticed.

Influential Bloggers #6: Seth Godin

Seth Godin has authored 10 bestselling books that have changed the way that people view marketing and work. His no-holds-barred style of writing at his blog has drawn an international following. Godin is working to persuade people to reinvent the way that they relate with the people around them.

Influential Bloggers #7: Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferris is grabbing some attention with his ‘experiments in lifestyle design’ blog and his runaway bestseller The 4-Hour Work Week. It has been said that Tim is the Indiana Jones for the digital age. He’s a bestselling author, a world record holder, a speaker of 5 languages, a public speaker, and much more.

Influential Bloggers #8: Yaro Starak

Yaro Starak is an entrepreneur from Australia. Yaro has built and sold several online businesses and now teaches people how to make a full-time living from blogging part time through his highly successful Blog Mastermind Program. He draws from his own experience and is passionate about helping others achieve the same successes.

Influential Bloggers #9: David Risley

David Risley’s blog is aptly subtitled Confessions of a Six-Figure Blogger. David Risley averages 18,000 per month through his online income ventures. His most popular website, PCMech, brings in around 250,000 visitors each month.

Influential Bloggers #10: Gary Vaynerchuck

Gary Vaynerchuck has became famous for his Wine Library TV where he offers a daily video with an unorthodox approach to a historically stuffy subject. His slogan has been changing the wine world and he really has been doing just that.

Influential Bloggers #11: Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a man on a mission. His blog is aptly titled How to Change the World. He’s a business mogul who’s determined to make an impact on the world. He has been described as a living legend to which he replied with the following quote:

“What you should do is create a great product or service…the goal is to change the world…if you do that, maybe you’ll be a legend.”

Influential Bloggers #12: John Chow

John Chow is, as he likes to himself, a media mogul. He’s an online entrepreneur, blogger, founder of an online advertising company, and an instructor to authors. He has often quipped that he makes money online by teaching others how to make money online.

Influential Bloggers #13: Daniel Scocco

Daniel Scocco is famous for his small ‘Daily’ blogs like Daily Blog Tips and Daily Writing Tips. Although his blogs may appear small, he’s built a massive following and has rallied a community around his sites.

Influential Bloggers #14: Nicholas Cardot

Nicholas Cardot is a full-time Infantryman in the United States Army and he’s the founder and author of Site Sketch 101. His military background has shaped his philosophical emphasis on building and sustaining a community.

Although he may not be the most influential blogger right now, he’s quickly growing his online presence, developing his relationships, and working to impact and empower as many people as he can. His online aspirations cannot be measured or described. He’s reaching for the stars as should every blogger.

Influential Bloggers #15: You

You are the one that is truly revolutionizing the way blogging is done. You’re the one reaching out to the online community in your topic. You’re the one that is blogging with real passion. You’re the one working hard to build relationships, to share information, and to build your community. You are the one who inspires and influences me.

