The 19 best blogging tools to start using immediately
This post contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase I will receive a commission from the sale.
Looking for the best blogging tools to get started with?! This post is for you. From basic blogging tools to complex blogging tools, a great list of blogging resources is a must! In this blog post, I’m giving you 19 of the best blogging tools I know and use.
These blogging tools will help you design beautiful post images. Write better blog posts. And get your blog seen.
This is the third blog post in my three-part blog series on starting a successful blog. Read posts one and two of this series yet? You can find them here:
- Everything you need to know about starting a successful blog
- How to be ready to launch your new WordPress blog
There’s a lot to learn about blogging! It feels overwhelming in the beginning and the terminology seems foreign at first. But, if you hang in there and persevere, it will begin to make sense and click into place for you. In this post I’m sharing all the essential blogging tools I use, that help me design, write, organize and get my blog seen.
This post contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase I will receive a commission from the sale.
Blogging tools and resources
Sharing my must have tools for blogging!
Design Tools
1) Canva
First of all, if you aren’t using Canva yet, let me introduce you to my go-to design platform. It’s my favorite social media and blog image tool. Canva is a free online graphic design program that allows you to create beautiful images, graphics, presentations, and documents. I use Canva daily!
With Canva you can create designs and documents on your desktop and mobile device. The best part is, you don’t need any design experience. They have free templates for social media posts, posters, flyers, presentations, and more. They have tons of amazing resources. You’ll find images, photo filters, fonts, icons, and shapes available to use in your designs.
Feel free to use my Canva referral when you sign up!
Another thing I really love about Canva is that you can schedule your designs to pin directly to Pinterest! This is such a cool feature they’ve added recently and I love using their pin scheduler. I simply use a Pinterest template, create my design and schedule it to post without ever leaving Canva!
I do have a monthly subscription to Canva Pro, which has been more than worth it for me! I use Canva Pro to create all my feature images for my blog, Instagram graphics, stories backgrounds, and Pinterest pins.
But, don’t worry about a subscription at first. There is so much you can do with the free version! However, if you want to unlock additional fonts, icons, illustrations, and images, I’ve found that Canva Pro is totally worth it.
This post contains Tailwind affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase I will receive a commission from the sale.
2) Tailwind
Tailwind is a social media marketing tool that posts to Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. My favorite feature of Tailwind in the pin scheduler for Pinterest. I love Tailwind because I can schedule out 20-30 pins throughout the day. Without having to be on Pinterest all day long.
While I enjoy pinning on Pinterest, I can’t spend my whole day on it! So besides normal pinning on Pinterest and from other blogs, I use Tailwind to spread my pins out.
Tailwind also just launched Tailwind Create. With Tailwind Create you can design beautiful pins and schedule them right from the platform. I’m loving that they added this new feature.
Another key feature of Tailwind are communities. You can join different pinning groups, called communities. You share your pins to the group and pin other’s pins to Pinterest.
This is a great way to get your pins pinned by others. These are reciprocal groups, for every pin you add to a group, you need to share someone else’s pin to Pinterest.
Start scheduling your pins with Tailwind today. Check it out for free and see what it’s all about!
Free Email Marketing Tool
3) ConvertKit
I’m currently using ConvertKit for my email marketing platform. You can get started for free and grow your list to 1,000 subscribers before needing a paid plan. For newbie bloggers, this is a huge plus! It means you can start growing your email list, from the beginning, at no cost. It’s super easy to use and even integrates with WordPress. It’s one of the best free blogging tools for beginners!
ConvertKit provides:
- Landing Pages
- Email sign up forms
- Integrations
- Email Marketing
- Email design
- Automations
- Insights & Analytics
- and more!
I love how user friendly their dashboard is. You can create landing pages, email automations, and sign-up forms for your website. You can also create sales pages and deliver digital products through ConvertKit.
You will hear this advice a million times over: start growing your email list from the very beginning! You own your website and your email list. You don’t own social media platforms. So if you lose the ability to promote your blog on every social media platform out there, you’ll always have your email list.
Hubspot put together an amazing report on email marketing stats for 2020 in this article: The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2020.
Website Analytics Tools
4) Google Analytics
One of the top blogging tools I use is Google Analytics. It’s free and full of insightful information. When it comes to knowing what’s happening on your blog, Google Analytics is key. Google has tons of free tools for bloggers, but I recommend starting with this Google website tool first.
A ton of data is collected on your site traffic and visitors. You’ll get data on where your traffic is coming from; how long your visitors are staying on your site and individual pages; audience demographics such as location, age, and gender; and so much more.
You can generate and customize reports depending on the specific information you are looking for. When I want to dig deep into my website analytics Google Analytics is the perfect tool to use.
To start using Google Analytics you’ll need to go to, analytics.google.com, sign up, and claim your website. Read this article from SemRush for a helpful step-by-step guide to getting Google Analytics set up!
