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This mega list of 160+ of the best tools for bloggers. Is a massive compilation of all the useful tools, resources, facts, guides and tips that bloggers will love. Especially if you are brand new to blogging!
It isn’t the usual best tools for bloggers list though. But actually a massive workflow of all the different stages of blogging. With each section broken down and the best resources for each stage given to you. Because just dropping a massive list on you without any context just didn’t seem like much help.
You can easily follow this guide from start to finish and it will make sense, even if you are new.
If you’ve been blogging for a while though. Then it is just as easy to jump around to the sections you are most interested in by using the table of contents just below.
This post is just so jam-packed full of important information from experts all over the web. That you are bound to find some interesting reads and hidden gems stashed away in here.
So keep on reading to get to the good stuff!
- Before You Start A Blog
- Picking A Niche For Your New Blog
- The Blogging Niche Trap That Kills Blogs Before They Even Start
- The Best Tools For Bloggers To Learn How To Start A Blog
- WordPress Themes
- The Best Tools For Bloggers & Resources To Learn WordPress
- Legal Blogging Requirements
- Best Tools For Bloggers For Blog Security
- Blog & Website Speed
- Create Your Essential Pages – Contact + About
- Best Tools For Bloggers To Generate Blog Post Ideas
- The Best Tools For Bloggers To Optimize Their SEO
- Best Blogging Tools For Writing Blog Posts
- Blog Visuals & Images
- Email Marketing Tools & Resources For Bloggers
- Best Blogging Tools & Resources To Help You Get More Blog Traffic
- The Best Tools For Bloggers Social Media Marketing
- The Best Blogger Tools To Help You Make Money Blogging
- The Best Tools For Bloggers To Organize & For Time Management
- Troubleshooting & Support Tools For Bloggers
Before You Start A Blog
Is Blogging Right For You?
If you are considering starting a blog. Then have you considered some of the many reasons why you should start a blog first? Because it is critical that you know exactly what you getting into and that blogging isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
As whilst other places might give you the idea that:
- Blogging is easy
- Anyone can do it
- You can blog about anything and still make money
- Blogging is only about writing
Then you might be surprised by this list of 14 reasons why you should start a blog and 15 reasons why you should NOT. As starting and running a successful blog in 2022 is more complicated than it seems.
Don’t get me wrong though. Earning a full-time income with blogging is possible and there are many ways you can still make money blogging even now. But you also need a healthy dose of perspective.
As a professional blogger, what it takes to blog full-time is not all smooth sailing and easy. Many things simply won’t click until later when you have that light-bulb popping over your head moment.
Blogging Income Potential
And in all honesty, many of those blogging income reports you’ll see floating around can massively skew your perspective. They have their benefits, as you can see more behind the scenes and what is working for them.
But most income reports leave out key information and might not be entirely accurate…
Like many of those blogging income reports that manage to make money within the first few months are often from bloggers who are on their second blog. So they were able to skip the massive learning curve you have to go through as a new blogger.
Or in other cases, it is simply because of their blog niche and topics. Because some niches are more popular and easier to monetize than others. That’s just a fact.
So keep in mind, that blog income reports are super specific to that blogger, their niche and their website. And I much as I hate to say it, realistically if this is your first blog don’t be surprised if you make hardly any money blogging during your first year.
Why am I telling you this? It’s not to put you off, but to give you the full picture. So you can get started the right way with a realistic mindset.
Weigh the positives of blogging for you against the reasons you should not start a blog. Because blogging is not as easy as some will make out, quick success within a few months is not the norm. And it will take hard work, patience and time.
If you still think blogging is what you want to do, after weighing the pros and cons. Then great!
Picking A Niche For Your New Blog
What you should do next is pick a niche for your blog!
Basically, this means you need to decide what you would like to blog about. What topics are you interested in writing about? Maybe you already have an idea! Or perhaps you are not sure and are looking for some ideas?
If you need ideas then here some of the best tools for bloggers to help you find one, including:
- Blog niches that make the most money in 2022
- 8 blogging niches that drive traffic and make money
- 100+ blog niche ideas
The Blogging Niche Trap That Kills Blogs Before They Even Start
There’s one common trap that you need to avoid with picking a niche for your blog.
You might have heard the idea that ‘you should blog about something you are passionate about’ and that ‘you can blog about anything’.
Whilst these are both technically true. There’s one key point missing here – not all blog niches are profitable and can make money blogging to replace your full-time income.
So, when deciding your blog niche. Look for niches that are proven to make money blogging first. Then consider if it is something you can be passionate about or stick to.
Let’s consider it a different way…
If you pick a topic you are highly passionate about but isn’t profitable. Will you still be motivated to blog about it in 12-months when you are still not seeing any money trickle in? Or do you think you would have quit by then?