Here are some methods to increase traffic to your blog or website. Some of these techniques will help increase sales as well as hits.
1. Have Your Own Domain – If you use WordPress or blogger, try to avoid using sub-domains or free hosting services. Pay for some web hosting and get your own unique domain name. This will make your website more memorable and encourage visitors to return.
2. Create a Professional and Unique Design with Logo – Code your own template or modify an existing theme for your site or blog. What makes your blog so special if it looks the same as 1000 others on the Internet? Make sure you have a great memorable logo so when people see it; they know it’s your websites. Your design should be clean and simple so it’s easy to navigate. Once you have made it, test it and check everything works, a site with errors will lose visitors.
3. Content is King – You need to consistently write great content on your blog or website. The posts that you make need to be worth reading and have some impact on the visitor. If I am visiting your website for the first time, I want to be impressed and bookmark your website so I return to see what else you compose.
4. Post Linking – When a link is made to your blog from another blog, if activated, it places a link in that blogs comments back to the relevant post. This will help increase back links to your blog and therefore increase traffic.
5. Personality – Do not pretend to be someone you are not as a blogger. Be yourself and do not act otherwise. This is best because your readers want someone to connect with, someone who is a real person and not just a blog with no face.
6. Always Room for Improvement – Always strive to improve your blog or site any way you can. Play around with ad placement, colours and graphics and other features to make your blog more appealing. Ask for reviews to find area’s for improvement.
7. Reply to Your Readers – This means replying to comments and any e-mails that you receive. This is part of your personality and showing that you are a real person who exists and cares about the topic you are blogging about.
8. Real Posts – Ensure that you sound human in your posts. Do not post in the third person. Use words such as “I” and talk about your personal experiences.
9. A Picture – A picture paints a thousand words so why not show your readers who is writing the blog. Upload an image of yourself onto your about page, or if you are not quite comfortable to do that then have a cartoon of yourself made.
10. Comment on Other Blogs – This is a very powerful technique, I know I find myself clicking the link to a person’s website after I have read their comment and this is what you can achieve by leaving your comment on as many other blogs as possible. Blogs that are about the same topic will help you get targeted traffic. Ensure your comment is worth reading and not just a load of rubbish.
11. Question Your Readers – Ask your readers questions in posts, this will help to provoke a response from them. You give them an important role to play and they respond by commenting their opinion. This will encourage repeat visitors to respond to your posts with their opinions.
12. Internal Linking – Linking to previous posts that you have made will create more back links and also encourage readers to re-read or look at some of your older work. Readers of a particular post will be interested in related posts so ensure you link to them.
13. Alternate Text Images – When you use images on your site, ensure that you use alternate text “alt” tags to insert keywords or the name of the image. This will help get the images listed on image search engines and result in traffic from that source.
14. Submit to Directories – Submit your site to online directories. Do this to as many as you can to improve your PageRank. This increased back links to your website and there for you receive higher rankings on search engines. Quality back links are important so try and obtain some from high Page Ranking sites that have similar content to your websites.
15. Image Use – Try to use images when posting on your blog. These make posts more fun to look at and can break up boring text.
16. Join Forums – Join many forums and message boards that are related to your websites content. Place a link back to your website in your profile and signature and frequently post useful information to other members.
17. Keyword Rich Content – When writing articles or posts on your site or blog, ensure you include relevant keywords so that people searching for the topic will have an easier time finding your article.
18. Write Intriguing Post Titles – Ensure that you write intriguing post titles that have keywords in. This is what is going to show up on search engines so ensure your spelling is right and that you would want to click it.
19. Meta Data – Get as much use out of Meta data as you can. Try to have a different page description and keywords on every page of your website.
20. Write a Press Release – Write a press release about something to do with your website and publish this on news sites or press release websites along with sites that are relevant to your niche.
21. Merchandise – Create pens, pencils, t-shirts, mouse mats etc that have your websites logo and address on. Maybe sell the t-shirts from your website however give you the free pens in your local area.
22. Advertise Locally – Place an advert in your local business newsletter or in a local shop. List what the purpose of your website is and hopefully you will receive some interest. Local traffic can really help especially if you are selling something. Visitors will be much more inclined to purchase from someone locally than from the other site of the world.
23. Share a Secret – It is likely that your website will be based on something you have an interest in, so why not share some inside knowledge that many of your readers may not know. Let them know something that has helped you and only you in the past. Curiosity is a marvellous thing.
24. Advert Experiments – Naturally most will want to make some money from their website and therefore adverts will be on there. Try and experiment with your adverts placement to see which gets better results. Do not overload your website with adverts because this will deter visitors. Maybe implement a membership system that removes 50% of adverts when logged in.
25. Social Bookmark Posts Plugin – If you have a blog then get a plugin for your posts that allows your readers to click a button and this will then bookmark your site on digg, stumbleupon, reddit etc. 
26. Ask for Diggs – There is no harm is asking your readers to Digg posts that you have written. This will help increase the number of dig users visiting your website.
27. Ask for Comments – Ask your visitors in your posts to post their comments about the post. If you are not getting as many comments as you would like then anything is worth a try. 
28. Ask for Subscriptions – While asking for comments you may was well ask for other things such as subscriptions to your RSS feed. Ensure there is a big button that can be clicked that allows subscriptions to be made simple and stress free.
29. E-mail Subscription – Allows users to sign up by e-mail so that your blog posts are delivered to their e-mail address. This will ensure visitors do not miss any of your posts.

