Blogging has reached a high level of competitiveness. Irrespective of whether you manage a blog as a hobby or professionally, your blog will be successful only if you take the extra initiative. It is not so easy these days to gain followers and attention. With such a variety of choices, people have begun to expect more from the average blog.

The following is a list of gadgets and tools that will help you develop your blog and help you to personally interact with your audience:

1. Google Translate My Page: A handy application for non-English speaking visitors to translate the information into their own language. It keeps your blog open for a world-wide audience.

2. Digg 2.0: The Digg community is a news-orientated group that any blogger interested in information flow should join. Your Digg gadget can be customized to keep you abreast of the latest and popular topics. Moreover, you can share your thoughts with others.

3. Countdown: A number display that counts down to a specific day, when a blog event, contest or user occasion will take place. Anything worth remembering can be marked on the countdown so visitors will not forget.

4. Slim RSS Reader: A custom RSS feed is displayed on your blog for you to enter the RSS feed, title along with the number of items. You can view feeds from your favorite blogs, news sites and more in your sidebar. Multiple feeds can be added with a Custom RSS.

5. Byline: It is one of the best RSS readers in the market, designed with a comprehensive interface and good headline display style, it can track a lot of information the blogger may be interested in, not to mention it is very fast in showing cached content.

6. YouTube Gadget: Visitors appreciate blogs that feature YouTube videos. This gadget shows the top YouTube videos on your site for visitors to enjoy or you can share videos with your followers on your site.

7. Photo of the Minute: Download great photos from Flickr and then, optimize the size for your site. There are many gadgets that will continuously showcase a collection of creative visual art on your web page be it graffiti or captions.

8. Google talk: One of the best methods to interact with your visitors. Functions in a way similar to a regular gtalk, but allows the blogger and visitors to chat with each other.

9. Google Calendar: Special events can be marked on a Google calendar and made available to the public. It is a good way to get readers involved with your blog’s events and celebrate together.

10. Date & Time: It might be helpful to visitors to be able to see the date and time on your site. There are also options for customization.

Other apps capable of improving a blogger’s organizational skills and giving him greater control over the blog are:

PingDom: The app will notify the blogger when the blog experiences technical difficulties or suddenly shuts down. It is very unfortunate when a blog breaks down as it leads to loss of subscribers and readers. An app to make sure the blog is working smoothly is very useful.

Evernote: A lot of bloggers constantly have to think of ways to keep people interested in their blog. If inspiration strikes while you have no access to your computer, you can write small notes, upload pictures or make an audio note, and save them for a future blog posts with Evernote app. The app functions like human memory to save pertinent data in an organized manner.

DropBox: It is an online storage unit for all your photos, documents, files and videos. Once saved, the date can be accessed from any-place with an internet connection. New files uploaded are synced to the Dropbox account making them accessible even though your phone. Bloggers constantly travelling will love this app as it gives them the ability to alter their blogs and carry important information with them.

ShoZu:The app offers a strong connection to social networking sites, enabling you to heavily promote your blog from one location. You are able to keep a track of and update your presence on many different networking sites in a reduced amount of time and in an orderly fashion.

Numerous apps are available to make the upkeep and development of your blog easier. You can concentrate your focus on the more important aspect of blogging, thinking of interesting and appealing content to amass a large following and earn respect.

About the author: Amanda Kidd is a gadget freak and a blogger by profession. She is all into spy gadgets and mobile games and she dreams of owning a learning robot in the near future. These days her interest has grown into tattoo designs.