Blogging is not the same as it was years ago. There is so much competition in every niche imaginable. For making your blog to stand out of the crowd you have to prepare yourself with all the latest tools and technology. Creating a blog is one thing but to manage it effectively is very much different.
When i started my first blog 3 years back, the situation was very much different than the present one. I never used SEO that time and still i was ranking for many of the keywords. But now as so many people are struggling to rank there keywords its hard to find keywords with less competition. The only way you can survive here is to keep a balance between blogging and how to blogging.
In this post i will be telling about some tools which every blogger should know about. They are not the only one but i have seen most of the bloggers using this including me. You are probably working very hard but not getting results in return, reason can be the "Smart Work". Using these blogging tools you can work smartly without wasting much of your energy.
So lets get started with our list of Blogging Tools:
1. WordPress
Yes the first tool in this list is WordPress. You would be thinking that there are so many Blogging Platforms then why I have written on WordPress. I am not the only one and more than 25% of blogs are running on WordPress and the number is still increasing.
If you are just thinking of starting your blog or you are fed up with your present blogging platform then choose WordPress. I also started with Blogger and yes it is great platform for newbies. But as you will start to grow you will face problems about the blog. My problem was a responsive blog, i had changed many themes on Blogger but no on suited me so I changed the platform itself.
If you are too on blogger then you should read my article on why to move from Blogger to WordPress. I have explained the facts for the migration and reasons there.
2. Notepad
Notepad, a simple and easy Notepad. I am not writing this article for promoting any premium products but the blogging tools for Bloggers like me. Blogging journey is like a roller coaster ride, Sometimes you are at the top and sometimes at the bottom. There are times when you have so much ideas that you can write tens of articles. Sometimes you can't even get one.
Nothing to worry about it as its very usual. Just open the Notepad and write down your ideas when there is a flow of them. Use these ideas when you don't have enough of them. Even while preparing for an article you can write down simple points so that you will not forget even a single important point.
I have also installed a Notepad app on my mobile so i can write the ideas whenever they strike. There are so much of apps available on the Application market. Install a simple and basic one and start writing your ideas.
3. Quora
If you are not familiar with it let me tell you that it is an Question and Answer platform. Yes it can help you in your blogging journey. I use Quora for the following main purposes:
- Getting Ideas for my Blog Posts
- Gaining some knowledge.
- To get answers of my own questions
- To get some targeted traffic.
There are so much of people using Quora for getting there answers and you can use those questions to frame out your next article. I use it often when i am facing "Lack of ideas Syndrome". You can also use Quora to get traffic to your blog. Just try to answer people and give a link back to your blog or website. Curious people will find it amazing and will get to your blog.
Main thing you have to understand that the platform is not for spamming. If you can truly provide value to the users then only you should use it. Spamming anywhere will not give you any good results.
4. Pixabay
Images are the building blocks for your website. Using images can help you in many ways. It is a fact that visual content is more easy to understand and remembered than textual content. But you can not just copy any image on the internet and use it on the blog.
There are several copyrights guarding the content of individuals on the Internet. Pixabay is one of the best platform for getting Stock free images which do not even need an attribution. You can use the Images provided on Pixabay even for you commercial use.
Note: Read the complete terms of use and guidelines written on Pixabay before using the images. They offer the images for free to use but still there are some guidelines to follow.
5. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the free tool provided by the web giant Google. The tool is very powerful on its own and many of the Bloggers have realized of its powers. It can help you in Search Engine Optimization without charging you a penny.
You can check your site structure, site analytic, Backlinks, Broken Links, Crawling errors and much more. It can be your best Search Engine Optimization tool ever. It also shows the keywords which you are ranking for and how much times your website has appeared in Search results on which position.
The data can be analyzed and used to plan out your Search Engine strategies to rank your website. The only thing you should know is to use it to its full extent.
6. Microsoft PowerPoint
There are many uses of Microsoft PowerPoint in Blogging. It one of the best blogging tools which can do multiple works for you. I use PowerPoint for these works:
- Creating Presentations for SlideShare
- Creating Title Images for Present Slide Blog Posts
- Editing Images
- Creating Images for Present Slide Facebook Page
PowerPoint is not only used for presentations but high quality images can also be created with it. Although it can not compete with Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw but it is much easier to create images with PowerPoint.
You do not have to deal with lots of tools and editing for creating Images. With the use of shapes awesome looking figures and graphics can be made easily.
7. Google Analytics
Checking your blog's stats can help you with getting more positive results. You should monitor your traffic which will let you focus on the best and worst parts of your blog.
Google Analytics is a free tool which can help you monitor your website and the behaviour of your readers on it. You can check the source from where you are getting high traffic and also handle the on who is giving you low traffic. You can then work on your blog to get more out of it.
There are so much of stats blogging tools available for monitoring blogs and websites but i prefer Jetpack plugin and Google Analytics.
8. Pingdom Blogging Tools
A blog's uptime and loading speed matters a lot in SEO. A fast loading website has more chances to get high ranking than a slow loading website. You uptime too determines the overall scoring of your website for Search Engine ranking.
There are many blogging tools to determine website speed but i prefer Pingdom Website Speed Test tool as it is free and easy tool to check loading speed of your blog. It also tells you the reasons for your website to load slow which you can rectify to make it faster. You can check your blog's loading speed from 5 locations around the world.
This is a very essential tool for bloggers and will help you in your blogging journey.
9. HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator
Even if you have found ideas for your blog posts, its not easy to shape them into an trending topic. HubSpot's Blog Topic Generator can get your ideas a shape and that too a trending one. It is a tool which can be used to create awesome topics for writing your blog posts.
Just enter some keywords from your ideas and it will come up with interesting and researched topics you can use to write your article. Although the algorithm is not perfect but the topics it will generate are worth trying.
10. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
Your blog post's headline is the first thing which attracts the visitors to read your whole post. If your headline is not attractive then no one will try to open your blog post. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer will analyze your headline and will return a score according to the quality of your headline.
It checks your headline on various standards and will give your headline a score. You can use this tool to create awesome headlines which will get you more visitors. I use the tool many times to get my headlines corrected. It is a free tool to use and check your headlines.
These were some of the Blogging Tools i would recommend to every blogger. As already told that these are not the only blogging tools and you can use them according to your need.
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