Are you struggling with developing your blog? Are you anxious if the readers like your content or not? Do you want to take your blog to new levels? Well, you have come to the right place. Have a look on 12 Essential Free Blogging Tools Every Blogger Should Use
First, it is important to understand that blogging is not just about writing, it is much more than that. Along with writing, a blogger has to come up with new ideas for content, build up a marketing strategy and manage social media tactics. All in all, he has to perform a variety of tasks in order to achieve the mark.
One person cannot do everything and handling everything can get hard sometimes. In order to manage everything, you need to use blogging tools. Blogging tools will save you a lot of time and you will become confident about your blog. Now we know that as a beginner, you cannot afford any expensive software to optimize your blog so I am listing a few free blogging tools here that are effective, and every blogger must use these.
1. WordPress
WordPress is the most popular Content Management System right now. It was basically created to facilitate the bloggers in hosting their content. There are other blogging sites but none of them are better than WordPress. It offers a lot of options and it is great for bloggers because it doesn’t require any technical expertise. It is easy to setup and the best thing about WordPress is that it is an open source tool. The community of WordPress is very large and it is convenient for bloggers to deal with issues if there are any.
2. Evernote
Being a writer, you can get inspired by anything, anytime and when you get an idea, you have to jot it down somewhere so that it doesn’t fade away. Evernote has made this task easier for you. Now you can,
[elementor-template id="8247"]- Write your ideas
- Take any pictures with respect to it
- Save files
- And even record audios alongside.
Evernote is basically a tool which allows you to take notes and organize your cluttered life. For you bloggers, it is a must-have tool. You can not only organize ideas for your blog but also set-up reminders for meetings and deadlines, and it can also be used for brainstorming. With Evernote, you can say goodbye to lost ideas and missing deadlines.
It is very easy to use and perfect for blogging as it helps to collect all your ideas wherever you are and whenever you want to.
It can be accessed through the web as well as its mobile app and the best part is that it’s free. The only disadvantage of its free version is limited storage but you can upgrade it if you need more space.
3. Gmail
I don’t think that there is anyone who isn’t familiar with Gmail, but not everyone knows its amazing features. It is an ideal email system that provides its users with various applications.
- It allows you to check your mail anyplace and anytime
- It automatically backs up all the previous emails in case of a different device.
- You can create labels to organize your emails.
- It also highlights important emails so you never miss anything.
Besides getting your mail, it can also be used as a domain. Beginners who want to start up their website can use Gmail at first, which they may upgrade later.
4. Grammarly
Grammarly is a very popular site and the name suggests itself that it is used for checking grammar. Everyone makes mistakes which includes a good blogger too. You don’t want your readers to drive away because of a few silly grammatical errors. You should keep a margin for human error and use this platform to keep a check. Grammarly is quite simple to use, you just have to copy the text and paste it into the Grammarly document. You can also use the web extension of Grammarly for a continuous check. Why should you use Grammarly?
- It will quickly analyze your document and point out errors.
- It checks spellings, sentence structure, style, grammar, and punctuation.
- It provides the correct form of detected errors.
It is basically a very fast and accurate proofreader and every blogger should use it.
5. Google Drive, Docs, and Calendar
The perks of having a Google account is that Gmail grants you access to a variety of its products. Out of those, Google drive, Google Docs, and Calendar are significantly useful for bloggers.
- Google Docs provides an online platform to share and create documents. It is convenient because all the additions and edits to the document are saved automatically and there is no loss of data in any case.
- Google drive is the place where Google doc stores information and it also allows you to upload files(information, pictures, documents, etc) to have a safe and permanent store.
- Google Calendar will keep you updated about tasks and you can set-up reminders for appointments, deadlines, and meetings. Its best feature is that it allows you to share your schedule with someone else.
6. DMCA
As a blogger, it is common to find your content stolen by other people. DMCA provides protection against such thefts and issues protection certificates and badges to prevent your material from getting copied. Getting your content verified from DMCA is beneficial in many ways.
- You can monitor the status of your protected pages.
- Its content protection tools create a hindrance for thieves.
- It can also detect the sites which stole your content
- Last but not the least, it helps in taking down the unethical websites that stole your content.
- Its free of cost plan provides all these features and this will help you a lot in growing your blog.