What if you pick a niche for your blog that you aren’t as passionate about, but after around 12-months you are making a steady full-time income from it?
I’d bet seeing the money starting to come in will keep you way more motivated to keep going. Compared to seeing nothing but tumbleweeds.
The lesson? Make sure your blogging niche can make money before you 100% commit to it.
The second thing I want to point out when deciding your niche is that some blog niches will be harder than others to make money from. Every though they are clearly profitable.
The best example of this is blogging about blogging. It is obvious you can make money in this niche BUT what is not obvious is just how competitive it is to get in. (It is ridiculously hard.)
Blogging about blogging should not be your first blog niche. You can still do it if you want to. But you need to realize you are making things way more harder on yourself. Rather than stacking the odds in your favour to succeed.
The Best Tools For Bloggers To Learn How To Start A Blog
So, if you’ve picked your blog niche. To get started with creating your blog you’ll need to come up with a name.
You can use the blogging tool Namechk to check whether you blog name is available to use as a domain (your blog’s URL) and for social media usernames.
You’ll also need some essential blogging tools and resources before you can start creating and customizing your blog. Like hosting and your chosen domain name. Which should be based on the blog name you come up with.
This guide on how to start a profitable blog on WordPress is where you should start. Because it will walk you through:
- Things to consider when choosing your blog hosting
- Key features between the popular platforms SiteGround + Bluehost
- Step-by-step how to go through the web hosting sign up process
- How to get WordPress installed
- + Where to find the WordPress dashboard to start editing your blog
After you’ve completed the above guide. Get yourself set up with this WordPress coming soon plugin. As you can have a temporary page up in minutes, whilst you build your blog in the background. This way no one can see your work in progress while you get started.
Another important point is to check what are permalinks and how to use them. Because they will affect the URL links for your blog and impact on your ability to get traffic from Google search (Search Engine Optimization / SEO).
So you absolutely must sort this out now. As it will only be more difficult to change it down the line. If you get it wrong. So don’t delay!
One of the best tools for bloggers when just setting up your blog for the first time. Is a compiled a list of 53 Mistakes to avoid when you start a WordPress blog. As all of these can have significant consequences on the success of your blog.
So check it out and keep a reference for later. Because it is well worth reviewing your blog periodically to make sure you are not making any of these mistakes.
Finally, if you are looking for blogging courses to help you learn more in-depth, then these 39 free blogging courses will help you get started with the basics even on a tight budget.
Or if there is a specific paid blogging course you want to take. Try keeping an eye out for it in the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit when it goes on sale. As it’s usually packed with lots of top premium courses for one super-low deal.
WordPress Themes
With the bare basics setup, it’s time to get a design for your blog. On WordPress, these are called themes. They are a quick and easy way to get a beautiful website layout. Without spending any time coding yourself.
But before you jump in and pick a theme. You should consider the key differences between free and premium WordPress themes.
Here’s some of my favourite places to start finding themes:
It is worth noting that the Restored 316 and StudioPress themes require the Genesis Framework.
Whilst this is an additional cost, there are benefits as well. Including Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As themes that require the Genesis Framework are well-coded and always compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
You can read more here about why the Genesis Framework is perfect for bloggers.
But if you are wanting to start a blog on a tight budget. Then the Astra Theme is the best go-to option because whilst it is a premium theme. There is a free version of it too.
Since it is technically a premium theme with some advanced features removed for the free version. It bypasses many of the issues free themes usually have. Like being low quality, bloated and slow.
In fact, you’ll actually find that Astra is one of the fastest themes out there when setup right.
Now, if you go and install the Astra Theme it will likely look bland on it’s own. But that’s where the Astra Starter Sites plugin comes in to setup your blog using one of their pre-made professional designs. There are lots of options to choose from, including free options too.
Best of all if you grab a Gutenberg blocks build theme, you’ll have complete control of the customization within WordPress itself. Without the need for extra expensive page builders like Elementor or Divi. That could cause you trouble down the road if you ever want to switch themes.
If after all this, you still find yourself stuck on what to choose. Because there are just so many WordPress themes to choose from. Then you can get some theme suggestions by taking this quick quiz by Restored316 and getting some personalized suggestions!
The Best Tools For Bloggers & Resources To Learn WordPress
Let’s be honest, you’re going to be spending tons of time using the WordPress platform for your blog. But there is just so much to learn that it can be daunting when first starting out. So, what can you do?
