10 tools all bloggers should know about
In this article, I’m going to discuss some of the best tools all bloggers should know about.
We all know how important a blog is for your website. Adding fresh content to your website is not only essential to maintain a good position in Google for certain keywords but it’s also important to drive traffic to your website to promote your products and services, as well as helping build trust with potential customers.
Did you know..
- Websites that have a blog are shown to have 434% more indexed pages.
- Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trustworthy source for gathering online information.
- Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals.
- Marketers who prioritise blogging are 13x more likely to have a positive ROI on their efforts.
Reference: https://optinmonster.com/blogging-statistics/
The first thing you need to do is plan your blogging strategy
This may include;
- Finding topics that appeal to your audience.
- Researching the best keywords for your content.
- Creating a visual impact with images & videos or adding podcasts.
- Choosing the best way to collate all your content and add it to your website.
The following blogging tools will help you organise and decide the best blogging strategy for your website.
1. Google Trends
Google trends is a great way to research what topics your target audience is searching for. Google Trends can help you understand how a product or service is trending over time, which allows you as a blogger to plan your future content.
All you have to do is:
- Go to this link – https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=AU
- Make sure you select your geographical location
- Type in some keywords
- Then analysis the results
Check out this great youTube video on how to use Google Trends for your business blogging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD7B3yj0L5I
2. Answer the public
This is another great free tool to help bloggers. It combines the suggested searches from Bing and Google and displays them in a search cloud. The results are broken down into categories including; what, where and why. Providing an overview of the questions people are typing into search engines.
This information is invaluable for bloggers as;
- It gives you an insight into your audience and what they are searching.
- It helps you optimise and rank for long-tail keywords.
- It helps you answer questions that could help you get into Google’s featured snippets.
All you need to do is click on the link above, type in your keywords and search. This will then bring up ideas for topics and headlines around your keywords.
Now that you have found the best topic to write about, the next step is finding the best keywords to include in your content to maximise your traffic. Making a keyword enriched blog post will help reach a wider variety of potential customers.
3. Keyword Planner from Google
https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/
One of the best keyword tools comes from Google, called the Keyword Planner. And best of all it’s free from within your Google Ads account. If you don’t have Google Ads working yet for your site. No problem! Just set up a test ad and make sure you don’t activate it. That way you can use the tool without having a live ad.
- Once you have logged into Google Ads
- Click on the “Tools & Settings” tab
- Go to the Keyword Planner
- Click on “Discover new keywords”
- Type in a few different keywords and see what comes up on the results
- For e.g. if I type in “best keyword tool”
- Then click “Get results”
- Have a look at the “Average monthly results”
- This result will determine whether your keyword is worth using
- My search result (from above) show – 10-100 searches per month, which in my opinion is a good keyword to use in my content.
- If you look below that you will see – keyword ideas.
- You can see other keywords that you may be able to also include in your text.
- Looking for keywords that are between 10-100 p/m with low competition are great to use. Meaning there’s less competition for that particular keyword. This simply means you may have more luck ranking for this keyword over a keyword that has high competition.
Once you work out which keywords you want to add to your content, use this tool to do some research to make sure people are definitely searching for these words. Then based on your results choose the best ones to include in your text.
4. HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator
https://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator
Some more great tools all bloggers should know about is another free tool from HubSpot. HubSpot is a great website as it has a lot of resources for businesses and blogging.
If you click on the link above you can do some research on topics around certain keywords. And if you sign up for free they will give you an excel spreadsheet of more ideas for your topic.
So you have your topic and keywords ready, now it’s time to write. This brings us to the Hemingway App.
5. Hemingway App
The app is super cool and fun to use. You simply write your content in the app and it will help you edit and format your content to read better including; spelling, grammar, sentence structure and common errors. Once you have finished you can just copy your edited text and paste it into your site and you’re done!
Try it out!
6. Grammarly
Grammarly is another free tool that helps check your grammar. It’s a powerful proofreading tool that checks spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure, as well as fluency and vocabulary.
You can use it within your browser, Google Drive or download it to your computer. Having a tool that proofreads your content before you publish live is crucial not only for your readers but also for the search engines.
Here’s the link to add the Chrome extension.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/grammarly-for-chrome/kbfnbcaeplbcioakkpcpgfkobkghlhen
7. Canva
Canva is an awesome tool for creating images, editing images, designing templates, ebooks, logos, PDFS, social media images and much more. Invented by an Aussie girl who is now rocking it over in California.
- It has a free version and a premium version.
- The free version is good enough for small businesses who are just starting out and just need a program to design and edit images for their blog
- Canva is definitely one of those tools all bloggers should know about.
I use it for all my blog posts. And have never had to go premium yet. I usually make a template for my blog and clients blogs and purchase the $1 images to add to the posts.
If you haven’t discovered Canva, I highly recommend you start using it today to create images and graphics for your blog.
8. Yoast SEO
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/
Now, you have all your content ready for your post and need to add it to your site. Adding a post in WordPress is fairly straight forward and this is done under the post panel.
Once you have added your post including your text, images, video etc. The next step is to use the Yoast SEO plugin as your guide to making it SEO ready and most importantly user friendly.
The best thing about this plugin is, it will guide you in creating the best post possible not only for the search engines but for your readers.
Including such things as;
- adding the right amount of keywords and text
- ensuring your images are Google-friendly
- sentences and paragraphs are readable
- headings are added
- the use of internal and external links and more
Yoast SEO is definitely one of those tools all bloggers should know about. If you click the link I have a more detailed video on how to use the Yoast SEO plugin.
9. Squirrly
Once you have written a great article, what next?
The next step is to share it on social media platforms and other social media bookmarking sites.
Squirrly has a number of great tools to help bloggers.
Including;
Squirrly Social
https://www.squirrly.co/social-media/tools-for-digital-marketing/
- This tool can automate the posting of blogs and content on Social Media. It can publish new posts to all your social profiles with a click of a button.
- It can also re-post old content to ultimately get more traffic and more.
Squirrly SEO
https://wordpress.org/plugins/squirrly-seo/
Squirrly SEO is an AI-powered, all-in-one SEO solution that takes the guesswork out of search engine optimisation. Being a great tool for keyword research, content optimisation, technical SEO, site audits, rank tracking and more.
Squirrly’s Blogging Assistant
This tool provides access to advanced solutions for writers inside WordPress.
https://plugin.squirrly.co/research-tools-for-writers/
- The blogging assistant provides an editor that includes everything you need to write your post.
- Having access to images, tweets, blog topics, previous articles and more.
- Allowing you to create content that is both human and Google-friendly.
10. Blog directories
Blog directory sites are websites that you can share your posts on.
Many can automatically share your new post every time it’s published for a small price. It’s worth doing some research of your own to find the most suitable blog directories to share your content on. These also include social bookmarking sites like; Quora, Pinterest, Reddit, Linkedin.
Reference: https://www.thewebhospitality.com/social-bookmarking-sites-list/
Here’s an article about some blog directories you could look in to. https://www.bloggingtriggers.com/blog-directories/
Make sure they have a high domain authority.
You can test their DA at this link. https://websiteseochecker.com/domain-authority-checker/
To sum up
As you can see there are many free and paid tools out there to help you blog better. You need to research and find the ones that are most suitable for your website and your blogging style. These are just a few of the many tools all bloggers should know about.
