The world of blogging is a crowded space with over six hundred million blogs on the internet. To separate yourself from the competition, you are going to need every advantage you can get. What is going to differentiate you from everyone else? There are several ways that you can create this advantage. Top blogging tools are essential for climbing the ladder of success as a blogger and staying on top. Before we get into it, lets look at some quick ways to elevate your blog and stand out in a sea of competitors.
Tips For Taking Your Blog To The Next Level:
- Be unique and passionate about your blog topic!
- Be consistent and post quality content often!
- Use a fast web host for your blog!
- Build high quality backlinks to your blog!
- Use our top blogging tools to gain the advantage!
Following these five tips should definitely help boost your blog and take it to the next level. I definitely recommend you implement each of these five tips very soon. But for the time being, let’s focus on these top blogging tools to excel your blog and take advantage of these wonderful resources.
Blog2Social
These days a strong social media plan is critical for your blog or website. Blog2Social is a scheduling plugin for WordPress that gives you the ability to schedule and auto-post to all of your social media platforms from one convenient location inside the WordPress workspace.
I have been using this plugin for several months now and have been very satisfied with the results. It offers a free version and a pro version for auto-posting. I use the free version and share the posts manually but it is very easy and saves a lot of time. It automatically collects the information from your blog posts including the image.
Why is Blog2Social one of our top blogging tools?
Saves Time:
Most people can find way more productive things to do with their time than post to social media accounts. Instead of spending hours a week posting to social media platforms, you can be researching and writing quality long form blog content for the search engines. You can also spend that time building backlinks and relationships. Blog2Social makes it very easy to post to several accounts all at the same time.
Scans Blog Post Content:
Blog2Social is effective because it scans each individual blog post for the content needed to post on the social media platforms. It will automatically pull the blog title, description (the appropriate length depending on the network), image and the #hashtags. It then allows you to edit each post before submitting all simultaneously.
Click here to try Blog2Social for free and gain the advantage with your social media campaigns!
Canva
Canva is one of my favorite top blogging tools and an amazing platform for creating professional designs with little expertise. You are going to want eye-catching graphics for your blog and social media campaigns and Canva provides exactly what you need for accomplishing just that.
Canva covers all the bases with premade templates for practically any of your blogging design needs. This includes featured images, infographics, instagram graphics, logos, pinterest pins and more!
What makes Canva one of my top blogging tools?
Ease of use:
Canva is extremely easy to use and very self explanatory. Its simple interface and preset templates make it very easy for even beginners to make professional designs. The workspace has a nice drag and drop function making it quick and easy to whip together a beautiful design.
Preset Templates:
The popular graphic design app has thousands of premade templates to use for a wide range of graphics. Simply pick a template and then add a photo and change the text for a quick and professional design. It saves all of your recent templates for quick and easy access in the future.
Free Photos and Elements:
Canva has thousands of free photos in a wide array of categories for you to use in your designs. Simply type in exactly what you are looking for in the search and click go! You also have access to thousands of free elements such as arrows, lines, shapes, stickers etc.
It’s Free to Use:
Canva is 100% completely free to use for creating graphics on your blog. The free version is totally capable of producing high quality graphics. However, there is a pro version available that offers way more photos and elements if you are more serious about blogging.
Click here to sign up for a free account at Canva and start designing your first graphic!
Cloudflare
Cloudflare is a global content delivery network (CDN) that protects and speeds up your blog or website. It does this by serving up your files on one of several different servers located throughout the world. This subsequently speeds up how fast your site loads depending on the user.
Super fast hosting is the number one priority for speeding up your blog or website but a CDN is second. Use it with the WP Cloudflare Super Page Cache for optimal performance.
Why is Cloudflare one of my top blogging tools?
Protection:
Cloudflare’s network automatically monitors and defends against DDoS attacks on your cached website files. Although, uncached files will need an added manual response to prevent attacks, you at least have substantial security protecting your blog or website.
Speed:
This is the main and most obvious reason for using this Content Delivery Network. It speeds up your blog or website. A faster loading website means more converting customers. In fact, fifty three percent of mobile users will leave a website, if it takes more than three seconds to load. I highly recommend you optimize your blog or website to get loading times under two seconds. You can use GT Metrix to check the speed and specific loading times.