7. Google Analytics
Search engine optimization techniques have taken blogging to a completely new level. You can use these methods to increase the traffic to your website and choose the appropriate keywords. Google provides many free SEO tools, out of which Google analytics is the most used. Google analytics is a very important tool to check the traffic on your blog posts.
- It helps in establishing the idea about the source of visitors and the most popular blogs.
- It tells you about the visitor’s behavior on the basis of the amount of time they spent on your blog.
- It provides accurate statistics with respect to the no. of visitors as well as their geographical area, country, language and the device that they are using.
- It collects all this data automatically and provides a report on everything.
This tool will not only help you in learning if you are attracting an audience but it will also help you in finding what steps to take to improve your site.
8. Canva
The visual appearance of your blog plays a significant role in attracting people. If you are a beginner and you want to create an engaging content, Canva is the one for you. It is one of the most commonly used graphics designing tool and it allows you to create trending graphics for your blog. For example, you can
- Edit photos
- Create presentations
- Design logos, posters, and web banners
- You can also create blog covers.
- It has templates for everything and it also gives the option to customize your own template.
Now there are other free photo editing tools like Picmonkey, Fotor, Pixlr, etc but Canva is the easiest to use and you don’t need to have any prior knowledge of graphic designing. Also, it provides amazing layouts and designs so I would recommend it.
9. VPN
You must be well aware what a VPN(Virtual Private Network) is, but why should a blogger use it? As a blogger, you must be used to working outside and using different Wifi connections. This can result in a threat to your personal information and your content too. VPN not only protects you from malicious attempts of intruders to steal your information but it also provides free access to the content which is restricted in your area.
10. MailChimp
MailChimp is an extremely useful email management system for beginner bloggers. It allows you to keep track of your email subscribers and reports back the number of emails delivered and opened. There are other platforms to use but MailChimp is most suitable for new bloggers who cannot invest their money at the moment. It is also quite easy to use and free of cost up to 2000 subscribers. When you exceed this amount, there will be monthly charges.
11. Google Keyword Planner
This is another free Google SEO tool which will help you in taking your blog to a new height. With a keyword planner, you can find the trending keywords with respect to your blog. Keywords are basically the most frequently used words by people, for searching on Google or a different search engine.
When you use this tool, you can enter the blog title and it will suggest a list of keywords along with the number of times they have been used. After completing your research, select the best combination of keywords and apply them in your blog. This tool will ultimately take your blog to a higher rank in search engines.
12. Google Search Console
Google offers another free SEO tool i.e. Google Search Console but it requires verification of website before use. If you decide to use it, first submit your website for verification and then you can benefit from its features.
- It provides a thorough detail about your website and its audience
- You can detect errors and fix them with this tool
- You can find duplicate content
- It provides information regarding the source of visitors
- It will also tell you how your website appears in Google search engines.
These were some of the free blogging tools that we have mentioned above, if you know another tool that is useful for bloggers, do write that in comments
Feel free to ask any questions you have!
13 comments
Maria Khan
These are great. WordPress is currently the most popular Content Management System. It was developed primarily to facilitate content hosting for bloggers.
Saaha
Great post! There’s a few in there I hadn’t even heard of and I’m planning to check out. Thank you!
Deborah
A very good round up of tools available. A couple I haven’t heard of and I thank you for having them in the list. Great list if you are just beginning – I’m at a year blogging but still have a lot to learn. Thanks again!
Carlyn
These are good! Hadn’t even heard of DMCA will have to check them out & some of the other too. Thanks
Kevin
Great article. As a new blogger there was new info I wasn’t familiar with.
minda
Great ideas! I do use some of these. Perhaps you can include a link to these awesome resources.
Jena Leigh | Naughty Kitchen
These are great tips for all types of bloggers. I havent tried DMCA and will look into it soon!
Brittany
I really want to try Evernote! I don’t have a lot of blog articles now because my site is still new but I think it would be a great tool to help me stay organized.
Mary
Thanks for sharing these tips! I’m excited to try Canva!!
Disha
As a new blogger, this is a great list. I use a little more than half of these. I’m excited to try the rest. Thank you for sharing!
Shaylyn
This is great for new bloggers! Thank you for sharing your tips
Alice
Wow, so many good ideas! I love it!
Clyde
This is such a useful post for beginners and those who want to have a blog. I would love to try Evernote and this DMCA after reading this. 🙂