To be honest, I was very late to the Dropbox bandwagon. I really didn’t see a need for it at first. That mindset quickly changed the moment I clicked install. All I can say is that Dropbox is awesome for bloggers!
If you are not familiar with Dropbox, watch their video for detailed explanation. They are, in simple terms, a cloud storage service provider. Best part about it is that it’s completely FREE! Who doesn’t like free?
So why is Dropbox awesome for bloggers?
Access files from any computer or device
If you are like me, great ideas come up randomly and sometimes you just need to write. Many times that means writing an article on my smartphone (as I lay in bed writing this article). Instead of emailing the word files to yourself, you can simply save it to your Dropbox folder from your device and access those same files from your home computer or notebook.
This also works beautifully with videos and photos taken from your device. If you attend a cool event or see a nifty product that you want to write about, just quickly take some videos or photos and upload to your Dropbox folder. You can then access those files later without the need of connecting your device to your computer with messy cables. A Dropbox app is available on both iOS and android devices as well, which makes uploading files a cinch.
Backup WordPress to Dropbox
If you operate a WordPress website, you know how important it is to backup your files routinely. You better have an updated WordPress backup in the event of a server crash, a hacker attack, or if you are just editing files and screw things up. Having a backup of your site will allow you to quickly restore your website in any one of those moments.
To make things super easy for you, WordPress has plugins that automatically backup your website files and AND saves them to your Dropbox account. The plugins allow you to set your own automatic backup schedule. You can choose a daily, weekly, or monthly backup schedule depending on what fits your needs. Just set it and forget it. This definitely will give you the peace of mind that you will always have the most up to date backup files of your WordPress site and that you can access those files from anywhere with Dropbox.
Refer friends for additional free storage
I mentioned earlier that Dropbox provides their service for free (there are paid PRO versions as well). They give you a starting cloud storage capacity of 2GB but with the opportunity to earn additional free storage. You can actually earn up to 16GB of additional storage without paying a single cent! You can earn a few MB of storage by connecting your Dropbox account to Facebook, Twitter, or just by giving them feedback about their service.
The best way to earn additional storage is by referring a friend to Dropbox (or referring your blog readers). They simply give you a custom link with your referral code and anytime someone signs up with Dropbox (both free and paid) with your link, you earn 500MB of extra space. Not only that, the person who signed up with your link also gets that additional 500MB of free storage. It’s an incredible win win situation. Here is my referral link for example.
My referral link for free Dropbox service and additional 500MB of storage.
So those are just a few reasons why I feel Dropbox is awesome for bloggers. There are, in fact, many more reasons why Dropbox is awesome but that would make this article way to long. I guarantee that you will love using their service and I really cant think of anything negative to say about them.
What are you waiting for? Try them out!