30. MyBlogLog – This is a great service that shows an image of your visitors on your website if they are registered. There are similar blog social networking sites that can also be used for this.
31. Post Rating – Enable a plug-in on your blog that allows visitors to rate your posts. This is a simple way that does not require registration to enable readers to report on how good a post is.
32. FeedBurner – Using a service such as Feed Burner allows you to monitor the number of subscribers you have. Many readers will be interested to see how many other users are reading your blog and are subscribed to it. Use their publicize services to show the number of readers.
33. Commenting – Try enabling and disabling the “must be registered to comment” feature to see which yields more results. You should find that without registration, more comments will come through; however this does mean that you should implement some spam protection feature.
34. Online Homepages – Many people use Google for example and have iGoogle activated. This is why you should have an RSS plug-in that allows users to click and it adds to feed to such services.
35. Write a List Post or Article – Writing a bulleted list can sometimes be easier on the reader and writer if you have lots on information to roll off in one post. This is a list post and makes for easy reading.
36. Article Marketing – Write an article and post it on sites such as article beech or ezine articles. Ensure you include a link back to your site in the article. Make sure the article is great so that people will want to read more of your work.
37. Autopinger – use sites such as autopinger.com to submit your blog to lots of websites.
38. Submit Site to Search Engines – Manually submit your site to the major search engines on the web and also use auto submitter websites for lesser known search engines. Organic search engine traffic is great and will increase your ad revenue.
39. DMOZ – Submit your website to dmoz.org. if you manage to get listed this will really help your traffic stats.
40. Site Contests – Offer a prize to the 1000th subscriber or commenter to encourage whatever activity you want. The prize could simply be a text link on your website, however the more appealing the better.
41. Banner Exchanges – You could try a banner exchange service however you may not be able to choose what type of banner is placed on your site. Try and contact other bloggers with similar content and ask for a link exchange.
42. Site Load Time – Check how long it takes your website to load and increase the speed if necessary. This is important to ensure visitors are not leaving before the site has fully loaded. Try to use smaller images or multimedia if your site is slow.
43. YouTube – Create a YouTube account and add you link in your profile so that you might get traffic from people who view any videos that you upload. Make videos relating to your website content so any traffic is targeted.
44. About Us – Get your site listed at Wiki – about Us Wiki Page, this is another way to increase back links. On the site you can put information about your website.
45. Tags – Tagging your posts or articles on your website is a great way of entering keywords to help search engines. Make the most of these where you can.
46. Categories – If you have a blog then use blog categories with meaningful names that use keywords so that these show up in the websites URL and on SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages)
47. Permalink – Check to see if this features is enabled. If its not then enable it and have the post title in the URL.
48. Holidays – These are great for marketing so ensure that you are ready. Start making posts and site content about Christmas / Easter or whatever about a month before the event. This gives search engines chance to list your posts. Then when people search for Christmas XXXXXX your site will be there. – Maybe decorate your site to suit the holiday theme.
49. Interviews – Interview other sites and post the interview on your website. Alternatively get interviewed by other sites yourself.
50. Selling your site? – Pretend to sell your website. I sold a site recently and the traffic shot up. If you can list your site free then you have nothing to lose apart from responding to offers. However the chances of any of the traffic you received returning is slim. You may benefit from padding out your MyBlogLog section.
51. Surveys – Have a survey or poll on your website, not large, just a small one in the sidebar somewhere that allows visitors to vote on a controversial question or something that will change on your website depending on a vote.
52. Blog Networks – Create a blog network where you can link all your blogs together. This will take up a lot of your time, however if you have it spare the more the better providing the content is unique and remains at a high standard.
53. Create a Site Template or Blog Theme – As the title states, create a theme and have a link back to your website in the footer. 
54. Plugins / scripts – If you have the knowhow, create a plug-in or script for a website and have a link back to your website.
55. Comedy Writing – If you can write funny content, this will attract lots of readers. I know I have returned to a blog in the past due to its humour.
56. Social Networking Site – Use social networking websites such as MySpace, gain lots of friends and then post a bulletin about your website.
57. Reviewing – If you are honest and able to post great reviews then review sites and products and post about them on your website. If this is successful then other sites will want to be reviewed by you.
58. Get Reviews – Go to other sites and ask them to review your website. No one like’s criticism so be prepared to take some. It is likely to benefit your site in the future though.
59. Post News – Try and be first to post breaking news in your niche. Get listed on news websites such as Google News which will increase your traffic.
60. Awards Program – Create an awards brand. Get webmasters to submit their site and you offer prizes or just a graphic that states they won or passed your tests for a great website. Use your imagination.
61. Resources – Write posts that link to resources that may be useful to your type of reader. A webmaster blog may link to free stock photo sites as a post and list them in order of best first.
62. Treat others as you wish to be treated – This speaks for itself. If a reader of yours needs a hand then take the time out to help them. They will appreciate you for it.
63. Edit Posts – Go back over old content on your website and update it if it needs updating. Insert relevant links into old pages that go to content that is similar.
64. Yahoo Answers – Get an account at Yahoo Answers and post your blog URL in answers where appropriate. Only do this when you have a good reputation and the content is relevant and will actually help the user.
Great! That’s it for this time. If you learned at least one thing from this post it was worth reading!