Well, I’d focus on these best tools for bloggers and resources that cover the critical things about WordPress you should know to use the platform confidently:
- WordPress Mistakes Audit
- WordPress FAQ
- WordPress.com vs .org
- WordPress Dashboard
- Permalinks
- Widgets
- Blog Menus & Navigation
- Categories + Tags
- Plugins
- WordPress Themes
- Using the Gutenberg Editor to write blog posts
- How to create Links in WordPress
- Updating WordPress
- How to setup your WordPress FTP
Legal Blogging Requirements
This step is boring, but vital. Do not skip this!
If you checked the 53 mistakes to avoid when you start a WordPress blog. Then you might have noticed that there were several legal mistakes mentioned. Including ignoring the legal requirements altogether.
When I first started blogging, I was shocked by all the legal stuff that was just assumed I would know about. But as a brand new blogger, I knew nothing. And likely if you are new you won’t know anything about it either.
The trouble is that trying to figure out the legal requirements on your own without a lawyer is a big mine-field.
Especially, with things being more complex now since new rules developed under the GDPR and more recently CCPA. (These are specific sets of legal rules). That give you even more considerations to think about as a blogger.
Like did you know you need to cover things such as:
- Disclaimer / Disclosures page
- Privacy Policy that’s GDPR + CCPA compliant
- Terms & Conditions
- Cookie Policy + Consent message
- + More depending on your blog
I am not a lawyer so I won’t pretend I have all the answers for you in terms of blogging legally. Instead here are some best tools for bloggers and resources to help you get things right legally for your blog:
- Free Legally Blogs course
- Legal Templates for bloggers from an actual lawyer
Also, when you’ve browsed to other websites you definitely should have come across a cookie consent prompt. Including the one included here at the bottom of the page when you first visited.
If you are wondering how to create one yourself. As you need to get consent from visitors to put cookies on their computer. Then check out these best cookie consent plugins for WordPress.
You could also consider using the Jetpack plugin for this. As it also has a cookies and consent banner which is easy to implement. Plus as a bonus, there are 42 Jetpack modules. Which makes this plugin useful for a range of other tasks too. Including things like building a contact form or a WordPress carousel slider gallery.
Just be mindful that the Jetpack plugin does tend to slow down your blog. Going for dedicated faster plugins is always going to be better in the long run. But Jetpack can be a quick fix if you are looking to get setup as fast as possible.
Best Tools For Bloggers For Blog Security
Next up, is another boring topic. Stay with me, because I promise it is important too!
In fact, it is just as vital as the legal requirements for your blog. As you’ll want to protect all the hard work you’ve put into it, right? Especially since you’ll be making a lot of changes to your blog as you progress.
Start off by learning how to restore WordPress from backup using UpdraftPlus. This plugin is free and can be connected to a Google Drive or Dropbox account for the minimum daily backups you need. This is one of the best tools for bloggers you can start with.
Another of the best tools for bloggers is the Akismet WordPress spam plugin to help block spam comments and contact form submissions. You might think that spammers won’t find your brand new blog. But believe me, spammers and bots will find you before real visitors do.
You should then consider setting up CloudFlare and WordFence for extra protection. As well as these top 7 free security fixes for every blog or website.
Lastly, as a blogger, you will end up having to manage a lot of passwords. Each of which needs to be kept secure. Using weak passwords will only increase the risk of your blog getting hacked.
Instead learn how the password manager LastPass can help you out with creating strong passwords and remembering them all at the same time!
No more scrambling around for scraps of paper with your passwords and usernames scribbled down on them.
Blog & Website Speed
Are you wondering when you’ll get to actually writing some content? This is one of the reasons blogging is more hard work than it looks! There’s a lot more to do than just writing.
All this extra legwork will be worth it in the end. After all, you want people to hang around long enough to read your content, yes? Of course, you do!
So here’s where we take the blog you’ve built so far and ensure it’s lightning fast with some of the best tools for bloggers. Which will benefit both your ranking in Google search and keeping visitors on your
Why? Because Google uses page speed when factoring your blog’s ranking and are increasingly adding new speed-related ranking factors to their algorithms as near as 2022.
Secondly, there are plenty of studies that show that slower sites result in more visitors abandoning a webpage. And why decreasing page load time can drastically increase conversions.
Even platforms like Pinterest will down rank your blog if they deem your domain to be low-quality. Because people are bouncing straight back to Pinterest due to your slow blog taking forever to load.
Make sure your Pins link to a relevant webpage. High-quality landing pages rank better in our search results. High-quality landing pages are basically pages that interest users and that is not misleading. This means that when a user opens the link and stays on the page for a while.
Pinterest Technical Support Ticket, 2020
The Best Tools For Bloggers To Measure Website Speed
But how do you know how fast your blog is? Well, first you should get an overview and comparison of the top 5 website speed tests. This guide will give you an idea how website speed tests can differ and what to look out for.
