3 Blogger Gadgets Every Blog Should Have

My name is Kim, and I am addicted to blogging gadgets.

On a recent Wednesday, I spent more than two hours researching gadgets for this blog (and I must also admit, for my personal blog, too). Blogger gadgets can be added to your blog sidebar and allow you to add content that will essentially "stay put" – and not move down the page and into the archives like blog posts do.

When you create a new blog in Blogger, the only standard gadgets added to your blog are Followers, Blog Archives and About Me. For me, it just wasn't enough – thus the two-hour research.

Here are my top three favorite gadgets for my blog, along with instructions on how to install them on your own blog.
 
Note: All of my instructions below are for Blogger, so the process for Wordpress will be different. Feel free to comment below with any links to how to add these types of gadgets to your Wordpress blog.
 
1. Labels

Every good blogger knows that you should assign labels (or tags) to each of your posts. It helps with search engine optimization, but it also helps your readers pinpoint specific content. For example, if you visit this blog and only want to access posts related to Facebook, you can click on our "Read By Topic" List (on the left) and just click Facebook to read only those posts. To the reader, it's a super helpful navigation tool.
To add this gadget, To add this gadget, go to your blog dashboard, select Layout, then Page Elements, then "Add a Gadget." In the pop-up window, select Labels. Once the gadget was added, we changed its name to "Read By Topic" – but Labels works fine, too. Don't forget to hit Save.
 
2. Subscription Links

As an avid user of iGoogle, being able to subscribe to RSS feeds is muy importante for me. This gadget allows anyone who visits your blog to subscribe to posts through their RSS reader – iGoogle, GoogleReader, Netvibes, etc.
To add this gadget, follow the same process as you did for Labels, but this time, click on Subscription Links.
 
3. Subscribe Via E-mail

 

Every blogger wants their posts to be read by someone. But for those potential readers who don't necessarily subscribe to RSS feeds, they need a way to stay in touch, too. Enter e-mail subscriptions.
This gadget isn't available through Blogger (yet!), but I used Feedburner to add mine. Here are the step-by-step instructions.

With all gadgets, you can drag them around on your Layout page to put them in a different order. Just always remember to hit Save!

Blogger gadgets – especially the ones provided by Blogger – can add a lot to your blog. You can add polls, current headlines from Google News, lists of websites you like, info boxes and much more. The right ones for you largely depend on the purpose of your blog and your individual needs.

What Blogger gadgets do you use? Are there any you've tried but then deleted?