In the first part of this mini article series, which highlights excellent resources for online publishers, we looked at forums and social media sites. In this second part, we take it one step further and recommend some of the most useful blogs and websites out there which will educate you with information which is relevant for publishers.

Also included here are five excellent places for finding jobs online, and five tools which will help you analyze the performance of your website with the intention of improving it in order to take one more step towards success!

Blogs / Websites

What is a blog these days? Well that is really just a matter of personal definition, but in this article we are listing ten frequently updated websites which all excel in their fields. These blogs and websites should be in every publisher’s feed reader, simply because they provide you with excellent information that will help you gain attention, earn a reputation, respect and of course money, and the best part is that they do it for free!

21. Daily Blog Tips

If you identify yourself as a blogger, then this blog is most likely in your feedreader already. Daily Blog Tips is an excellent resource for everything blogging, and the straight-to-the-point articles provided generally serve as great suggestions on how you can improve your blog and ultimately become more successful in publishing your content.

22. Copyblogger

For everyone involved with any type of writing, this one truly is a must read. Filled with glowing examples on how to be a better writer, following this blog and picking up on the advice given should pay dividents in the long run.

23. A List Apart

They brand themselves as a magazine for people who make websites, and that is exactly what they are. All the most important aspects, such as design, coding and writing are covered in excellent manner.

24. Search Engine Journal

Everyone involved in online publishing is, or at least should be aware of the benefits of search engine marketing. Search Engine Journal keeps a sharp eye on things surrounding this topic.

25. Dosh Dosh

Overlooking the funny japanese cartoon figures, this is one of the top five blogs on making money online hands down. If you are not already reading it, you need to start doing it as soon as possible!

26. Performancing

Group blog written and maintained by several professional bloggers and publishers. You will find many useful tips on how to better your chances of being successful online here.

27. Quick Sprout

I was not quite sure about which one of Neil Patel’s blogs I should include on this list, Pronet Advertising or Quick Sprout. I ended up with the latter however, as it with help you with something most online publishers struggle with, namely strengthening your own personal brand. Although Neil does not post too often here, it is certainly worth reading when he does!

28. 43 Folders

My favourite blog for everything “life hacking”, and that is certainly something all of us involved in online work need a certain dose of every now and then, am I right?

29. Web Worker Daily

This website covers most all of the topics that concern those of us who spend some, or all of our time working online. Well worth a good read!

30. ProBlogger

What list would be complete without the oh-so-famous ProBlogger? Fact is though, this site is so much more than just blogging. Just breeze through some of the most popular articles, and you will find that there is a lot to be learned about all the various aspects of online publishing from pro blogger Darren Rowse!

Jobs

While the dream for all of us who are working online is to create our own successful business, sometimes it is smart to supplement your earnings with a little something on the side. Here you will find five places to where you can start your hunt for jobs.

31. Freelance Switch Job Boards

These job boards are special in the way that instead of charging advertisers for placing jobs, they charge those looking for jobs for the details needed to apply for a job. Regardless of this, they are a good place to find jobs in the field of blogging and writing.

32. 43 Folders Job Boards

Good place to find jobs related to the various forms of web development.

33. GigaOm Job Boards

The jobs here seem to revolve mainly around engineering and various management and development positions.

34. ProBlogger Job Boards

If you are looking for jobs as a blogger, this is without a doubt one of the best places to start.

35. Freelance Writing Jobs

Not a job board like the other four, but still worth keeping tabs on. Several times a week Deborah does a great job in aggregating available freelancing writing jobs from a multitude of sources and posting them up for all of us to consider at her blog!

Tools

Utilizing some tools of the trade will help make your life easier as an online publisher. These tools aim to help you analyze your own websites in order to spot your strengths and weaknesses.

36. SEO Book Rank Tool

This little gem of a tool will help you see what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong by seeing which of your articles rank well in search engines and which don’t.

37. SEOmoz Page Strength Analyzer

Another SEO tool, this one will give your site a grade based on several different metrics. Although the metrics used are often criticized for being inaccurate and easy to manipulate, all of them combined will give you a fair indication of how your website is currently doing in terms of traffic and visibility.

38. dnScoop Site Valuation

Although less scientific and mostly for novelty, this tool will assign a value to your website by calculating various factors such as Alexa ranking, PageRank and inbound links. Lars-Christian.com is worth a little over $1,000 – any takers? Just kidding, as I said though, this is mostly for novelty.

39. Google Analytics Stats Tracker

This on the other hand, is as scientific as they come. The tracker of choice for many publishers out there, mostly because it provides an amazing amount of detail around your visitors and their behaviour when they access your website.

40. Overture Keyword Selector Tool

Perhaps the most useful of all the tools, this one will let you discover what people are actually searching for, and which keywords you should highlight in your articles in order to try and gain good search engine rankings for things people are actually searching for. Keyword research is really an art on its own, but it is something every online publisher should be familiar with, and it will be covered in-depth in the future here at this very blog.

And that concludes this little series highlighting some of the most useful resources for online publishers out there. If you are missing anything, feel free to leave a comment with your own suggestions. I have already gotten some feedback about resources not included in the list, and if I get a few more I might even do a third bonus part!

Many new publishers out there struggle with finding quality resources that will help them in their journey towards fame and recognition. Honestly there is nothing mystifying about this, because it is easy to suffer from information overload online, simply because the sheer magnitude of disposable resources at your hand can be quite overwhelming.

In order to help all of the up and coming publishers with this conundrum, I have compiled a list of 40 valuable resources that will help you in your quest. For practical reasons the list has been divided into two parts, and today I am posting the first. This one focuses on websites where you can socialize and network, and at the same time find invaluable information.