Some of the most popular and best tools for bloggers to test their website speed are:
- PageSpeed Insights by Google
- Pingdom
- GTmetrix
Out of these, PageSpeed Insights is my go to tool. It is clean, easy to use and in-depth details. But most importantly it is what Google uses itself and even included separate mobile usability scores. Since mobile traffic is at an all time high despite these devices being much slower compared to desktop connections.
Many of these best tools for bloggers to test website speed will even give you suggestions on what you can improve. But if you still find your blog is slow then here’s 13 common WordPress mistakes you could be making that hurt your blog speed.
Or there are several mistakes you need to avoid here as well. The most common things that impact on speed are:
- Choosing a quality host like SiteGround
- Using a lightweight theme like the free version of Astra
- Avoiding slow and heavy plugins
- Compressing blog images to be as small as possible
Create Your Essential Pages – Contact + About
At this point you should already have the legal essential pages for your blog setup. But there are 2 more that are often forgot about – a contact and about me page.
A contact page shouldn’t take too long. As you are just giving people a place where they can contact you and adding a contact form plugin at the bottom for people to use. Ideally this plugin should be compatible with any antispam plugin you have also setup.
Here’s some of the best tools for bloggers to add a contact form to your blog using a plugin:
For you About Me page, this will require more effort. The important thing to do when you write your About Me page is to make sure you always relate it back to your audience.
Why? Because believe it or not. Your About page is not just about you. It about how you can help your audience and why they should bother listening to what you have to say.
I’ve always found writing this page the hardest. Until I discovered this amazing resource that made writing the About Me page so much easier.
Best Tools For Bloggers To Generate Blog Post Ideas
Okay, you’re almost at the writing part. But first you need some ideas on what to write about, right?
Or perhaps you have ideas already? That’s great if you do!
But eventually, you’ll need some help with coming up with ideas. So here are some of the best tools for bloggers and resources. That will help you squeeze out some ideas when you find yourself stuck:
- Massive list of 8,209+ blog post ideas
- 193 Blogging Ideas For Starting a Blog
- The best types of blog posts to have on your new blog
- BuzzSumo
- Google Trends
The Best Tools For Bloggers To Optimize Their SEO
Once you’ve got ideas for a blog post. The next step is to pick an idea and find keywords you want to rank for in Google.
Some of the best tools for bloggers to find keywords are:
- Ubersuggest (Free)
- Google Trends (Free)
- Keywords Everywhere (Paid credits but cheap and extremely powerful)
- How to find profitable keywords
- KWFinder (5 searches free per day, then premium)
- SEMrush (premium, expensive for advanced bloggers)
- LongTailPro (premium, expensive for advanced)
- Google Keyword Planner (Google Ads) (free)
- Keywordtool.io (free)
If you are completely new to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) then you’ll want to start with a WordPress SEO plugin like:
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins there is. However, several features are locked behind their premium version and the tips it will give you to optimize your blog posts are often over simplified.
For this reason alone, I prefer using Rank Math myself. But feel free to check both out and see which you prefer yourself. As they all will give you at least some basic tips on how to deal with the SEO of your blog posts and other settings on your blog. (This is called on-page SEO.)
But you need to be mindful of off-page SEO too. Especially, the concept of building quality backlinks to your blog not just any old fluff.
Best Tools For Bloggers To Boost Your Overall SEO Strategy
If you want to avoid the faff of figuring out your own SEO strategy. Instead you could go down the route of these resources instead:
- Free SEO Videos lessons
- Easy on-page SEO for beginners guide
- How to build backlinks without blogger outreach
- SEO for beginners (Bundle of above 2 resource into one discounted product)
- Stupid Simple SEO – The complete SEO training with advanced strategies (Expensive but probably the only guide you’d ever need.)
Speaking of backlinks – if you are wondering what kinds of backlinks your blog has. One of the best ways to check is to use a backlink checker like the Ahrefs backlink checker. Or one of these many other options looked at in-depth here.
It is also important to learn about Google Analytics. Including how to set up Google Analytics and start monitoring the important metrics. I mean, how else will you know what traffic methods are working? Or how many visitors you’re actually getting?
After creating some content and optimizing it for SEO. Eventually, you’ll want to check how you’re performing in more detail.
This is where the Google Search Console comes in. As it can be used to check for free your keyword rankings and many other vital stats.
Here’s some more blogging tools to help with tracking your SEO results of your strategy:
Best Blogging Tools For Writing Blog Posts
Finally, it’s time to look at some of the best tools for bloggers that will help to boost your writing!
The first thing you’ll need to work on is your headline. The CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is perfect for analyzing what you come up with. To see if you can tweak it for better results.
And as a bonus, if you scroll to the bottom and find the download now button. You can download their free PDFs jam-packed with power words to give your headlines even more punch.
