Everyone loves content rich articles. No one likes to read boring text. Adding images, videos, links to ones articles greatly impacts an article quality. Good quality articles not only result in happy readers but also increased SEO relevance.
However, sometimes adding content can become a daunting task. One needs to find images on google, and then add it to the article. A similar demanding activity for the relevant videos and links makes people skip some of them as its time consuming and seems wasteful. But Using Zemanta one can get it in one click.
Image via CrunchBase
Zemanta is basically a content suggestion service which integrates very well with common blogging platforms like Wordpress, Tumblr, Blogger, Posterous, Typepad etc. Moreover its available as a plugin for all the major browsers. You can check the download page on Zemanta for all the plugins.
Using Zemanta is pretty straight forward. For Tumblr just create a new post (http://www.tumblr.com/new/text) and zemanta loads up as as sidebar automatically. However, it does not seems to load up when creating a new post within a particular blog in tumblr. For Such cases the Zemanta Bookmarklet under zemanta.com/download might come in handy.
Image via Wikipedia
Main Features of Zemanta are:-
* In-Text Links - Zemanta automatically finds text which can point to external websites and shows recommendations for each of these words.
* Media Gallery - This shows media recommendations based on context. Adding these images is as simple as clicking on them. You can also search for a particular term in media gallery.
* Related Articles - This basically shows articles with similar context.
Apart from these features Zemanta also lets you customize to add other recommendations under My Sources which supports recommending your own blog posts, or your favourite blog posts, Flickr photos, Amazon Affiliate ID.
Note: All links, images used in this article were inserted using zemanta.
FeedBurner is the widely used RSS feed manager. RSS feed is a very important aspect of a blog as it allows readers to not only choose how they wish to read but also allows them to receive any updates immediately. Setting Up of RSS feed using FeedBurner is easy. Just follow the following steps:-
1) Sign In using your gmail account and go to FeedBurner.
Enter your blog rss feed url. This should be typically <yourwebsite>/rss. You can verify this url by looking for a link ‘RSS’ on your website. Click on Next.
Enter suitable Feed Title and Feed Address. Remember this Feed Address as it will be required ata later point. My Feed Address would be - http://feeds.feedburner.com/TechStreak. Click on Next.
Click on Next till the process completes, choosing along your preferences.
Now, go to http://www.tumblr.com/blog/<your_blog> and click on Settings on right panel. Scroll down to RSS Feeds on Settings Page.
Check ‘Redirect this blog’s RSS to a FeedBurner URL’ and Enter the Feed Address which we just created above. Example - http://feeds.feedburner.com/TechStreak. Save and you are done.
Well, Tumblr does not gives you an all-in-one package blog. If you need some website analytics for your blog you will need to setup this on your own. Apparently setting up Google Analytics on tumblr is very easy and can be done in 2 simple steps :-
1) Create a Google Analytics account using your Gmail ID.
Choose an Account name, enter your website address. For Example, http://techstreak.tumblr.com.
After registration you will get a Tracking ID. Copy this ID and click on the bottom Save link.
2) Now, go to your blog customization page and look for ‘Google Analytics ID’ field. Simply copy paste the Tracking ID here and Save. That’s it you are done.
You should be able to see traffic stats under Real-Time(BETA) in google analytics home.
In case you are using old version of google analytics, go here.
Tumblr strangely does not have any commenting functionality built into its blogging platform which is kind of a basic requirement for any blogging platform. Thankfully, we can get across this problem using DISQUS in 3 simple steps :-
1) Register your tumblr site at Disqus.com.
Enter your blog information and choose a shortname. For Example, I choose techstreak for techstreak.tumblr.com. Enter your primary disqus account information (This you have to do only once. To register other blogs you can use the same primary account.)
2) Choose appropriate settings and continue.
Select tumblr on install page.
Follow the instructions on this page. Open the blog customization page. If you are using the theme supported by disqus, you just need to use the shortname (in my case techstreak) you registered with. However if your theme does not show disqus option like mine, you will need to follow Manual Instructions.
3) Click on Edit HTML on customization page of your blog.
Copy the first snippet and insert it into correct location. For Example, I inserted the script after {/block:Posts}.
Do the same for other snippet, which I inserted before {/block:Posts}.
And it’s done. Congratulations!!
Tip: You might wanna enable people to comment using their facebook, google IDs by modifying general settings in your Disqus account.