Offline Promotions

1. Always put your URL on letterhead, business cards and in e-mail signatures–wherever potential visitors are likely to see it.

2. If your employees wear uniforms, put your URL on them so every one of your customers sees a walking advertisement of your website.

3. Include your URL on all promotional items you give away–coffee mugs, T-shirts, key chains and so on. A daily reminder is a good way to get people to visit your site.

4. Be sure to include your web address in all press releases you send out to members of the media. By having it at their fingertips, they may be more likely to include it in articles they write about your company.

5. Don’t forget to put your web address in your Yellow Pages ad. That’s one place people see it every day.

6. Do you own any company vehicles? Be sure to put your URL on the side of any car or truck that’s out there delivering your products.

7. In addition to listing your toll-free number, put your web address on the bottom of every page of your catalogue so customers have easy access to your online store.

Online Promotions

8. Process so you can get the best exposure possible.

9. If you’re still itching for more exposure, you can explore search engine marketing, wherein you pay to have a text ad appear when visitors search for certain keywords.

10. Launch a sweepstakes that offers anyone who registers on your site or subscribes to e-newsletters within a certain time frame the chance to win a free gift.

11. Send out a weekly newsletter to registered site members that offer tips and news related to your company or industry with links back to your site.

12. Offer content to other sites. It’s a win-win situation: The other site gets free articles to beef up their offerings and you get a link back to your site and the cachet of being an expert.

13. Send a well-planned, customer-focused promotion to a targeted list of potential visitors and offer a credit toward the purchase of anything from your site. Spend time on your e-mail’s look and content: You want to offer value to customers and not have it appear to be spam.

14. Create your own exchange by asking sites complementary to yours (but that don’t compete) to put your link on their pages and you’ll do likewise.

15. Hook up with web affiliates–hundreds of sites that all link their traffic to yours–and get visitors from sites with related content.

16. Get active in online discussion groups and chats and always include your URL in your signature. (Don’t do any hard selling, though. Most groups frown on such behaviour and will think you’re spamming the group.)