Boost your writing by simply redrafting with some of these best tools for bloggers and amazing articles:
- How to write a blog post – every step from brilliant idea to hitting publish
- Grease-slides – How to Transform Forgettable Blog Posts into Irresistible Content
- 7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful
- 317 Power Words That’ll Instantly Make You a Better Writer
- Grammarly is an amazing tool to help proofread your blog posts.
- Yoast SEO WordPress plugin also has readability scores, check them out to see if you have room for improvement!
- Hemmingway App – This is an absolute god-send for improving your writing. Try it and see for yourself!
Oh, and with the changes to the WordPress editor, you’ll need to decide whether to work with WordPress Gutenberg or disable Gutenberg in WordPress 5.0 to keep using the Classic editor.
The WordPress Gutenberg editor might seem daunting but if you follow this step-by-step guide to write your first blog post using it. Or even some of these tips which make using Gutenberg so much easier. Then you’ll begin to wonder why you didn’t start using it sooner.
Blog Visuals & Images
With any website or blog post comes the need for visuals. But as a new blogger – how can you get access to quality images for blog posts or social media without spending a fortune?
The Best Tools For Bloggers To Find Stock Images & Photo Resources
Using any old images you find on the internet will likely get you sued. So whatever you do, don’t make the same mistake this blogger made that cost her $7,500!
Instead, try these websites that might have the answer for you. As you can get plenty of quality images for free. Even for commercial use, so long as you know where to look.
Just make sure to check out each site’s image License to make sure you know what you can and cannot do with these images. As every website tends to differ their rules slightly.
Find the best blogging tools, resources and websites for stock images using these links:
- 115 Free Stock Images Mega List from general images to more niche specific like food + fashion
- Pexels is one of my favourites for free stock images. They have a huge collection with new contributions all the time, no attribution required and safe for commercial use too.
- Pixabay
- Ivory Mix currently has 550+ free beautiful stock photos with new ones added each month, for signing up to her email list.
- Haute Stock for more unique styled stock images that they will share with you in exchange for signing up to their newsletter.
- PhotoPin
have access to more free stock images but make sure to check their FAQ at the bottom of the page. As these images require attribution. - Death to Stock is a monthly paid plan (starting from $12), with access to 2500+ unique photos that you won’t find anywhere else. With new ones added each month.
Image & Graphics Editing Software
Perhaps once you’ve picked a stock image you want to edit it, make changes or overlay some text. If you do, then you’ll need to use an image editing tool to get started.
Here are some of the most popular and best tools for bloggers, that range from free to paid:
- Canva is a free and
amazing ly easy to usetool , which can be run entirely from the internet. I use it all the time for Pinterest images. But be aware you cannot resize your image canvas once created. Unless you use the paid version of their membership starting at $9.95 per month. Learn how to use Canva with this free 101 course. - Desygner is another graphic design tool that makes it easy to create graphics for your blog even if you don’t know much about design. You’ll find an assortment of useful tools as well as plenty of graphics and royalty-free resources inside. They have a free plan for you to try it for yourself and premium plans start at $4.95 making it a potentially cheaper alternative to Canva.
- BeFunky is free to start using and has some really interesting but niche effects like their fun looking Cartoonizer, filters and touch up tools. But expect to pay $4.99+ for the ability to use most of these effects.
- PicMonkey is another alternative to Canva, but doesn’t start off as free. In fact, you’ll need to pay $7.99+ per month before you can even download any images you create using it.
- GIMP is a free image editor that installs locally to your PC. Whilst it is completely free. It can be challenging to learn.
- Photoshop is probably one of the most well-known image editors out there. While it is not a free tool, starting at $9.99 per month. It is a powerful tool but also tricky to master.
- If you take lots of screenshots of your PC’s screen to use for tutorials, then Greenshot has been an invaluable tool for me. You can also find 5 alternative time-saving screenshots tools here.
- Free tool to remove the background from images quickly + easily
Best Tools For Bloggers Image Optimization
Once you’ve got your images edited and ready to use. You need to consider optimizing those images for the web.
Optimizing your images can have a big influence on your website speed. Which as mentioned earlier is a vital feature that Google considers when ranking your blog.
So, rather than struggling and trying to figure out this careful balance by yourself. Save yourself some time by considering these tried and tested methods instead.
(Oh and just so you know, I don’t recommend using Smush for this reason.)
IrfanView
An alternative tool to Windows Photo Viewer, only with so much more to offer. Whilst you can’t edit images like you would in Canva, Photoshop or GIMP. The IrfanView software has been the best tool for bloggers, I have found so far for compressing images.
