If you are already blogging, chances are that you’re writing your posts by firing up your web browser, logging into your blog’s website and writing your posts directly into your Blogger, Wordpress, or Typepad. Did you know that you can manage your blog postings directly from your computer without logging into the website? They’re called “desktop blogging” software and you can use these programs to write new blog posts, edit old ones, and to even schedule future blog posts.

Smashing Magazine has just posted a review of 15 desktop blogging tools. You can read the full review here.

Since I’m a Mac person, the software I use to manage my blogs is Ecto. I’ve been using it for a couple years, so I easily got my $18 worth. I just love the fact that I can manage all of my blogs in one place. I even use Ecto to store unfinished posts or ideas for new posts. If you blog a lot or if you have more than one blog, you should consider checking out one of these tools.

If you already have a blog or you’re thinking about starting one, there are some legal issues that you may want to be aware of, especially as it pertains to copyright…both protecting yours and not infringing on someone else’s.

The Daily Blog Tips blog, has a great post called 10 Essential Legal Points for Bloggers, that gives you a brief overview on what legal points bloggers should be aware of.

I also have a previous blog post about copyright law as it pertains to bloggers and blogging, so if you’ve missed that post be sure to check that out as well.

And speaking of blogs, I’ll be talking a bit about blogs along with my friendly SEO expert Colin Martin, tonight on my first ever teleseminar. Blogs are a great way to bring traffic to a static website or online store, so Colin will be talking all about how that works tonight at 8 p.m. You can find out more about the teleseminar here.

During this weekend, while I’ve been experimenting with Twitter I’ve also renewed my interest in Jott because it turns out that you can send tweets through Jott as well. Now, I wrote a blog post about this a long time ago about this service. Basically, it’s a voicemail transcription service where you simply dial in to the Jott network, speak your message, and then the service transcribes it for you and sends it to your email.

But in addition to being a great reminder service and a way to send messages to Twitter, Jott also makes a pretty great blogging tool as well. Here’s how:

For some reason, I often get ideas for blog posts in my car. And when these ideas hit me, I get my cell phone and call up Jott and use it to record my idea while I’m driving. In many cases, I’m finding myself practically dictating the entire blog post. And by the time I get home, I have my blog post in my email box ready to tweak and flesh out. The cool thing is that because I can talk a whole lot faster than I can write, I can create posts even faster than if I was sitting at a computer. And you can do this anywhere as long as you have a cell phone and good reception. During a recent trip to the grocery store I actually managed to create two or three blog posts while I was traveling and shopping.

Jott also works with both Blogger and Wordpress, so if you want to skip the email box and post your message directly on your blog, you simply link your Jott account to your blog account. Then you can Jott your message to your blog.

Now, if you’re going to use Jott for blogging, here are a couple of tips:

1. Speak slowly- You need to remember to speak slowly and distinctly so that the people transcribing your message will be able to understand what you’re saying. The transcription service on Jott is very good but it’s not perfect. So be especially careful if you’re posting your message directly to your blog. And you may want to check your message on your blog once you get near a computer.

2. Make sure your cell reception is good- You also want to make sure that you have a nice clear cell phone reception. Again that will also help the people transcribing your message to transcribe it accurately.

3. Create a series of Jotts for long posts- Remember that Jott records messages for up to about 30 seconds. If you have a long blog post you probably have to dictate it through a series of Jotts instead of one long message. So you may want restrict posting directly to your blog for short messages and then email long blog posts to your email box.

So, if you don’t have a Jott account, you can sign up for a free one here and get Jotting and blogging! (and send me a tweet too!)

P.S.- I dictated this blog post using Jott

Are you having trouble keeping up with your blogging while you’re on the road?  Then something like a service like jott.com can help you keep up with your blogging while you’re on the road. I’ll discuss how you can do this in a later post. listen

Powered by Jott

If you’ve started your art or craft blog on a blogging service and you’re switching either to another service or you’re switching your blog to your own website…don’t erase your old blog!

If it’s possible to keep your old blog active, consider keeping it available after you’ve switched over to your new service. Why? Because if you’ve had your old blog for any length of time, it’s likely that your blog posts are already indexed in search engines. Plus, it’s also possible that someone has either bookmarked or linked to your blog posts. If you delete your blog…all of those links and search engine results will just go poof, and visitors to the old blog won’t know where to find you…which is something you don’t want.

Instead, write a note on your old blog that redirects people to your new blog…so that way when people stumble onto your old posts, they can find your new posts. An added bonus is that your old blog counts as nice external link to your new blog, which can help you in search engine results.