Build Your Blogger's Tool Kit With The Best Browser Addons

Being a guy I naturally love tools, they are what make our lives simpler and allow us to do things we as humans can't. So it only makes sense when blogging to use them to help you create amazing content and design. Just like Firefox's Addons, Chrome features some truly amazing extensions that you can utilize for your blog.

I have an ongoing series of posts called Chrome Extension Must Haves where I showcase some of the best extensions for blogging and web development. I've been a bit neglectful to Firefox so this post will also feature Firefox add-ons and Safari plugins. This post is about getting you set up a "kit" that will allow you to improve your blogging in a host of ways.

Weather it be graphics, writing, time management, CSS design or SEO, having your tool belt filled with a good set of extensions will seriously aid your blogging endeavours.

Updated Nov 19 - 2010

Bookmarking - Store Your Ideas and Research

First thing we want in our tool box is a great way to store all the information we come across in our adventures. If you're just using bookmarks and the bookmark manager to store all your pages, images and ideas you stumble upon you're missing out on a great new way of bookmarking.

Diigo Web Highligher and Bookmark

Here's another tool I use every single day I decide to do some blogging. Brought to you by Diigo (formally Furl) this extension is the ultimate organisational bookmarking and sharing tool I have found. Share links with friends, groups, social websites etc. Highlight sections you want to pay close attention to next time you visit and add notes for future visitors.

Xmarks Sync 3.9.2

Do you blog on multiple computers? If so you might want to check out this extension. Xmarks Sync is great for keeping track of your different bookmarks on all computers. It works across browsers and even keeps track of open tabs! It's available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE!

Shareaholic

Essential for the Social Media link sharing fiend. Shareaholic boasts one click sharing on over 100 services. This is a great tool to help spread the word to your blog posts as well as others. Works on all the major browsers and is lightning fast. Shareaholic can easily become one of your daily tools.

Webmaster Multi-tools

If you do any bit of design on your blog or use HTML and CSS frequently you're going to want at least one of these type of plugins. These multi functional tools offer up a host of different features that any webmaster can use, whether it's a ruler, color picker, code validators and many more useful features. I'd recommend having one on hand because they do come in handy for all sorts of things.

Web Developer

This is my favorite out of the bunch, it offers many things to aid you while working on your blog. It has too many features to mention but is a must for anyone working on any website.

Pendule

Much like Web Developer this plugin also has many helpful features in a sleek design. I'd check out both Pendule and Web Developer just to see which one suits you better. Used more for quick tasks.

Design and Graphics

If you're like me you've got Photoshop running on idle at all times. I use it for all my graphical design for my blog. Photoshop is a great program, but you need a bridge from it to your browser so you can interface the two. These extensions do just that.

MeasureIT!

One of the most simple plugins I use but also one of the most used ones. MeasureIt is simply a box ruler that does what it's supposed to, measure pixels. The multi tool type extensions have a ruler but this one makes it quick if you find yourself surveying space on websites a bunch.

Eye Dropper

Eye Dropper is essential for fetching colors from a website, this is another extension I use constantly.

ColorZilla

Features an advanced eye dropper, color picker, page zoomer and more.

Awesome Screenshot

This plugin will allow you to capture a visible section of a website and then annotate it. It is INVALUEABLE to bloggers who do tutorials and other such posts. I've made many graphical tutorials on this blog using this one extension and I didn't even have to open up Photoshop. Even if you do not do tutorials Awesome Screenshot will allow you to capture screens from websites you link to, this will add a nice preview of the link for your visitors.

FireShot

FireShot is a great Firefox alternative to Awesome Screenshot for Chrome.

Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to your blog it is important to know where it stands. Using SEO plug-ins can give you immediate results. Maybe you want to check your page rank or see if links are no follow. There are several plug-ins to choose from that offer many different features. Some even offer suggestions on how to improve your site and can show glaring errors that you might want to correct. Many of these offer other types of features that are not related to SEO such as page load speed tests and social media bookmarking tracking.

SEO Site Tools

The most feature rich SEO extension I have found. It's a one stop shop for all your SEO needs at a glance.

SeoQuake

I asked my friends on Twitter what browser plug-ins they couldn't live without, SeoQuake was one of those that came up. Displays the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and other SEO parameters of any webpage, highlights nofollow links, text density, check and compare urls.

PageRank Status

Chrome Extension Must Haves: PageRank Status
Here's one I like and use everyday, it allows me to monitor my page rank and Alexa rank as well as check out my back links in one click.

Writing and Research

The main bulk of what you do when blogging is writing. Naturally you will want to find tools that can aid you in this process of improving your spelling and grammar. One thing that goes hand-in-hand with writing is doing the associated research. There are some great plug-ins out there that will speed up the research process which will lead to writing blog posts faster. Unless you have a video blog you'll definitely not want to overlook these extensions.

After The Deadline

Improve Your Blog Post's Grammar and Spelling with One Click
Uses artificial intelligence to improve your spelling and grammar in one click!

Type-ahead-find

An extremely useful extension that will speed up your own human website crawler speed by immediately locating the text on the webpage you're searching for.

SimilarWeb - Sites Recommendation

When doing some research for your next post it's often helpful when you find a good resource to immediately find another. This Firefox plug-in can help you do just that.

Productivity and Task Management

If you're like me you are probably checking the stats every 30 seconds and not writing a blog post. Believe it or not, there are actually a host productivity extensions that you can utilize. Unfortunately there is some willpower involved even when using them. Stayfocusd, for instance still allows you to disable the extension and allowing you to harvest crops on Frontierville. Currently there is no way around that and probably never will be.

On the other side of productivity plug-ins are task management tools. A good way to organize all your blog post ideas is to make a list of them and figure out which ones you are going to write about first. It also is smart to jot down a list of things you know you need to do in order to complete your post.

Stayfocusd

Ask any blogger and they'll tell you they probably set out to write some more content for their blog but usually end up checking Facebook for 20 minutes instead. That's 20 minutes you could have spent working on your blog. As I write this I am only allowed to be on Facebook for 10 minutes today, thanks to a wonderful little extension called StayFocusd.

Tab Organizer

In the heat of blogging I probably have around 10-15 tabs going at one time in Chrome. Tab Organizer helps me sort through the madness.

RescueTime

With this amazing time-keeper you can essentially see what you spend your time doing, it might be a good motivator to try to limit your unproductive habits and rack-up more time on blogger.com or wordpress.com!

This list always would like your comments, what are some "must haves" for you when it comes to your everyday blogging routine?

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