And believe me, if you’ve read my post on using IrfanView for reducing image sizes for the web or my comparison of many popular WordPress image compression plugins. Then you’ll know I’ve tested this method against a lot of other tools. And shown clear evidence to support this.
If you follow my image compression guide it’s as simple as File > Save for Web… and using one of the two settings I’ve provided for you in this blog post here.
TinyPNG
Whilst you might have already known about the TinyPNG website for compressing images. You might be surprised to know they have a TinyPNG plugin for WordPress too.
With this plugin, every time you upload images to your WordPress Media library they will automatically be optimized for size for you.
Just keep in mind, that there is a monthly limit of 500 compressions per month with this plugin. And by default WordPress likes to create a few size variations for each image. All of which will count towards monthly limit. So the average WordPress user may only actually get on overage 100 images compressed per month.
If you want to get more image compressions per month you can adjust which of these extra sizes the plugin compresses in the settings. Or the other option is to pay a small fee per each image over the free 500 amount.
Email Marketing Tools & Resources For Bloggers
Building an email list is something many recommend you do as soon as possible. Whilst this is true, it should not be at the expense of the previous topics mentioned here.
There’s little point to focusing on email marketing if your blog isn’t setup correctly first or getting much in the way of traffic.
Email marketing in itself can get complicated. There are many Email marketing service providers out there. All with their own pros and cons. I recommend taking your time to research them.
But
- MailerLite (free up to 1,000 subscribers with automation)
- MailChimp
- ConvertKit (free up to 1,000 subscribers without any automation)
- Active Campaign
- Aweber
MailerLite is what I use as they have some powerful automation tools. Plus they are free to use for under 1,000 subscribers. Which is perfect for new bloggers on a budget.
Also, if you are sending out emails to your subscribers. Then you’ll want to reduce the chances of your emails ending up in the spam folder. You can do this with email authentication. Which will also get rid of the additional information added to the end of your sender email address.
The best part about MailerLite is their compliance and support with GDPR. They even have a comprehensive guide on how to create effective opt-in forms that still work under GDPR.
And if you have no idea where to start with email marketing then these blogging resources are the perfect place to start:
- Freebies that sell and serve
- 2 Years of ideas to send your email list
- Email marketing templates + sale sequences
- CoSchedule Email Subject Line Analyzer for better open rates – the #1 stat you need to worry about
- Love Your List 2.0 – The ultimate email marketing course that let’s you skip everything else resources + training-wise
You could even learn about how to segment and nurture your email list using quizzes. Because who doesn’t like fun quizzes?
But before you get carried away with creating emails. It is crucial to have an enticing opt-in freebie. So make sure you know how to create amazing content upgrades for your blog.
Best Blogging Tools & Resources To Help You Get More Blog Traffic
OK, so here’s the thing. Whilst you need all of the previously mentioned aspects of a blog. None of it will mean anything if you don’t get traffic to your blog.
Whilst you shouldn’t endlessly chases page views. As email has a much better return on your investment. You’ll always need a baseline of traffic to your blog to convert into loyal readers first.
We’ve already covered SEO previously. Which is a great leap in terms of aiming for more traffic. But SEO can sometimes take a long time to kick in. Especially when you just start out.
In a lot of cases, it can take up to 6-12 months to see results. So don’t panic if you don’t see results from your SEO efforts straight away!
If you are looking for some extra tips to boost your traffic in the mean time. Then consider looking at growing your blog traffic through social media marketing. Or one of many posts full of tricks that can result in increased pageviews.
Here’s some of the best tools for bloggers to grow your blog traffic with:
The Best Tools For Bloggers Social Media Marketing
One popular method of getting traffic, outside of SEO is Social Media. Some people are even able to get incredible results from growing their social media followers quickly.
But Social Media can be time-consuming and sometimes not get the results you might expect. So make sure you use your time effectively. You could even try this method of doing your Social Media in 1 hour a day.
The best way to approach Social Media though, is to focus on one social media network at a time. And work on it until you start getting results. Don’t make the mistake of spreading yourself too thin. And you definitely shouldn’t feel like you need to be on every platform.
Instead it’s important to be on the platforms that your ideal audience hangs out on.
And for many bloggers Pinterest can be an amazing place to start off with for massive traffic. Just be mindful that no all topics are popular on Pinterest so do your research first.
But before you delve into Pinterest. Let’s take a quick look at some of the social media tools that will help you manage, schedule and create social media posts. Here are some of the best tools for bloggers, especially beginners to help you get started:
- Tailwind (premium scheduler for Pinterest or Instagram)
- Buffer (free to premium scheduler for most platforms)
- Hootsuite (free to premium schedule for most platforms)
- RecurPost (free to premium scheduler for most platforms, but with added bonus of content libraries)
- Social Warfare (free to premium social media sharing plugin for WordPress)
- Shareaholic (free to premium social media sharing plugin for WordPress) Make sure you change this Shareaholic important setting first though!
