Most Useful Blog Widgets for your blog

Dress up your blog's sidebar with the following widgets. I've found these most useful and have used them in more than one occasion. Depending on the way your blog is set up and your widget needs for it, I've tried to summarize into categories what would work best.

Stat counters

eWebcounter - I've used this counter ever since I've set up my blog. I like their service because the control panel is pretty simple, no other complicated steps for setting it up and it lets me see what posts are becoming more popular and from which countries my readers come from. You can also view their IP addresses. If you want your visits not counted in the stat summary, you can track your IP address and include it in the exclusion list.

Sitemeter - this counter is used by most bloggers I know. Sitemeter functions in the same way as eWebcounter. You can set-up how often you receive your site's statistics via email. It also lists down unique visits, the IP addresses and location of your readers.

Whos.amung.us - this widgets tracks down the number of users currently online in your site. It also keeps a record of the history of visits in a chart so that you can see your blog's popularity and readership.

Chatting with your Readers

Yahoo Messenger Pingbox - You can access your pingbox page thru your Yahoo messenger menu. This feature is available on the Yahoo Messenger 9.0. Just click on the My Pingbox menu option and you'll be taken to a page directing you how to create one. As long as you're online on YM and you're status is set to available, your readers will see that you're online via the widget as well. You can customize the look of the widget available through the settings panel.

Meebo Me - This one is also very efficient although you need a meebo account. Create your widget first then log in to your meebo account. You can also set status updates through this widget.

Microblogging/Status Updates

Twitter - You can add your real-time tweets so that your readers can see what you're up to at the moment that they visit your site. You can also have the option of putting a "follow me" button for your twitter account.

Plurk - fast becoming as popular as twitter, you can also broadcast your timeline updates here. Your readers will be able to see your plurks and the number of responses. The plurk widget has an immediate follow me function so there's no need for a separate button.

Media Box

Flickr Badge - If you are a photo enthusiast and if you want to show off photos from your Flickr account, then you can get this widget. There are several looks of the widgets you can choose from. You can choose to show static images or with the required flash plug-in, the badge can show a slideshow animation of your photos.

Recent Readers/Visitor Widget

My BlogLog - If you're a member of the My BlogLog community, just access the widget panel through your blog settings. The avatar pictures of your recent visitors who are also members of the My BlogLog community will immediately show up on this widget. This is useful because you'll be able to visit the blogs of your readers and have the option to build your network

Blog Catalog - another community based widget. This requires registration to Blog Catalog in order to get the widget. Again, same with the principle of My BlogLog, you'll be able to see who visited your site as long they're also registered.

Polls/ Reader Interaction

Skribit - If you want to engage some feedback from your readers about the next topics you should write about, get this widget. They can immediately suggest topics through the widget without the need for a signup.

Vizu - Although this requires a registration first before you can create polls, they have a pretty good looking blog widget. Creating a poll is very easy, just follow the steps indicated in the website and copy the generated code in your blog. Your poll will also be submitted to the site's database and made available to the members.

Ratings/ Ranking

Google Page Rank – this shows your blog/site’s current page rank rating. For some people this is very important, especially those doing paid posts. I’m linking this to the pagerank checker site, so that you can also see if your page rank is valid or not. This site also gives additional information on whether your site is being indexed by major search engines.

Alexa Rating – this is pretty useful when you’re tracking your Alexa stats on the web.