17. Any time someone orders a product from your site, include a catalogue with their order to get them coming back for more.

18. Inspire your visitors to spread the word for you with viral marketing techniques, from the aforementioned newsgroup participation to including an "e-mail this link" on every page of your site.

19. Not sure what your customers want? Try creating an survey to get their crucial opinions on how well your site is selling to them.

20. When creating your own ads, make sure you understand who you’re targeting, the goal of your campaign, and how to creatively use the ad confines to get viewers to click on your ad, not away from it.

21. Use other selling venues like online classified advertising or online auction sites to increase exposure to your site and products.

Let’s take a look at 18 timeless blogging tips on how to improve your blog and stand above the competition.

1. Judge a blog by its cover – If it doesn’t look pretty, people have a hard time focusing on what you have to say. Take a look at the home page of your blog, focusing on the uppermost region (without scrolling down). Would you want to take a look around after arriving on the home page as a new visitor?

2. Comment smartly and consistently – Bloggers are tired of seeing the overused “Nice post!” or “This is really interesting!” Stand out by trying to put some thought into your comments and, most importantly, make it sound like you actually read the article.

3. Get a Gravatar- Before you start commenting on blogs, it’s a good idea to register your own gravatar. If you follow step 2, readers and blog owners will become familiar with you for better or for worse.

4. Show your personality in your writing – Establishing a voice in your writing is a crucial element is producing content that people will want to keep coming back over and over again for more. Don’t be that Average Joe in a sea of Average Joes.

5. Use plenty of pictures in your blog posts – No one wants to see endless blocks of text, especially while reading online. The moment your readers’ mind wanders off, they’ll be jumping to another site before you know it. Here are some great sources for finding images: Flickr, Photobucket, picapp, Google Image Search.

6. Study SEO like your life depended on it - Driving traffic to your blog through search engines is what you call “organic traffic.” Other types include referral sites, and direct traffic. Of the three mentioned, organic traffic is what you need to be able to sustain long-term visibility of your blog. To help you get started, take a look at this comprehensive guide on SEO: The Definitive Guide to Higher Rankings For Your Blog.

7. Start with a WordPress.com blog and then switch over to a self-hosted WordPress blog - Three reasons to use WordPress: 1) Lots of people use it 2) Recognition and reputation 3) Strong support. If you are just started blogging, I recommend you get a free WordPress.com blog to get your feet wet. It can’t hurt you to do so and besides, what’s the rush?

8. Avoid grammar mistakes by proofreading – One thing that really annoys me about a blog is poor grammar. If you were listening to your teacher lecture about quantum physics and his grammar is dreadful, you would want to leave that class in a heartbeat. Same thing with blogs. You came looking for value but it’s all mixed up with a misplaced “has” and “their” and terrible spelling. Would you want to keep reading? Probably not.

9. Make you blog content rich in media – In my Studio Art class last quarter, we studied about human culture and psychology (Shrug). It would’ve been the most boring class in my entire schedule if my professor had not included numerous videos and other media into out 1- 1/2 hour long lectures. It kept me attentive and engaged. and helped me connect topics more cohesively. In other words, utilize the power of Youtube and other media sources and incorporate them accordingly into your blog content.

10. Figure out your niche and stick to it – If someone asked you what your blog was about, would you be able to answer without hesitation? If not, write down in 140 characters or less(no pun intended) a succinct and clear definition of what your blog is about. E.g: Pet Food Blog- The Blog where Pet Owners can Learn How to Better Feed Their Beloved Pets. The second important thing is “to keep the main the main thing.” If you feel like writing a post about electron polarization and its effect on our ecosystem (shrug), do you really think that readers to your Pet Food Blog would appreciate it?

11. Blog on a set schedule – There is no right answer to how often one should blog. Whatever schedule you start out with, make sure you stick with it every week. Take for example, Mashable. After visiting the site a couple of times, you can safely expect to see a new article every single day. The important thing is that they stick with that routine.