- 21 Additional Social Media Sharing plugins you can consider for your blog
- MiloTree (premium widget + follow button that can also be used as pop-up for subscribers too)
It is also important to make sure your blog posts are optimized for social sharing. So make sure you are not making any of these 4 mistakes that cripple your blog posts social media sharing.
Best Pinterest Blogger Tools To Help Drive More Traffic
Pinterest is a popular platform among bloggers to help drive traffic to their blogs. Why? Because it is one of the best tools for bloggers to bring major results and fast!
The problem with Pinterest is that it is rapidly changing all the time and it is not easy to learn. Sometimes it’s just not obvious what Pinterest doesn’t like you doing.
One of the absolutely best tools for bloggers to get started with Pinterest is with Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies. It is super affordable ($57) for a Pinterest course and covers everything you need to know as a beginner. In fact, I challenge you to try this course and not feel like you learned everything there is about Pinterest.
Many people have had amazing results from this course and Carly has been super diligent in keeping it updated. Despite all the Pinterest changes over the past 2 years. Heck, it has even been recently updated to reflect changes on the platform as recently as 2022.
Don’t make the mistake I did and put off getting this because of the manual pinning side of this. Tailwind is great at pinning on auto-pilot, but only once you’ve figured out Pinterest first.
I regret not getting this course sooner as it would have saved me so much time, headaches and even money wasted on more expensive courses. That felt like they taught me nothing!
The only resource I have found that beats Pinteresting Strategies is actually the Pinterest Mastermind group that Carly offers as a bonus for subscribing to her monthly Pinterest templates.
Whilst the majority of your Pinterest strategy will be on the platform itself, make sure you are embedding your pins into your blog posts. By using this SEO friendly method for your Pinterest descriptions that won’t teach you the
Finally, whilst group boards have lost some favor lately. They still can be beneficial so long as they only for a specific topic and aren’t spammed. These Pinterest group board hacks will help you find and join dozens in minutes.
Many people still refer to using PinGroupie as the best way to find group boards. For awhile it wasn’t being updated and looked abandoned. But recently it seems to have come back to life with a new look and updates.
Here’s a quick recap of the best blogger tools for Pinterest:
- Pinteresting Strategies – the only Pinterest course you’ll ever need
- Monthly Pinterest Templates + Mastermind group
- PinGroupie to find Pinterest group boards
- Quick tips to find and join group boards faster
- How to add Pinterest images to your blog posts
- WP Tasty Pins for a code free way to add pins to your blog
- Tailwind scheduler + tribes as alternative to group boards
- Free scheduler method
Want to get traffic from Twitter to your blog? Then learn how to grow your audience and blog traffic with Twitter! There are even some great options you can use when just starting out to rock Twitter with free tools.
Just keep in mind that since early 2018, duplicate Tweets have been banned under their new Twitter rules. If you continue to post duplicate content you run the risk of losing your account. Consider trying retweeting your own tweets sparingly, which can boost your reach and engagement.
Here are some more of the best tools for bloggers to help you specifically with Twitter:
- TweetDeck
- Click to Tweet plugin for adding tweet boxes directly inside your blog posts
- Better Click to Tweet + Better Click to Tweet Power User Guide
- The Secret Sauce to Boosting Your Twitter Presence
Facebook has quite the reputation of a dwindling organic reach unless you spend lots of time in Facebook groups. Facebook is big on promoting you to spend money on ads. And whilst this works from my experience when done right. As a new blogger you might not have the budget to put into ads.
I know I struggled with this terribly. I knew I could get results easily from Facebook but I just couldn’t sustain the cost when I first started blogging. It’s not a lot to run ads, but with zero income. It looks like a mountain!
Because of this, I recommend starting with Pinterest and Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies for a set amount of $57. (If your audience is on Pinterest.) And try it out for a few months to see if you can leverage the free traffic from there.
If not, or you want to try Facebook for faster results. Then consider implementing a solid Facebook strategy.
But if you really want to leverage the power of Facebook then consider this amazing course on Facebook ads for bloggers. As this is how Bobby built his blog from scratch instead of going down the slower route of organic and free traffic. Needless to say it paid off for him so there’s a chance it could work for you too.
The Best Tools For Bloggers To Find Hashtags
Hashtags often go hand-in-hand with social media. These days even Pinterest uses hashtags. So here are some of these best tools for bloggers and resources. That will help you find valuable hashtags to use in your social media posts:
- RiteTag
- Hashtagify
- Tailwind for Instagram has its own Hashtag finder
- How to use hashtags on Pinterest
- The Ultimate Instagram Hashtag Library
The Best Blogger Tools To Help You Make Money Blogging
There are numerous ways that bloggers make money. What works for you will highly depend on what you blog about.
