Here are my four must-have services that we use for Blosmo and that you should start using to:
Twitter Feed
Twitter Feed is one of the only, and by far the easiest way to connect your blog to a Twitter account. It's as simple as using your existing Twitter username, signing in to Twitter Feed with OpenID, and then providing them information about your blog. This way, every time you post a new article, Twitter Feed will recognize this and post it to Twitter just like magic! You will get more readers and traffic to your blog when people see all the awesome things you write if they happen to follow you on Twitter. Make sure you include a link in some form in your sidebar that will allow your readers to follow the blog on Twitter. In a way, it's almost exactly like an RSS reader where you log in and see all the new articles that have been posted. Awesome, thanks Cosmo! Saw what I did there?
Lijit
Despite constantly misspelling its name, Lijit is the first site you should go to build your very own search box for your blog or website if it's not already on there. Blosmo recently implemented this service into our blog, and I am absolutely loving it. Lijit provides easy access for your readers for all your online content including Twitter updates, YouTube videos, etc. So not only do people using the search box find content on your site, but on nearly every other account you have online. So for example, say I'm on Blosmo.com and I want to find something on the iPhone 3G. I type it in, hit search, and it gives me some articles that have iPhone 3G mentioned in it. But then when you click on the content tab, it shows an article that I Digged because I set up my Digg account. Not only this, but Lijit comes with extensive statistics on what people search and where. It's pretty detailed and very useful because you get to see what people are looking for. Pretty neat, right?
Feedburner and Feedflare
Feedburner is the easiest way to set up and manage an RSS feed. Much like Lijit, you get extensive statistics including who's subscribing, where they're subscribing, live hits, visitor stats, and something as ridiculous as what their screen resolution is. There are a billion ways you can optimize the feed that probably don't do anything special, but it's satisfying to activate them. One of the best features of Feedburner is Feedflare. This creates instant interactivity within your blog and feed allowing readers to submit each post to a social bookmarking site like Digg or Stumbleupon. Although this is great, I wish Feedflare was a little bit more attractive. It displays the sites as text links where I wish they were small icons like you see sometimes on other sites.
Typepad Connect
Want an incentive for people to comment on your blog? Try Typepad Connect out! Compatible with Movable Type, Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, and of course Typepad, Typepad Connect is a free service that lets users engage in an online commenting community. This allows them to create their very own account and profile picture that shows up when they comment. As admin, you get to view all comments posted and decide whether to keep them or not. You are left in full control of goes in and what comes out with Typepad Connect. Have you created your account yet? If not, go here.