5) BiQ SEO Suite
One of the exciting new blogging tools I discovered is BiQ. BiQ is a search engine optimization suite that helps you find and analyze keywords for your posts and so much more. BiQ’s SEO intelligence tools are amazing.
- Keyword Intelligence: Utilize this tool for keyword research. BiQ provides information on related keywords, content ideas, popular questions about your keyword and trending searches related to your keyword.
- Content Intelligence: My favorite of the intelligence tools, use this component to fully evaluate your post. Content Intelligence will analyze your post content and grade it. It will suggest improvements and related keywords or long-tail keyword paragraph by paragraph. This tool is pure gold!
- Rank Intelligence: Want to know how your individual posts are ranking? Enter your url and rank intelligence will give your your google search ranking. It will let you know if your post is the number 1 result or the 100th result based on keyword searches. For example if you search for “glow stick lantern craft,” I have a post ranking in the number 2 position. This is super valuable information!
- Rank Tracking: Enter your url and set keywords to see how your posts are tracking for that keyword. This is a great way to monitor a keyword over time to see if your ranking is going up or down.
6) Jetpack Plugin for WordPress
This is one of the most important blogging tools that I use on my site. One of my favorite plugins, Jetpack delivers analytics and insights on my blog traffic. I can easily check my site stats to know how many visits my site or a specific post is receiving.
It also shows me where my traffic is coming from so I know if people are finding my site via social media like Pinterest, direct links I’ve shared, or search engines. Jetpack is great for a quick snapshot of my incoming traffic. If I just want to know how many visits I’ve had on a day I can see it right there in my dashboard.
Favorite features of mine include 1) related posts at the bottom of each individual blog post, 2) site accelerator for speeding up image load times, and 3) adding sharing buttons for posts and pages.
Free features of this plugin include brute force protection, downtime and uptime monitoring, CDN (content delivery network) that automatically optimizes your images, site stats and analytics, and auto-publishing your blog posts to your social media.
Writing Tools
Two of the best tools for writing blog posts are the Hemmingway Editor and Grammarly. These tools help with checking word count, readability, the complexity of words and sentences, grade-level and grammar.
7) Hemmingway Editor
Hemmingway Editor is one of my all-time favorite writing tools. You can type your text onto the webpage or paste it in. The editor then evaluates your text. It tells you if you are overusing adverbs, passive voice, and if your sentences are too hard to read. It also tells you your readability grade level and gives you a word count. It is one of the most useful blogging tools I’ve found.
Hemmingway Editor keeps my sentences straightforward and to the point. If my words are too complex it suggests simpler words to use. It also helps me cut down my run-on sentences and cut filler words.
For example this was my text before I edited it with Hemmingway Editor:
8) Grammarly
Grammarly is a free online writing assistant. Simply install the browser extension and it gets to work. It’s powerful AI analyzes as you write and offers smart suggestions to improve your writing. From spelling to punctuation, to the tone of your text, Grammarly is like having your 12th grade English teacher in your back pocket.
Grammarly will help you with more than just spelling. I find that it’s most helpful when it comes to my punctuation. For common grammar questions like when to use hyphens, commas, and apostrophes it’s very useful.
Headline Analyzers
Looking to craft the perfect headline? One that will interest your readers and make them want to click on your blog post? CoSchedule and Share Through both offer awesome headline analyzers. While similar, they each have a unique way of analyzing and scoring headlines. I like them both for different reasons.
9) CoSchedule
When it comes to free blogging tools, CoSchedule’s free headline analyzer is amazing! They analyze your headline based on five categories: 1) word balance, 2) sentiment, 3) headline type, 4) character count, and 5) word count.
They show you the percentage of common, uncommon, emotional and power words in your headline. You can use this Power Words resource to help you write emotional headlines.
After some practice, you’ll discover that you’ll get really good at writing strong headlines.
Share Through’s headline analyzer gives your headline a quality score, engagement score, and impression score. They tell you what your headline strengths are and give you suggestions to make it stronger.
They are big on including context words in your headline. In fact, they created a really cool context words dictionary that you can download from this article on context words.
As you can see below, with each edit to my headline, my scores improved.
When using a headline analyzer, keep in mind that your headline still needs to make sense. You should also avoid clickbait titles. If you can’t deliver the promise you make in your title, don’t make it.
11) Blogabout
Have no idea where to start? Use Impact’s Blog Title Generator to start ideas on posts and titles. Simply plugin your topic and Blogabout will return title ideas. You can also use these titles to spark new blog post ideas! It’s a simple but effective tool. I like to use Blogabout to get the creative juices going.
Organization
12) Asana
Get insanely organized with Asana. Asana is a work management system that tracks project progress with boards, calendars, goals and due dates. Especially helpful in managing team projects by assigning team members specific tasks.
You can create an editorial calendar with projects, tasks and subtasks. Set timelines and due dates to keep yourself on track.
I use Asana to track a blog post from start to finish. Creating tasks such as research, photoshoots, pin image creation, and promotion.