12. Reply to comments on your blog – Replying to questions or comments from readers is your way of letting people know that your blog is “alive.” It gives readers the opportunity to interact and engage in conversation. Best thing of all? It artificially inflates the true number of people who comment on your blog. Very sweeeeeet.

13. Make it easy for readers to navigate your blog – If it takes more than 3 seconds to look for a search bar or category list on your blog, than your site’s navigation needs to be improved. No one likes the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place with no directions to their destination. They feel desperate, unhappy, and hopeless. The thing with being lost in an unfamiliar site as opposed to being lost in a shopping mall is that readers can easily exit with a single click of a button. This will definitely not help your blog traffic.

14. Put an author section in your blog posts – No one wants to read material written by a face-less author, let alone by one without a name. Check out this article by Chris Spooner on how you to create your own author section.

15. Forget about the stats – How much time do you spend checking the stats of traffic to your blog? You’ll be amazed by how much more productive you will be if you focus on maximizing the time you spend writing new blog posts instead. One method to fight off your debilitating addiction for numbers is to disconnect your computer from the internet. Say what?! Yep, that’s right. If you can’t get online, you can’t get look at your stats. Pull out Microsoft Word and start writing your next blog post there. It’ll work out. Trust me.

16. Don’t think about making money…at first – If making money from your blog is your primary goal, I will not argue against that. The problem with focusing solely on money in the beginning is that you lose sight of the far more significant goal every new blog must reach first: quality content. What good will you provide your readers if you only post hundreds of affiliate links and self-promotional articles in the hope of winning people’s credit card numbers? Don’t be greedy. Money is great but don’t let it destroy your blog.

17. Write killer headlines - With eye-catching headlines, you have effectively completed over 50% of your blog’s advertising. Tell me, would you rather read an article titled, “How to Cook Delicious Spaghetti Sauce” or “How to Make Your Spaghetti Sauce Taste Orgasmic” ? (I apologize if you were eating) Anyways, the point is to avoid the overused and generic blog titles and strive for ones that are unique and thought-provoking.

18. Guest post – Don’t let the thought of submitting your written articles to other reputable blogs intimidate you. Remember, if you don’t try, how can you possibly succeed?

I often get people asking me the following question: “What is the best way to make money online?” They wonder if they should focus on blogging, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, web design, selling eBooks, or what.

My short answer to that question is: there is no “best” way. All business models can work if you work hard, smartly, and persistently.

The proof to this is the fact that you have millionaires on virtually any segment and business model around. You have millionaire bloggers, affiliate marketers, web designers, eBook sellers, SEOs and so on.

What is more interesting: there are people out there making a ton of money even with trivial services like directory submissions. Anyone can make directory submissions, yet I know people who make six figures annually by offering directory submission services.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. I am not saying that making money online on any segment is easy. It is hard. But it is pretty much equally hard, regardless of the business model or segment you choose.

The takeaway message from this post, therefore, is the following: do not stress trying to choose the “best” way to make money online. And more importantly, don’t let that choice paralyze you. There is no “best” way or business model. Just choose something that you like to do, something that you are passionate about, and work damn hard at it. Work hard until you are among the best doing that. Once you reach that point, the money will come naturally.

Original Post: You Can Make Money Online Doing Anything You Want

As wiki says:

A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

As Blogger says:

A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.

Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.

In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what’s new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.

Since Blogger was launched in 1999, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others.

And we’re pretty sure the whole deal is just getting started.

A blog is basically a type of website, like a forum or a social bookmarking site. As such it is defined by the technical aspects and features around it, and not by the content published inside it.

The features that make blogs different from other websites are:

• content is published in a chronological fashion
• content is updated regularly
• readers have the possibility to leave comments
• other blog authors can interact via trackbacks and pingbacks
• content is syndicated via RSS feeds

Keep in mind that it is the bundle of those features that should define a blog. An online forum could also offer an RSS feed for example, but that would not make it a blog.