Click here to sign up for Cloudflare and speed up your blog or website!
Google Keyword Planner
Finding the proper keywords for your blog posts is essential and Google Keyword Planner does just that, making it one of our top blogging tools. Obviously Google has the world of search dialed in. Therefore, their system for finding the best keywords for your blog or website is second to none.
Find new keywords for your niche by entering in a related keyword or phrase and click search. It will give you a complete list of keywords relating to your topic.
Why is Google Keyword Planner one of my top blogging tools?
Filters:
Google Keyword Planner gives you tons of different filter options which allows you to dial in exactly what you are looking for. For instance, you can filter based on the competition for the keywords. I normally target low competition long-tail keyword phrases to avoid high competition. You can also filter using the average monthly searches for potential keywords.
New Ideas:
The main reason I use this tool is to find new focus keyphrase ideas for the the article I am writing. For example, I will search things such as “how to blogging” because “how to” questions are extremely popular. The engine will give me tons of results of phrases containing those specific words. I can then decide on a certain phrase I want to use in my article.
Click here to check out the Google Keyword Planner and start finding your next keywords!
GT Metrix
GT Metrix is a great way to test the loading speed of your blog or website. You simply enter your URL into the search box and click “Test your site.” It will give you a grade along with a complete and detailed analysis of your website’s page loading times broken down into various fields for you to review.
Having a fast blog or website is crucial to your audience and could be the difference between a sale and a lost sale. You want to make sure that your site loads under two seconds.
Why is GT Metrix one of my top blogging tools?
Easy to use:
GT Metrix is extremely self explanatory for the most part but they do offer a lot of different types of detailed reports which may be advanced for a beginner blogger. They do however explain the different reports and link to help pages so that you can understand how to read and fix whatever the issue may be. The most important report is the “first contentful paint” which is how fast the text and images load on your page. A good FCP is 0.9s or less.
Grade:
GT Metrix analyzes your website and then gives you a letter grade along with a score with an A or one hundred percent being the best. It scores you on performance and structure. It also gives you information on your websites web vitals which include the LCP (largest content element), TBT (how much time is blocked by scripts) and CLS (how much time is spent on the layout shift).
Click here to visit GT Metrix and test the speed of your site!
Pinterest is the third biggest social media platform in the U.S. and a staple for building high quality traffic to your blog or website. This is one of the most important top blogging tools on our list that should definitely be taken advantage of.
Pinterest users “pin” custom images that normally lead to their blog. These pins can then be shared on personal or group boards for other users to pin or share. Pins can be linked directly to your blog bringing consistent traffic for years to come.
What makes Pinterest one of my top blogging tools?
Free Traffic:
Free quality consistent traffic to your blog is what makes this one of our favorite top blogging tools out there. With two billion Pinterest searches a month and over four hundred and forty two million users, generating some good traffic shouldn’t be a problem. You will need a good consistent pinning plan and schedule to build traffic over time. The Tailwind App, which we discuss later in this article, does just that.
High Conversions:
Pinterest is the top social media network for high value conversions. This is because people, eighty percent of which are “Moms,” spend more time on the platform than any other social media network. This means the traffic coming to your blog, will be very high quality which converts to sales in the long run. The majority of Pinterest users come from high income households which means more product sales.
Click here to sign up for Pinterest and start pinning for some high quality free traffic to your blog!
Pixabay
Pixabay offers thousands of nice high quality license free photos for you to use on your blog for graphics or posts. Simply search for the niche photos you are looking for by using the search box and find very nice photos submitted by users. This top blogging tool is a must have for any blog or website.
If you happen to run out of images on Pixabay for a specific genre, there are plenty of other free stock photo sites. I use Pexels.com as well for my instagram posts. I do use Adobe Stock for my featured blog post images to stand out amongst the competition. It is $29.99 a month for their membership but it’s worth it.
What makes Pixabay one of my top blogging tools?
Royalty Free Photos:
Obviously the royalty free photos is what makes Pixabay so amazing. You don’t need any license to use the user submitted photos on your blog or website.
