5 Smart AutoPilot Tools For Your Blog

The perfect webmaster’s dream is to have a blog running on AutoPilot – with smart tools making things ticking away nicely in the background. Leaving a blogger with just the job of churning out posts – Perfect world.

Let’s face it, the WordPress back-end is an interesting place to be.
There is so much to fiddle with, Comments to moderate, Stats to check, Plugins to update, Source code to tweak and so on. But these things eat into your time.

Don’t get me wrong these tasks are essential, but wouldn’t it be better if most of it were automated? That is why I love Askimet spam blocker – one less admin task to do and more time to provide value to my readers.

Blog Tools

Saving valuable time as led me to list 5 of my favorite AutoPilot tools.

WordPress Database Backup

This backup plugin automatically backs up data on a regular basis.

Available options

• Ability to specify back-up frequency

• Option to choose where to save back up file

• Select and choose tables to backup.

• Get it here

Posts

Yes, the actual WordPress post functionality.
Generally, I tend to write a number of posts in one go, so I have them sitting in a queue waiting to be published at my specified time.

Available options

• Schedule a publish date and time.

Update services

Update services is a feature within WordPress that automatically notifies submission directories of my new blog post. – It saves me a lot of time.

To locate,  go to Settings – Writing – Updates Services

Aweber

Aweber automatically handles all my email distributions, campaigns and subscriptions on YourBlogTools.com

XML Sitemaps

This cool plugin automatically notifies Google wherever there’s a new post on YourBlogTools.com Get it here

Which auto-pilot tools are you using?

Do you have any questions about these tools?

How To Effectively Connect With Your Readers

How do you effectively stay in touch with your subscribed readers?
Which tools do you use to achieve this?
Aweber handles all my email distribution and campaigns.
If you are really serious about building your mailing list with your blog, then this tool would help achieve this.
It also happens to be the industry leader in Email Management System.
It’s a very simple yet powerful system to use – And more importantly it works.

With very little effort, Aweber email system allows you to send bulk emails to your entire mailing list. You can also schedule these emails to be sent at specific times you want.

Especially for a newly formed blog, it is very essential to start building your mailing list from day one and to maintain a relationship with them.

See it in action

One of the key components of AWeber is its Auto-Responder facility.

Subscribers to YourBlogTools.com would have had a taste of this already.

It essentially handles the following:

• Captures user details from your blog
• Verifies and welcomes new subscribers
• Email Campaigns
• And much more

How I use Aweber

On a weekly basis, I interact with my readers by doing the following:

• To broadcast emails to my readers on the fly with new tips and updates
• To schedule blog post email notification.

Why I chose Aweber

With regards to list building, which is quite important to me, I wanted to hit the ground running. Aweber was able to meet my requirements.

What I wanted

• I was a after a proven system that works

• A reliable system

• A complete Email Management System

What I didn’t want

• An unreliable system

• Emails filtered to spam folders.

Try Aweber here

Do you have any questions regarding this tool?

Are you already using Aweber? Share your experiences here.

5 Essential Plugins For A New WordPress Blog

These are exciting times guys…
As we enter the beginning stages of YourBlogTools.com, I will be documenting series of action steps taken to get this blog up and running. If you are just starting out on WordPress then you are not alone – just follow on.

Listed below are some of the plugins I first installed

1. All-in-one-seo-pack
   Optimize your blog for search engines. Be sure to enter in your blog’s tagline, description and keywords.

2. Google-analytics-for-wordpress
   Begin to track the volume of visitors to your site, your visitor’s location, how they arrived at your site and more.

3. Google Site Map generator
   Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site. This generator tool would automatically notify Google each time a page is created on your blog.
   
4. Wp-recentcomments
   Use a section of your blog to display recent comments. I am currently using a plugin by mg12 which has been tailored to my current WordPress theme.
5. Recent-posts-plugin
   Prompt your readers with other related information within your blog.

Have you recently started a blog? Can you remember the plugins you first installed?