13) Sunsama
Streamline all your task into one easy to use daily planner. With Sunsama you view your todos, calendars, emails, and tasks in a single calm and focused view.
Each day I enter my tasks into Sunsama to intentionally plan my day and tasks. Sunsama is linked to my google calendar streamlining my todos! Whatever I don’t mark off as accomplished in Sunsama automatically rolls over, meaning I never forget a task.
Sunsama was created to remove the overwhelm from all your tools and tasks.
A few of my favorite features:
- Drag and drop tasks to the calendar to plan your focused work sessions
- Integrate all your Google calendars
- Share your workspace and collaborate with colleagues
- Learn how to work with focus and intention and build better work habits
- Daily and weekly planning, including reoccurring tasks
Plan a stress free workday by pulling together your tasks, emails, and calendars in one place. Get started today with their free 14 day trial!
14) Evernote
Evernote is so much more than a note taking platform. In addition to your text you can add images, PDFs, scans, attach documents and even audio to your notes.
You can sync your account across all your devices, which means you always have access to your notes and ideas.
It features super cool tools:
- Web Clipper
- Integrations
- Notes Sync
- PDF & Doc Search
- Search Handwriting
- Document Scanning
- Notebooks & Tags
- Templates
The web clipper has to be my favorite tool. No bookmarking or copy and pasting involved. Just a neat and clean screen capture that grabs everything, including the link and adds it to Evernote for you to refer to whenever you want!
15) A Notebook
Don’t laugh, but one tool I use to keep me organized is a plain spiral notebook. You can take a notebook with you anywhere. I like to be able to write my thoughts and notes down on paper. As I write this post, my notebook, with a list of blogging tools ideas, is next to me.
While I’m writing this post because I want to share a list of helpful blogging tools with you. I also want you to know that blogging doesn’t have to be complicated. If all the tools, tips, and ideas out there are overwhelming you. Take a moment and simplify.
Don’t get me wrong, I love all the fun tools and using them. When it helps me. But, there are days when a notebook and writing a post out on my laptop are all I need.
Social Media Marketing
16) Later
Later is an amazing Instagram Marketing Platform. I use Later to auto-schedule my Instagram posts. The best part is that it’s free! You can only schedule out two weeks of posts on the free plan, but with a business Facebook page, you can set the posts to go out automatically.
Social media can become incredibly time-consuming. Being able to batch schedule my posts can be a huge advantage when I’m short on time.
It also keeps me organized. I can upload images to Later and plan out my feed in advance for a cohesive and put together look.
17) Preview App
Alex and Andrew, the creators of Preview App, are amazing! I love following them on Instagram and reading their blog for all their amazing insight. They are always on top of what’s current and trending on Instagram. They are also incredibly creative and constantly producing amazing content! Beyond loving the app to plan out Instagram content and my feed, I love following them. I’m continually inspired by their posts and how they maintain an engaged community with all the users of the Preview App.
Trending Content
My last two tools are how I research trending content. When brainstorming content and blog post ideas I like to know what people are currently interested in. Google Trends and Pinterest Trends are two perfect websites to find out what people are searching for.
18) Google Trends
Are you ever curious what people are searching for on a larger scale? Google Trends will tell you. You can search a trend or topic, check out latest stories and insights, see the latest trending searches, and view a past year in search.
If you are writing on a specific topic you can search that topic in Google Trends to find out interest in the topic over time, interest by region, related topics and related queries.
Try searching your niche to see what trending and spark new post ideas.
19) Pinterest Trends
I love Pinterest Trends! You can find the top Pinterest trends of the week, what’s trending in popular categories and search for specific keywords. This is especially helpful to see if a keyword is currently trending up or down. Use this information to write SEO rich pin titles and descriptions when creating new pins.
They’ve also created Pinterest Predicts where they share all the topics they predict will be popular in the coming year. Use this information to plan out future content and stay on top of the culture curve.
Bonus: Stock Photography Sites
10 Free Stock Photos Sites
There are tons of free photography sites out there! Don’t get me wrong, I love taking photos and creating my own, unique, images for my blog. But some days you are short on time or need a photo you can’t take yourself. There are tons of amazing sites that give away free stock photos. With so many great free stock photos available your only problem is going to be having too many photos to choose from! In fact, I wrote a whole post on my 10 favorite stock photography sites.
Here’s the list of the 10 best stock photo sites for quick reference:
- UNSPLASH.COM
- PEXELS.COM
- KABOOMPICS.COM
- GRATISOGRAPHY.COM
- STYLEDSTOCK.CO
- PIXABAY.COM
- BURST.COM
- NEGATIVESPACE.CO
- STOCKSNAP.IO
- LIFEOFPICS.COM
And be sure to check the full post out: 10 Stock Photography Site You Will Love.
Thanks for reading about my favorite and most used blogging tools. I know these tools will be great resources for you, because they have been for me. Be sure to pin and save this post for later so that you can refer back to it often.
xoxo Naomi
This post contains affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase I will receive a commission from the sale.
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