Updates:
Their collection of photos is constantly being updated with new stock. Users are able to submit their personal photos at any time keeping things fresh. You can become a contributor yourself to help the cause.
Click here to visit Pixabay and start downloading some royalty free photos for your blog or website.
Quora
Quora is a Q&A website where people go to find answers to common questions on the internet. It is also a great place to connect and meet with other people. For the purpose of blogging, it is a really good place to find long tail keyword phrases to use in your blog articles.
Simply type your keywords into the search box and click for the results. It will display commonly asked questions along with the answers submitted by users.
Why is Quora one of my top blogging tools?
Great Ideas:
Sometimes Quora can give you great ideas for long tail keyword phrases that Google Keyword Planner can’t. The Q&A style forum provides current questions that people are searching for. This provides a plethora of ideas to use in your blog articles.
Relationships:
Talk to other people in your niche and brainstorm different ideas. Communication and relationships go hand in hand in the blogging world and Quora is the perfect platform to run ideas by other people in your niche. Spend some time talking with others and learning about their blogs, businesses or websites. You may pick up some valuable nuggets of information that will help you in the future.
Click here to visit Quora and find the questions and answers you are looking for!
Tailwind App
The Tailwind App makes your social media campaigns a breeze by allowing you to schedule all of your instagram posts and pinterest pins for automatic posting. It will save you a ton of time and is a must have on the list of top blogging tools
You are definitely going to want to use Pinterest to build long term traffic to your blog and the Tailwind App is the perfect compliment to your Pinterest campaign. You can literally set it and forget it. I schedule all of my pins for the week on a Sunday and I’m set for the week. My pins are consistently pinned at the prime times giving me the most benefit.
What makes the Tailwind App one of my top blogging tools?
Design and Schedule:
The Tailwind App has a complete graphic design workspace to use for creating your own Pinterest Pins. This saves time as well allowing you to design and schedule the pin from one location. Similar to Canva, they have premade templates. The App will also pull the information from your blog post and insert it right into several pin templates for you to choose from. Although I do use this feature, I still use Canva for more high quality pins.
Saves Time:
Developing and maintaining a blog is very time consuming. Using the Tailwind App to schedule your social media posts will save you hours every week. This will allow you to spend more time on the more important tasks for your blog such as writing articles and building backlinks.
Click here to sign up for the Tailwind App and start scheduling your posts for free!
Yoast SEO
SEO is a top priority for any serious blog and Yoast SEO gives you a great advantage when it comes to ranking high in the search engines. This WordPress plugin is one of my favorite top blogging tools because it makes it very easy to optimize each blog post for the search engines.
Yoast SEO integrates seamlessly with WordPress and makes it super simple to prepare each post for the search engines with tons of great features and tools.
What makes Yoast SEO one of my top blogging tools?
Focus Keyphrase:
The plugin allows you to enter your “Focus keyphrase” for the blog post. It then calculates and suggests how you should optimize the post accordingly. It manages your keyword density by telling you exactly how many keywords to use along with how many of your H2 and H3 headings should contain your keyword phase.
Functionality:
The functionality of Yoast SEO is amazing and the creators worked hard to make SEO optimization very simple even for beginners. The plugin features are all displayed at the bottom of each post or on the side workspace for quick access. It gives you an up to minute status of the readability and SEO analysis so that you know exactly what needs to be tweaked.
Red Means No Green Means Go:
Yoast SEO features a neat little system for being positive that your blog post is ready. The plugin will analyze your blog post and mark all of the problems on a list with a little red dot. Conversely it will put a green dot next to each good result on the list. When the plugin is satisfied and you have corrected most or all of the problems on the list, a green smiley face will appear as your reward next to your analysis.
Click here to sign up for the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin and start optimizing your blog!
In Closing:
I hope that you enjoyed this list of my 10 favorite top blogging tools. Now it is time to put them into action. Make sure to take full advantage of each one for your blog or website. If you have any questions about any of them, feel free to ask.
Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think!
What are your favorite top blogging tools to use? Do you have any special tools that helped to propel your blog or website in the search engine rankings? Let me know, I would love to hear about it!