Blogging ain’t easy. But it doesn’t have to be this hard either.
Over the years, blogging has evolved, and many new platforms and tools have been created. Most of the tools aren’t very useful, but a few are.
Here are the 7 tools that have helped make my blogging journey a bit easier and hopefully yours too:
The tool examines your writing and highlights issues preventing your prose from achieving the bone-clean strength of Hemingway’s. As you make edits, the Readability score instantly lowers (a good thing), spurning you to achieve Papa-like perfection.
If you’re imagining Microsoft Word’s underwhelming grammar checker, don’t. Unlike the obsequious Clippy gesturing towards irrelevant tips, Hemingway Editor is focused and transparent.
It’s dead simple — and fun.
Google Auto Suggest offers amazing insights on what & how users search for different terms. Tools like UberSuggest and KeywordTool automate the gathering of suggestions by appending every letter of the alphabet to a keyword you enter. This saves you a lot of time.
AnswerThePublic takes this one step further.
This tool will suggest questions people would ask on a different topic or keyword that you insert, which you can materialize in new keywords or – why not? – in new content ideas.
BuzzSumo is another tool that I love. It tracks content on all social networking sites and ranks them based on the number of shares on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. It monitors content by topic or user and then uses an advanced search engine to deliver very accurate results.
You can also search for the most shared content based on a URL, making it a great tool to dig up the most shared content by the top influencers in your industry or niche.
You don’t have to use any of the professional graphic design programs (Photoshop?) or hire a professional graphic designer anymore to create stunning graphics for your article.
Canva allows you to create beautiful designs + documents easily. The coolest thing about it is that you can use most of the design elements in Canva for free, but even if you want to use one of their paid elements, it only costs you one dollar.
This blogging tool is critical for bloggers that create a large amount of content or for those who work in teams. Trello is essentially a project management tool focused on improving your workflow.
Something that bloggers aren’t aware of is that you can actually create a blogging editorial calendar in Trello. Here’s a template you can use to get started. Organization is key for bloggers, so Trello is definitely something worth adding to your list of blogging tools.
Picasio helps you create, publish & analyze interactive content such as quizzes and slides that you can embed on your site. Quizzes are great for traffic & lead generation, something every blogger dreams of.
All content created using Picasio is easily customizable and responsive for every device. Using built-in Analytics, you’ll be able to track how your content is performing.
Sign up now to start using Picasio.
Simply Measured has a handful of tools, and my favorite ones are their free tools.
Just put in your social media handle, and they will analyze your brand across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. This will allow you to understand your audience and learn more about them.
Even though blogging can be hard work, with all the tools (listed above + lots of others I haven’t mentioned) .. it doesn’t have to be THAT hard. In this article, I’ve listed the tools that I use personally, and I’ve seen some great results from them.
I’m curious to know what’s on your arsenal? Which tools do you use and why?
Co-Founder & SEO Director
Granit is the Head of Search at Manaferra and the team’s guide to understanding SEO’s complexity and simplicity.
Granit is the Head of Search at Manaferra and the team’s guide to understanding SEO’s complexity and simplicity.
Stay up to date with the latest marketing, sales, and service tips and news.