If you are serious about blogging, there are a lot of tools and applications out there which tend to make your life easier as a blogger. I am going to talk about some of those tools which are available as extensions for Google Chrome and are a must have for you as a blogger (or, some of them even useful to every internet user!)
Google Chrome is a great browser and my personal favourite as it is light and fast. Offering a minimalist design and sleek interface, it is undoubtedly the best choice of many bloggers.
To further enhance your Google Chrome experience, there are a lot of add-ons available in the name of Google Chrome extensions which you can easily install from the Google Chrome Web Store and are free to use. Simply check your category of interest in the left hand section and you will have a list of all available apps in that category.
If you check out the section of extensions page for bloggers, you will notice that there are hundreds of them being offered that can help you with many of the everyday tasks you do while working on your blog. Before we move on to this list, do check out the below Google Chrome Extensions which are of a great use.
- Google Chrome Extension to warn you before closing multiple tabs
- Google Chrome Extension to watch Full Screen YouTube videos on Facebook
- Empower your email signatures with WiseStamp Extension for Chrome
Must Have Google Chrome Extensions for Bloggers
#1. Awesome Screenshot
Awesome screenshot is an awesome tool for you as a blogger as it allows you to capture the whole page or any portion, annotate it with markings like rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text, blur sensitive info without any hassles.
Awesome Screenshot is more like what SnagIt (many of the bloggers would already know about this tool) does as a desktop application. An added advantage is that Awesome Screenshot is absolutely free while you have to buy a licenced version for SnagIt.
This great chrome extension also has the feature to save the screen grabs to your local machine, and upload it to awesomescreenshot.com and get a shareable link in one click. [Link]
#2. TinEye Reverse Image Search
If you want to find out where an image came from, how it’s used, or find higher resolution versions, TinEye is the Google Chrome extension you will need. When you add an image to the TinEye search, it uses its image identification technology to create a unique and compact digital signature or ‘fingerprint’ for that image and retrieves the matching images in the search results.
TinEye is the first image search engine which does not make the use of  without the use of keywords, metadata or watermarks. [Link]
#3. Diigo Web Highlighter
This is another must have app for the bloggers out there as Diigo allows you to annotate, bookmark and archive webpages. Using the highlight feature, you can simply select any text on a webpage and then right click on that to highlight it with the colour of your choice. Bookmarks feature allows you to bookmark webpages to read later.
The feature I liked the most in Diigo is, you can add sticky-notes to webpages which is really cool. All your webpage bookmarks, post-it notes and highlights are saved in your MyDiigo account which you can refer any time and you can access them from anywhere via iPhone, iPad and Android. [Link]
#4. RSS Feed Reader
As a blogger, you need to stay updated on the latest happening in your niche and also, the latest techniques and tips the leaders in the industry have to offer. Having a desktop client for reading feeds of these leading blogs is a great idea but nothing matches having a light, simple and a pretty app in the form of a browser addon – RSS Feed Reader which is inspired by Firefox’s Live Bookmarks.
RSS Feed Reader chrome add-on provides you some great features like ability to easily subscribe to new feeds by clicking the browser icon, intuitively manage your feeds, customize your feeds by choosing how many posts to display, or changing the title, organize your feeds using folders and sorting with drag and drop.
As everything is contained within the browser, you do not need to install any third-party applications. [Link]
#5. SEO Status Pagerank/Alexa Toolbar
This is a simple and light weight extension which shows the Google PageRank and Alexa rank for every website visited, right on the button itself. It provides real time information as it gathers the information directly from Google and Alexa, and does not rely on any third party site. Using this will also increase the Alexa rank for your blog / website. [Link]
Using this extension, you no longer have to go to the alexa website and the Google PageRank checker website to check your sites’ rankings.
So, this is a list of some of the useful chrome extensions which I use quite a lot to make things easier for me when I am blogging, and hope that these prove helpful for you as well.
Which one of these do you already use? Also, do let us know the Chrome extensions which make your life easy as a blogger.
Awesome Screenshot is excellent and I used to use it before I upgraded to Windows 7 where the Snipping Tool is better since it can clip anything on screen, not just in Web Browser. Still you have to combine Snipping Tool with Paint.Net (both freeware) to get the same functionality that Awesome Screenshot can do.
Yes, it is great, but there are some limitations which I see as compared to SnagIt, but then being a free tool, Awesome screenshot is a good replacement 🙂
You forgot to mention google screen capture. its the awesome tool with great features.
Hi Naveen,
Thanks for the suggestion – google screen capture is also good but as I had already covered one screen capture extension, Awesome screenshot was the one which made it to the list 🙂
Nice Collection.Really useful for bloggers like me.
Hi Mohan,
This sure is a great list of apps which I personally use almost everyday – glad you liked it 🙂