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When it comes to Chrome extensions, there’s such a wide variety of choice out there that it can seem overwhelming which to install.
Rest assured, I’ve done the dirty work of trying many of them.
Because bloggers have such as prominent presence and exponential growth in digital population, I figured it would be useful to offer 3 more extension options to power bloggers.
You can check out my other chrome extension review for bloggers as well.
So, below are three of the best Chrome extensions for bloggers to use, to speed things up, to make things easier and generally make your browsing more awesome.
Passle
Of particular use to those running a business blog, Passle makes it incredibly easy to share relevant content on your blog, including your own commentary or text. Quite simply, this is the extension for bloggers that post really often and like to ride the wave that interesting videos, articles or whatever are generating on the web. We all suffer from writer’s block (especially bloggers) and it’s never nice knowing you need to get content out there when your mind is running a blank.
With Passle, you’ll soon find yourself posting much more often and enjoying it, too.
It’s as simple as installing the Passle service to Chrome and then just hitting that button when you see something you like. So, let’s say you’re a music blog and a new YouTube video of a live show appears. This is something that you’re likely to cover and so you just hit the Passle button, highlight some relevant text and write your own commentary.
It’s as simple as that to create a blog post out of something that’s relevant to your audience and your blog.
Let’s check out a quick example.
Before installing Passle, we’ll want to head over to Passle.net and create a free account. After that, simply enter your blog name or a list name.
Then install the chrome extension.
After installing the extension, we’ll notice this orange icon in our browser toolbar:
Next, start surfing the web for content – or just naturally resume your browsing workflow.
Let’s say we land on a popular ars technica post about the recent Hobbit movie:
Simply click on the icon and this box shows up.
Select which list you want to add the article to, such as “Blog ideas” and enter a title, description, and any additional text.
This is an especially powerful tool for collaborators/teams.
Let’s say we’re doing a lengthy research piece on a popular health topic.
We can highlight text first, then click the icon, and our highlighted text will automatically import to the description section:
In this example, we’re looking at an excerpt from the nature section on 12 Keys Rehab which has a really nice complimentary image. Simply click “add to Passle” and we’ll navigate to our Passle dashboard:
This is just one excerpt.
Imagine if there were three of us, and we all found five excerpts. This would only take us each a few minutes and we’d already have a plethora of information.
Additionally, we can comment on each excerpt, make particular selections “tweet-able” and invite others to edit or contribute.
You can get Passle here.
Awesome Screenshot
Let’s face it, as a blogger there’s a good chance that you’re reporting on both things happening online and that are happening quickly. If that’s the case for your particular blog, then you’ve probably had that sinking feeling on being unable to find an image for your post.
Now I’m a big fan of Lightshot which is one of the most popular screenshot extensions but I figured it was worth reviewing this one for two reasons:
- It’s “Awesome” (apparently)
- The editing and annotating features are more advanced, and we can upload to their domain for a shareable link
With Awesome Screenshot, you can take a screenshot of any webpage, annote and edit it, and download it in multiple photo formats.
For those who aren’t that entirely well versed in code, including an image of a tweet, comment, or video snapshot is a favorable alternative to hardcoding it.
Let’s do a quick walkthrough of how we might use it practically as freelance bloggers:
Simply install the extensions and locate the icon in your toolbar:
Alright let’s say we’re looking for a high quality feature image for a piece we’re writing called, “Blogging from Bed.”
I found an awesome image for this piece on Country Lane Furniture, and this is what the page looks like:
I zoomed in on the picture and clicked on the Awesome Screenshot icon.
This gives us three action choices:
- Capture Visible Part of Page
- Capture Selected Area
- Capture Entire Page
We’re going with “selected area” which lets us specific the dimensions:
These annotations options let us add text, lines, and shapes in different colors. We also have a few other cool editing options.
When we’re satisfied just click Done:
Now we have six options to save this image, either locally or online; the choice is yours!
All in all I think this extension has lived up to its “awesome” standard. I would like to see a screenshot extension with more editing features such as filters, word art, and resizing options (prior to download) but that’s just wishful thinking.
You can get Awesome Screenshot here.
Archive Poster
Tumblr is one of the most popular blogging services, although I’m not very active on it, I still recognize it shouldn’t be underestimated – especially if you’re looking for something to bring in a lot of readers/viewers from social media.
Essentially, Archive Poster lets you reblog posts from another site’s archive. It’s a pretty handy tool, as you can queue up numerous posts to make sure your Tumblr blog is active at all times. Tumblr is all about sharing content as well so, this makes a lot of sense. Reblogging content that’s relevant to your brand/company or even for personal use is made much easier with this nifty Chrome extension.
Simply install the extension and navigate to your “archive” section on Tumblr and the following dashboard appears:
For those with a set workflow, you can keep content surging so that you’re Tumblr blog is ready and waiting for you when you find the time again. As for business use, it can be a great way to keep content relevant to your brand or page going with little to no user intervention.
A content-rich archive may look something like this:
You can get Archive Poster here.
We are influencers and brand affiliates. This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.
Written by Jesse Aaron. Jesse is a professional blogger with a passion for homebrewing. He writes on a variety of topics on his blog Mashbout