“An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or quite complex.” – Wikipedia

I used to think autoresponders were something I didn’t need. You know those automated, “I’ll be out of the office until Monday…” emails you get when someone goes on vacation? Since I hardly ever stop checking my email- even on vacation- I didn’t think I had much use for them.

Since I started blogging professionally, however, I’ve learned just how powerful autoresponders can be. Here’s an example:

A few days before Thanksgiving, we released our very first (free) Stylish Shopping Guide at our shopping blog Something Stylish. Featuring hot deals and tips for maximizing your dollar during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday craziness, we generated a lot of buzz among our visitors. The emails poured in, and each email signup required us to reply with details on how to download the guide for free. Now, because we had an autoresponder, we were able to do the following automatically:

• Send an immediate response to each person, thanking them by name, and providing details on where and how to download the guide.
• Add them to our mailing list, so they immediately receive alerts when our future shopping guides become available, and
• Be able to see who clicked on what on the emails we sent out.

What struck me about all this was how automatic and immediate everything was- and all thanks to our autoresponder.

But how can a blogger make use of autoresponders? AWeber, the autoresponder we use (and love!) features a tool to send out “blog broadcasts”:

You can send out the most recent- or the last 5 or 10, whatever- post on your blog, and prettify it with HTML, AND track who’s clicking through and when. AWeber will do this automatically from your RSS feed. And, of course, you’ll be building a mailing list of your own. Our Build a Better Blog newsletter (scroll down to subscribe!) is powered by AWeber, and we couldn’t be happier.

No, autoresponders aren’t the sexiest of blog tools- but they’ve made my life so much easier.

Open up your footer.php file, and just before the closing </body> at the bottom of the file, make sure you have:

<?php wp_footer(); ?>

This happened to me- I must have deleted that bit of code because it looked redundant to me, but apparently it’s used by various plugins to insert PHP codes after everything else on your page.

And if you’re wondering whether you should install the WordPress Blog Stats plug-in, do. Even though I use Google Analytics, I love being able to check my stats from within my WordPress control panel.

You’ll see the results after voting- and, while I wasn’t too surprised to see WordPress (.org – referring to the script you self-host) leading the pack, I was a little surprised at how far behind all the others were. The poll is still ongoing, so there will no doubt be changes to the results, but as I write this:

WordPress.org is at 113.
Movable Type is at 9.
Blogger is at 40.
Wordpress.com is at 45.
TypePad is at 16.
LiveJournal is at 3.

As someone who’s used all of the above platforms at one time or another, I honestly expected more from the non-Wordpress platforms. Movable Type, which I only recently stopped using, is excellent and imho much better than Blogger.

Then again, I did stop using Movable Type recently. Why? Because WordPress is easier to use. Installation is a breeze. Widgets have made adding and removing things from your sidebar ridiculously simple. And if I ever run into any problems, there’s a very good chance that someone has experienced and solved the same thing. At the end of the day, it’s about what gives me more productivity as a blogger.

Download WordPress 2.3 now.

If you’re a beginning blogger trying to decide which platform choose- even if you’ve been blogging for some time- this is worth a look. Well-written and concise, the article is useful for those asking “which is right for me?” rather than “which is better?”:

The purpose is to contrast, rather than to predict a winner. But the firms are certainly competitors. For example, individuals looking for free hosted blogging may well consider both Vox and WordPress.com, as well as Blogger.

Read the entire post at Read/Write Web.