Get Smart Blogging with Zemanta

December 5, 2008 by Bridget Ayers 

image

There are numerous components involved in writing a good blog post. You start with good content that includes internal links and strategic keywords, top it with an audience grabbing title and then finish it off with an engaging yet easy to follow structure. Once you have done all that then you move in to SEO, syndication, pinging, feeds, and so and so forth. There are so many components in fact, that sometimes it can seem a bit overwhelming.

So when tools come along that make the blog writing process not only easier but possibly even enjoyable it is worth sharing.

Today we are going to talk about a tool that helps you get a few of those important components into your blogs without taking all day to do it.

Zemanta is blog tool that works with your chosen blog platform, browser and/or blog writing software to automate searching and inserting images, internal links, tags, and text into your posts.

Images are selected from Wikimedia Commons, Flickr and various stock photo providers. Selection is based on contextual comparison of your text and the image’s title, description and articles they were used in originally.

Zemanta suggests related articles from their index of 3000 top media sources and the blogs of their users.

Internal smart links point to Wikipedia information

A reblog button appears at the bottom of your blog so readers can easily and properly reblog your content

Reblog allows your readers to quickly republish parts of your blog posts on their blogs, while at the same time giving you proper attribution with a backlink.

Blogging platforms that Zemanta supports

Zemanta also has an addon for FireFox, a plugin for Internet Explorer, and a version for Microsoft Live Writer, that supports a number of other platforms through XML-RPC. Users have reported to successfully use it with Vox, and SquareSpace.

Keeping it all together

First you write your blog content, then you publish it on your blog, and finally you share it with your friends. There are plenty of addons, plugins, scripts, and feeds that help you syndicate and share your blog but it is always nice when you can combine those steps with one tool.

My Friends and Flickr integration

You can connect you Zemanta account with your FaceBook, MyBlogLog and Twitter account. They aggregate your contacts and later recommend links to their profiles and avatar pictures, when you mention your friends names in your blog post.

Feed Reader

You can upload an OPML file from your feed reader and get recommendations from sources you are regularly reading or that you trust the most.

Now the fun part, the rating…..with all these bells and whistles, the constant upgrades, and new releases I have to give this one 5 out of 5 Smart Gals.

Smll Smart Gal Smll Smart Gal Smll Smart Gal Smll Smart Gal Smll Smart Gal

I would love to hear what you think…..

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

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  2. Get Smart Twitter Tools
  3. It is a TinyURL World
  4. Finding Photos On the Internet
  5. Doing Business On Facebook
Filed Under: Blogging
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Comments

  • I will be checking this out tomorrow. This sounds cool!

    <abbr>Donna´s last blog post..The 10 Best ... or Worst Christmas Song Parodies</abbr>
  • Hi Bridget.

    Great post, thanks for sharing this with us. I'll try it out on my own blog.

    That tool sure can help me cut down the time needed for researching for my articles!

    On another note, may I suggest that you change the color for the words in bold and in "h" tags?

    That light blue makes me think that these words were links, since blue is the commonly used color for links. It's quite annoying/frustrating. I eventually figured it out, but to a new reader, this could be a big turn off!

    <abbr>Mathieu´s last blog post..Quad-core system: Ready to be overclocked!</abbr>
  • Sounds cool never heard of it but will try it out. My blog definitely could use some sprucing up... and some good ideas lol.

    <abbr>sogeshirts´s last blog post..Twitter glossary updated</abbr>
  • thank you
    god bless you
  • This sounds great. I'm in the process of going to the self-hosted Wordpress blog. I am going to check this out...Thanks!
  • Wow, 5 Smart Gals, we're honored :)

    I just wanted to mention that Zemanta supports many more different links - Amazon, IMDB, Blogs and homepages, Google Maps, YouTube, Facebook/Twitter/MyBlogLog, Yahoo Finance, ITIS, NCBI, RottenTomatoes and MusicBrainz. So you have a wide selection of pages to link to :)

    Other neat feature is that you can also set your Amazon affiliate ID and get some help in monetizing your blog.

    If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to help - jure@zemanta.com

    Jure Cuhalev, Zemanta

    <abbr>Jure Cuhalev´s last blog post..Upgrading this blog to Wordpress 2.7</abbr>
  • This works really well, and i'm surprised it didn't even need an additional wordpress plugin for my blog. Thanks for mentioning about it!

    <abbr>Kin´s last blog post..Cool NES DIY lunchbox: A little something for our younger readers…</abbr>
  • Red
    i love your article - lots of good tips for me thanks!
  • @Jure - I love the idea of having help improving my blog posts. I am fairly new to blogging and do not truely blog for the same reasons as alot of others. I am a real estate niche blogger of sorts and do not make my money on affiliate advertising or ads on my sites. My goals are to provide the very best and most informative content on my subjects in the hopes of encouraging some to contact me and use my services as a real estate agent.

    With that said I guess my questions are how do I use Zemanta to reach this goal and in making use of Zemanta how do I assure that I do not bleed all of my traffic away defeating the purpose of my blogging? in addition to these questions I would love it if someone could fill me in on how long it takes to set up and learn how to use Zemanta?

    <abbr>James Wheelock´s last blog post..Atascocita Meadows</abbr>
  • Zemanta is certainly a nice blog tool to have as writing and posting even a short article can really be a very tedious task. I love to put pictures together with my posts and so zemanta can task away a huge chunk of work load from me in that case.

    <abbr>Ernesto´s last blog post..Foreign Exchange Trading - Lucrative Business to Engage in</abbr>
  • I read your article a few weeks ago and decided to give Zemanta a try. I thought I'd use the pictures more, but the ones offered don't often have the right feel to them. But I like being able to offer readers more information from other sources so easily and conveniently. Thanks for the alert!

    <abbr>Wren´s last blog post..This Just In...California to Pay Debts with Monopoly Money</abbr>
  • I installed it and LOVE it! It brings up some very random photos, but it's easy to refine the search. Not so for the related articles, but it's still an amazing program. Thank you so much for blogging about it - it's the first time I've heard of it!

    Sincerely,
    Connie

    <abbr>Connie´s last blog post..FREEBIE: Smart Blogging with Zemanta</abbr>
  • Blogging has really changed the net that is for sure, I remember when I started it was much more difficult to post content to the web. However blogs have really changed that, and affiliate systems in general.

    Thanks for the solid tips on creating good blog content.

    Brian

    <abbr>Brian J´s last blog post..Just Who Are You Buying From?</abbr>
  • Congratulation for cramming so much great information into a single post. Thank you for sharing. And yes, blogging is certainly not what it used to be.
  • I just tried out the demo. It was cool & great for bloggers who add tons of posts. It wasn't for me but I certainly enjoyed trying it out . I prefer more control over my links. I like the reblog feature though.

    <abbr>Robin´s last blog post..Attention Writers (and aspiring writers)! Very Limited Time Opportunity</abbr>
  • I'm thinking about getting a self-hosted Wordpress. Will consider using this!

    <abbr>Kai Lo´s last blog post..One Post Per Page</abbr>
  • I like some of the features. Not to thrilled with the smart links back to Wikipedia. Robin and I are of the same opinion. If there is a way to use only part of the features, that would be great.

    <abbr>Charles´s last blog post..Las Vegas Housing Market: Foreclosures Down, Sales Up</abbr>
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