Must-Have Tools for Blogging

You might have heard that there’s money to be made in blogging, and this is absolutely true. However, it’s not as easy as writing and then collecting a hefty paycheck. There’s a lot of work that goes into creating and maintaining a blog, and it goes without saying that you’ll need a variety of tools to make the most of it.

Social Media

Social media is a must, but if you try to cross-post between the different websites daily, you won’t be making the most of your time. Instead of posting messages manually, use an automation tool — such as Hootsuite — to streamline the process. You can schedule posts ahead of time, which makes working ahead simple and efficient. There are other options as well, many with a free trial that lets you test drive the software to see if it’ll meet your needs.

Note Taking

You’ll need a good note-taking tool as well. You’ll likely have inspiration strike at the most random times — say when you’re grocery shopping or browsing the clearance racks at that big box store. Save notes online to keep them handy for future writing sessions. Whether you’re saving a title of an article or a stat to refer back to, you’ll want a tool that syncs across multiple devices such as your smartphone, tablet, and desktop so you can access your talking points and work from anywhere.

Newsletters

When it comes to staying in touch with your readers, there’s no better way to do that than with a weekly or monthly newsletter. There are plenty of programs out there that can help you create eye-popping designs and formatting that flows. You’ll need an email client program to send these newsletters out. Choose one that’s automated and you can simply import a list of contacts and let the software do the rest.

Publisher

In order to make a real go of the blogging world, you need a reliable publisher. WordPress is very common among bloggers because of its easy-to-use platform and the sheer number of add-ons that you can incorporate to measure analytics and improve SEO rankings, to name a few. It’s also simple to make changes when you need to and there are a myriad of training sites available for those who want to get started.

Proofreader

While most blogs are meant to be informal, they still need to be well-written and grammatically correct if you want to retain readers. Grammar and spelling tools are a must. They can find errors that you might not even be aware of, such as using the wrong word or spelling. There are several different tools out there to help you catch these mistakes such as Hemingway Editor and Grammarly.

Keyword Planner

Even if your blog is centrally focused on one topic, if you’re looking to monetize it, you’ll need readers to do so. In order to gain more readers, you need to rank well in Google and other search engines and this all starts with a keyword planner. You’ll use the planner to search for keywords that readers are entering in Google, Bing and Yahoo to find the information they’re looking for. You’ll then need to incorporate these keywords into your blog and any ads that you use to promote your blog.

Starting a blog is something that anyone can do. Making money off of it, however, takes real work. With the use of the above tools, you can streamline the process and work smarter, not harder. There are other tools out there, as well, but these are just a few of the top ones you should consider when getting started.