I’ve recently had a number of clients asking about adding a blog to their site. They have so many questions, many of the same that I’ve had over the past year and a half. So I decided to compile a list of all the resources that I have found immensely helpful…at least those that I can remember and/or have bookmarked with one bookmarking tool or another!

I’m sure I won’t get them all on here…so no offense to anyone. And I will be updating this post with whatever new, awesome things I find as time goes by…feel free to add your sites or things you’ve found helpful in comments

The Basics of Blogging - Intro to Blogging

• Blogging Basics 101- “where there are no stupid questions” a very newbie friendly blog with great tips and information.
• Blogging Help- nother great place to get easy for everyone to understand blogging tips and also a very non-intimidating place to spend some time!
• Blogging Tips- again a wonderful resource for information about all things blogging without a lot of mumbo jumbo that you have to be at least an intermediate blogger to understand!
• Blogging 101- an intro to reading and writing a blog
• About Web Logs- I’m always a sucker for about.com for pretty much everything…their blogging section can be pretty helpful.
• Wordpress Codex Intro to Blogging
• Blogger Forum- helpful community for all blogger levels!
• Performancing- this one could really go in almost all of the categories of my list here…plus, it’s the home of several of my favorite free wordpress themes.
• Daily Blog Tips- exactly what it says with great stuff for new and seasoned bloggers.

A Little More Advanced Blogging AKA So You’ve Got Your Blog and You’re Starting to Get It

• Blogging Dosh-often a great source for tips and suggestions for my blogs.
• Problogger - if you’ve made it past your first days in the blogosphere…you’ve probly already heard of Problogger…one of the holy grails of blogging info.
• Chris Garrett on New Media- fantastic resource for really examining blogging and the whole Web 2.0/New Media thing.
• BloggingPro- a lot of information about all different blogging platforms: updates, news, etc.
• Quick Online Tips- a little bit of everything from blogging platforms, plugins and social networking.
• The Blog Herald-blogging news and tips
• Better Blogging with Michael Martine

Blogging for Business and Marketing

• Better Business Blogging- a great ongoing discussion of what is and isn’t appropriate for business blogs and good old basics of how and what to blog for your business.
• Business Blog Consulting- a how-to blog for business bloggers
• Converstations- business blogs as conversation stations
• Entrepreneur’s Journey- a great blog about blogging and marketing for entrepreneurs and small business owners
• Strategic Business Blogging

Writing Tips, Resources and Inspiration

• Copyblogger- in my opinion, one of the best spots around for finding tips and help for writing any marketing copy
• Thesaurus.com- you can only use the same descriptive adjectives so many times in a post
• The Quotations Page- I find continual inspiration for articles and blog posts from quotes…there are tons of resources to find them…this just happens to be my favorite.
• The Reporter’s Desktop

Keeping Track of Other Blogs/Social Bookmarking Sites-blogging is all about sharing knowledge and networking. There are so many different sites out there that offer ways of keeping track of your favorite blogs, finding other blogs of interest, sharing your favorite blogs and meeting and networking with other people in your industry or area.

• Bloglines
• Blogmarks
• del.icio.us
• Digg
• Furl
• Ma.gnolia
• MyBlogLog
• Netscape
• Netvouz
• Newsvine
• Reddit
• Slashdot
• Spurl
• StumbleUpon
• Technorati

Wordpress (my blogging platform of choice)

• Wordpress.org- it might seem obvious, but I can’t tell you how many times I have spent hours searching for help on some minor little thing only to find that I overlooked it in the Wordpress Codex!
• Lorelle on Wordpress- a must daily read for anyone using Wordpress
• Wordpress FAQ

Free Wordpress Themes

• Wordpress Theme Viewer- the standard place to search through a huge number of themes from many, many different designers.
• Ericulous- great themes including the one we’re currently using!
• Weblog Tools Collection- great source of themes and plugins
• Free Wordpress Themes- lots of them!
• 83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen- nice list from Smashing Magazine
• WP Theme Spot- free clean, elegant themes…I’ve use a few of them.
• ThemePorter- more themes!
• WP Themes & Plugins-themes and plugins
• Headset Options WP Themes- themes
• WP Designer- love these themes
• 981 Wordpress Themes List by Emily Robbin- the ultimate list of themes!
  
• Clazh- great theme designer and ongoing posts of the best of themes from all around.
• Bartleme Design- very sleek wordpress themes
• Wp Skins-lots more themes
• ThemesBase- another big theme repository-they also have themes/skins for a lot of other blogging platforms and content management systems
• Best Wordpress Themes
• Living Open Source WP Themes

Other Popular Blogging Platforms

• Movable Type
  
• Blogger
• Typepad

New Additions Supplied by You

• The Blogging Experiment
• Blog About Your Blog
• 16 Ways To Kill Your Blog Strategy Before You Even Start It

As I said, I am sure that this list is extremely incomplete. But I hope it serves as a good starting point to find information to start your new blog or help your current one!

As an aside, I intentionally decided to try and keep this list to just the very basics of blogging…I think a follow-up list/post is necessary to cover topics such as SEO, marketing and plug-ins.

What resources do you find helpful in your blogging life? Please share!

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