Forums

Actively participating in forums is an excellent way to expand your horizons and discover new angles for practically everything. The good ones are also filled with knowledge, and just a simple search away from you. This is why we start our list of resources with 10 excellent forums that can help you become a more successful publisher!

1. SitePoint Forums

The SitePoint Forums are one of the oldest and most recognized forums for online publishers. With over 200,000 members who all share a passion for online publishing and money making, it’s one of the largest collectives of knowledge about our field. Although their marketplace isn’t free to use, it’s well worth noting, because it serves as the place to buy and sell high end blogs and websites.

2. Digital Point Forums

Another one of the largest forums around when it comes to all things publishing. It really has all the things you need, including specific sections dedicated to marketing, business, coding, design and everything in between. One great advantage over the SitePoint Forums is that the marketplace at the Digital Point Forums is completely free to use for all registered and contributing members.

3. Webmaster World

Similar to both the SitePoint Forums and the Digital Point Forums in that you can discuss all the different aspects of online publishing such as design and coding, promotion and so forth. It is smaller in size compared to the former two, but still more than large enough to be considered a valuable source of information for most things that concern online publishers.

4. DNForum

Absolutely a must-visit for anything concerning domain names. If you are looking for a suitable domain name for your new venture, just throw out a few pointers, and you will be overwhelmed with the amount of affordable offers of suitable domains you’ll find. Also a great place to sell websites, and I have personally sold several grand-scale websites through DNForum.

5. Web Hosting Talk

We all need a place to host the information we are sharing, right? Not only is Web Hosting Talk the place to go to when it comes to everything that has to do with web hosting, but it is also a great place to find business partners, advertising opportunities and much more.

6. 9rules Notes

9rules is, well, to be honest even after being there for a year I’m not completely sure what it is. What I do know however is that it is, apart from an experience in design and creativity, a gathering place for an exceptionally large amount of successful bloggers and publishers who knows their trade. And such, even though their Notes section isn’t strictly dedicated to relevant discussions, it is still an excellent place to learn and make new, valuable connections.

7. Bloggeries Blog Forum

I don’t have any personal experience with this forum, but it seems to be one of the largest forums dedicated solely to the art of blogging. Although the colour scheme might not ooze of professionality, any forum that focuses strictly on blogging and manages to gather almost 600 active members should be well worth visiting.

8. WickedFire

Forum focusing on marketing and search engine optimization. It has been given a somewhat tarnished reputation due to endorsing various black-hat methods of promotion, but overall its a valuable resource, especially for marketing ideas that do not necessarily fit into the famous box.

9. Personal Development for Smart People Forums

Being an independant publisher online often means struggling to do as much as possible with a very limited amount of time. Apart from the short and catchy name, this forum which was started by the famous Steve Pavlina, will give you all the pointers you need on how to become a more effective and less procrastinating publisher.

10. Authority Blogger Forum

The second forum on our list dedicated specifically to blogging, and also the smallest. It was started by professional blogger Chris Garret. Regardless of the fact that it is still in its infancy, it has already become a considerable source of information regarding blogging, and a great place to connect with fellow publishers.

Social Media

We all know by now that the best way to market your your content is through social media marketing. Everybody already know about the big sites such as Digg and Reddit, but these days there is a social media sharing sites for practically all the popular niches out there. That is why this list includes ten of the lesser know, niche specific social media sites out there. Have fun promoting your and getting targeted traffic from these!

11. Ballhype (sports)

If you typically write about sports such as golf, hockey, basketball or football, Ballhype is where you want to go in order to promote your stories. The site has been quite successful too, so it is safe to safe that you can expect a fair share of traffic if your stories gain momentum here.

12. ShowHype (entertainment)

From the creators of Ballhype I present to you ShowHype (not sure why they are inconsistent with their capitalization of letters), already a somewhat popular social media site with a focus on entertainment.

13. Sphinn (internet marketing)

One of my favourite social media sites, simply because of the sheer quality of the articles that are successful. If you are interested in internet marketing, this is most certainly a place to be. If you manage to get an article you have written to the front page, you will see quite a bit of quality traffic, as it is something I have been fortunate enough to experience myself.

14. AutoSpies (cars)

If you have a habit of writing about cars, this is the place to focus your social media marketing. The site seems to have an active and passionate audience, and such you will be receiving high-quality, targeted traffic if you succeed here.

15. Hugg (environment)

Environmentalists rejoice, because Hugg is here to save the day! It is dedicated specifically towards stories that focus on the environment, and they have managed to gather quite a crowd already.

16. Sk*rt (lifestyle)

Not only beautifully designed, but also quite popular. Sk*rt has a main focus on lifestyle, which can be practically anything these days. Take a look around, and see if your articles would fit in with the stories that are currently popular here.

17. DNHour (domain names)

The people at this social media outlet are concerned about one thing and one thing only, domain names. If you have a habit of writing stories on the subject of domains, this would be a good place to promote them.

18. Pixel Groovy (design / tutorials)

At Pixel Groovy the users decide which graphics tutorials make the cut and which don’t. Just like it should be at a social media site. This is certainly a nice place to promote your work if you frequently write design and graphics tutorials.

19. N4G (video games)

N4G (News for Gamers) is a social media site with a focus on news articles related to video games. Just as all things video games, it has a significant audience, and such it is a nice place for all the aspiring Matt Casamassimas of the internet to promote their stories.

20. Blogging Zoom (blogging)

Although brand new, Blogging Zoom has already established themselves with a core audience. The main focus here seems to be articles that are interesting for bloggers. The best part? Bloggers are encouraged to submit their own stories!

The second part of the article with the last 20 excellent resources for publishers will focus on valuable blogs, tools and places other miscellaneous goodies. To make sure you do not miss it, you should consider subscribing to the Lars-Christian.com RSS Feed!