5 Firefox Plugins for Bloggers


Here's a quick list of five plugins that are great for bloggers.

  1. Search Status: I started using Search Status on the urging of Everton from Connected Internet. The plugin, essentially the Firefox equivalent of the Alexa Toolbar, gives you a look at your page (and everyone elses) Google pagerank and Alexa rank quickly and easily. Search Status also gives you a look at some of the more subtle SEO related aspects of each site. Since installing it my Alexa Rank has gone from around 420k to 360k - I've also seen my traffic nearly double.
  2. AdSense Notifier: If you're a Google AdSense addict this ad-on is absolutely essential. Once installed and configured you get a small entry on your status bar that can display up-to-date info from your AdSense account. Mine currently shares my current Pageviews, Clicks, eCPM, CTR, and Revenue for the day.
  3. HTML Validator: The HTML Validator is mostly for anyone doing theme design. The ad-on gives you a sense of how "valid" your site is which is essential. Having a site that is designed cleanly makes it easier for spiders and bots to crawl your content. Keeping an eye on how well your site validates is a good way to keep manage this
  4. Stumble Upon: Bloggers make the mistake of thinking that Digg is the king of driving visitors to your site. The problem, though, is that there are plenty of folks on digg who bury things for no really good reason. StumbleUpon is a bit more forgiving of some posts and can drive traffic in a very powerful way. Using the StumbleUpon plugin you can drive traffic to your blog and also locate items you'd like to post about.
  5. Del.icio.us: The Del.icio.us ad-on I use doesn't have many bells and whistles. Its beauty is its simplicity. After installing the plugin you get two buttons, one sends you to your Del.icio.us bookmarks while the other basically acts as a Del.icio.us bookmarklet. I use Del.icio.us for two things - I use it to bookmark items I for my "hotlinking" posts and to keep track of posts I want to write about later. If you're trying to promote your site this can also be a great tool.


10 Responses to “5 Firefox Plugins for Bloggers”

  1. April 12th, 2007 at 1:47 am

    Are you certain that the increase in your Alexa rank led to more traffic and not the other way around?

    - Everton
  2. April 12th, 2007 at 2:58 am

    Numbers 1,2, and 4 seem interesting. I think I’ll try them out and see what happens.

    - Brown Baron
  3. April 12th, 2007 at 8:55 am

    @Everton
    I’m beginning to think it might be a two way street. From what I’ve seen it’s mostly my older content that’s performing well and this is mostly the result of referrals from Google. The thing is, I haven’t made any SEO related adjustments that should be bumping my older content.

    I know that Alexa rank is based on traffic, but I can’t help but wonder if my increased rank might also be helping me get more traffic somehow.

    I guess either way more traffic is more traffic. Brown Baron, if you see a hike in traffic and in ranking drop us a line and let us know. Be sure to check out Everton’s post (linked above) and share your experience with Search Status and any boosts to your Alexa rank.

    - WildBil
  4. April 12th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    Very nice list.

    Personally, the majority of my traffic comes from StumbleUpon, and I manage to kill way more hours in the day using it than I wish ;)

    - George
  5. April 13th, 2007 at 7:14 am

    I feel that Stumble upon can give you lot traffic!

    - Nirmal
  6. April 20th, 2007 at 1:43 pm

    Well I noticed that my Alexa rank of 900K dropped to 527K so that’s good news.

    - Brown Baron
  7. April 20th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    My Alexa ranks has also dropped an additional 120k since writing this post.

    Have you noticed an increase in traffic as well? Or has your traffic stayed about the same?

    - WildBil
  8. April 21st, 2007 at 2:38 am

    Traffic seems to have gone up slightly. I think the search status plugin and the widget have helped.

    - Brown Baron
  9. April 30th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    My Alexa rank was around 2.5mill when i first put the widget on my blog, although that was soon after starting the blog on my site.

    Since then, I’ve also started using the Search Status plugin as well. I don’t to what extent these two things have helped, but my rank is now 586k after around 1 to 1.5 months.

    - Zath
  10. May 28th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

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