This post was written by Jennifer
Organize Your Bookmarks for Blogging Ease
No matter which bookmarks you like to use (I use both del.icio,us and my plain old browser bookmarks), you can save some time blogging, if you set them up in an organized way.
The method that works for one person, may not work for others, but I can share what works for me. I have a bunch of blogs and each gets two bookmark folders - one for basics and one for posts.
Example using one of my blogs, Declutter It:
The first basic bookmark folder is entitled “Declutter It” and has only three links in it; the blog’s homepage, my blog log-in, and the stats page.
My bookmark Blog Posts folder is a main folder and Declutter It is a sub-folder. In that sub-folder I have post folders titled like…
- Declutter - Post Ideas
- Declutter - Product Ideas
- Declutter - Link love (I use this as I find stuff that’s cool, when it’s full, I do a link love post).
- Declutter - Blogs to add (it’s nice to add to your blogroll sometimes).
- Declutter - Visual motivation (an ongoing series I add to).
If I have any promotions, contests, or special features, I add and delete those folders to my post folder as necessary.
All my blogs have their bookmarks set up like this, but personalized to fit the blog. For example, Offbeat Homes has a much bigger folder, because there are tons of home styles, so each type has it’s own folder. This makes it quick for me if I want to blog about glass houses vs. prefab; I just find the glass house post folder and see what I have in there.
Maintaining the bookmarks:
If you like using bookmarks, they won’t do you much good if you don’t keep them updated. Once a week, I go through mine really quick and delete any links I’ve used (and won’t need again) so I don’t waste time clicking on used links all the time. Also, I go through my feeds maybe three times a week, and I add new content links.
Of course I also have a network bookmark folder with all my social network sites in it, and another set up for ads (for personal blogs). In my case, once I got my bookmarks in an easy to search, easy to use format, I was able to speed up posting time, because I’m not always wondering where that one cool link went.
How do you organize all the links you need for your blogging gigs?
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4 Responses to “Organize Your Bookmarks for Blogging Ease”
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I also use del.icio.us, but I’m not as organized as you are. I could probably make use of more specific tags instead of tagging everything I plan to blog about with the same tag.
I spend a remarkable amount of time in Google Reader, so most of my bookmarking consists of adding stars to items I want to come back to later. I really wish Google Reader would let you tag items.
When I find a page that didn’t pop up in an RSS feed that I might want to come back to later, I usually just drag it to my bookmarklet toolbar. That way I have a constant reminder that there’s something I’ve been meaning to get around to. If it’s a useful page it might eventually graduate to my Firefox or del.icio.us bookmarks. If it’s just a news story or item I might want to write a post on, I just delete the bookmarklet when I’m done.
Fern, that’s why I use bookmarks (plain) more; I won’t usually take the time to be so distinctive about delicious. But I will organize bookmarks.
Brad - I tried using my reader as my link holder for a while,(starring/checking stuff and so on), but it didn’t work for me. I have too many feeds, and I could never remember what stuff was. I don’t like Google reader though, maybe it’s easier to use for saving stuff than my reader.
I keep a folder with all of my login links. Then another with sources that I go to regularly. For something I’ll need later, I actually use del.icio.us to save those links. I just tag them and that way I can access them anywhere and add to them with ease.