Some of the most popular ways that bloggers use to make money blogging include:-
- Ads – most start with Google AdSense. Later moving up to MediaVine after hitting that sought after 25,000 sessions per month.
- Affiliate marketing – meaning you promote someone else’s product and receive a commission if someone buys it through your special link. Just make sure you properly disclose your affiliate links.
- Sponsored posts – these you also need to disclose like affiliate links. This is where someone, usually a brand pays you to write a blog post on a particular topic or product.
- Selling your own product – think about creating and selling an eBook or eCourse. Or you could sell a physical product depending on your blogging niche. If a course sounds too daunting though, you can always create other digital product ideas instead.
- Services – if you don’t have a product to sell. Then instead you can consider monetizing your blog by offering a service.
And here’s some blogging resources to help make using these different strategies to make money blogging easier:
- Affiliate Marketing Program lists: 500+ Affiliate programs for bloggers | 3,000 High Paying Affiliate Programs
- Free affiliate marketing training
- Free make money blogging training
- Where to find sponsored posts as a new blogger
- SendOwl for selling digital products like PDFs and ebooks
- Teachable for selling online courses and video series
- Blogging income reports for first $100 | $200 | $500 | $1,000
- 14 Free eBooks to Grow Your Blog and Income
Blogging Tools & Resources For Making Your Own Digital Products
Selling your own digital products on your blog is definitely a powerful way to make money blogging that doesn’t leave you dependent on someone else’s pricing and payments.
But creating your first product is horribly daunting and can see like a massive project that you’ll never get done at the same time.
So here are some tools to help make things a little easier for you:
- Free Mini Video Course Freebies That Sell + Serve
- Free Ebook Template
- Ebook & Optin Templates with Writing Prompts
- Complete Bloggers Templates Toolkit that covers everything from ebooks, checklists, planners and so much more
- Ebook Bestseller Course
- Free Product Creation Course
- Realistic mockups for displaying your digital products on screens and book covers
- Rebel Boss Summit – yearly summit for a limited time
The Best Tools For Bloggers To Organize & For Time Management
At the end of the day, blogging is a huge task. There’s no way you can do everything from just your head. You need somewhere to plan, organize and make notes. So here are some of the best tools for bloggers, to make your life easier:
- Goal Setting
- Taking Notes:
- To Do Lists
- Cloud Storage
- Task Automation
- Time Management
- Office Documents
- Google Docs
- Airtable – like spreadsheets but 10x more powerful and easier to use
- Google Calendar
- LastPass – to manage all those passwords safely
Troubleshooting & Support Tools For Bloggers
Let’s be real about this, at some point or another you going to find yourself stuck. Whether you’re not sure on what to do next or you can’t seem to get some tech tool to work right.
Well, firstly it’s okay and perfectly normal to get stuck. You just need to make sure you know some key places to look for answers and where you can ask questions.
So here’s a list of resources you can try to get your question answered with:
- You can ask your questions here on the blog, through the comments sections
- Search Quora for questions about anything
- Stackoverflow to find questions and answers to more technical questions
- Ask good old Google
- Or one of the best Facebook groups out there Blogging Like You Mean It
📌 Enjoyed this post? Then pin it to your best Blogging tips board! 📌
Wow, this is probably the best tool for bloggers guide I’ve seen so far. So complete and packed with very useful tools. Great job!
I’m glad you found the post useful and thanks for the wonderful comment!
Very good information, write more blogs on this topic
Thanks, I’ll keep your suggestion in mind when I next creating more content 🙂
This is so beautiful guide, got lots of confidence through this. Thank you! Keep this going…
Thanks for the kind comment, I’m glad you found that it can be a confidence boost!
Hey, this is surely a massive list of some of the best tools meant for bloggers. No doubt, having such handy tools for blogging activities may it be time management or money making, these do prove fruitful.
Hey Harleen,
Thanks for the feedback 🙂
I’ve tried these blogging tools plus many others out there over the course of building my own blog. So, I can say for sure that these are some of my favourites for getting results. Whether it is to quickly find blogging resources, simplify things or purely save me more time with my day-to-day blogging activities.
There were plenty of other tools I’ve tried, that didn’t make it to this list. Because they just seemed lack-luster!
Wow! These are a handful. I am planning on starting a blog and have been reading about it.
Thanks again! Cheers
Thanks for the comment!
Awesome list! Just letting you know Wunderlist is no longer around and that link isn’t working. ClickUp could be an awesome replacement!
Hey Jeremy,
Thanks for letting me know, I’ll try and get that updated 🙂