Blogging can be a fun, creative, and exciting way to share your thoughts with the world. It can also be a great way to connect with other people who share your interests, learn new things, and get your work or ideas out there. But, if you’re new to blogging, it can be confusing and difficult.
Thankfully, many great tools are available to make the blogging process more manageable. This article will explore some of the best blogging tools for new bloggers. We’ll discuss the best free blogging platforms, editing tools, design tools, best plugins, and a social media platform that will help you grow your audience.
Jump ahead to:
WordPress
This is an open source software that you can use to create a website or blog.
It is one of the BEST and most POPULAR blogging platform. Most people now do have a WordPress blog.
So, if you’re looking for a platform that’s easy to use and well-supported, then WordPress is a perfect choice. It has a wide variety of features, including a built-in blog editor and support for a wide range of plugins and themes. It’s free to use, so you won’t have to spend any money to get started, and a wide range of hosting providers support it. Plus, there are many online tutorials to help you get started with WordPress.
Both are types of WordPress software, but they have different functions.
What are these differences?
- WordPress.com is the hosted version, meaning that it provides the software and hosting for your blog. WordPress.org is for self-hosted sites/blogs meaning you have to download the software and host it on your web server.
- WordPress.com restricts you to using only the themes and plugins provided by WordPress, while with WordPress.org, you have COMPLETE CONTROL and the freedom to choose themes and plugins to use. That means with WordPress.org; you can 100% customize your blog to how you want it to look.
Which is better?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question – it will depend on your preferences and blog goals. If you’re planning to earn from your blog, then the BEST CHOICE would be WordPress.org.
If you have a personal blog that’s more like a journal or you’re just blogging for practice and fun, you should go with WordPress.com.
Both are excellent; it is up to you to decide which platform will suit your needs best.
I chose WordPress.org as my blogging platform.
Must have WordPress Plugins
- Yoast SEO Plugin: Yoast is a MUST HAVE WordPress Plugin for Search Engine Optimization.
- WooCommerce: This plugin allows me to have an ONLINE STORE and sell my digital products on this blog. It is the more affordable option when compared to Shopify.
- GTranslate: This is a translation plugin for WordPress. It allows you to translate your blog and make it MULTILINGUAL and accessible to anyone from any part of the world.
- Easy Table of Contents: This plugin allows you to create and display a user-friendly table of contents for your posts and pages, making it easy for readers to navigate your content.
Guaranteed whether you’re just starting or you’ve been blogging for years, there’s a plugin out there that will make your blogging experience easier and more efficient. What I have mentioned here is not an exhaustive list of plugins. There are still many other FREE OPTIONS; choose the right ones for your needs.
Also, note that there are a variety of other blogging platforms available, each with its own set of features and benefits. Some other popular platforms include Medium and Blogger. The good news is each platform has its own set of pros, so it’s essential to choose the one that fits your goals.
Website Themes
There are many beautiful free and premium themes available that you can use to create your website or blog if you are using WordPress.org.
You can find many free themes in the WordPress.org Theme Directory that make beautiful websites. Some of the best free themes include Astra and OceanWP.
Premium themes offer additional features, such as support for eCommerce or rather online stores, custom branding, faster loading speeds, higher-quality graphics, and layouts, to mention a few.
Where to find premium themes?
You can find many premium themes online. Some popular sources include Envatomarket and Etsy. For this blog, I use a premium theme.
Bluehost
Bluehost, a web hosting company, is one of the most popular. Founded in 2003, Bluehost has provided web hosting services to large and small businesses for over 18 years. One of the reasons that Bluehost is so popular is because it is CHEAP. You can get started with Bluehost BASIC PLAN with just $2.95 per month. They offer a variety of web hosting plans to fit any budget, THAT’S perfect for beginners!
Bluehost also offers a free custom domain name with the purchase of a web hosting package. The free domain name is valid and free for the first year of registration.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is an identifying label for your website on the internet. It is a unique name assigned to a site by an internet registry. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular web pages.
Let’s call it your business name. For example, mine is Realistic Miss. If you look at my website URL, you see it there. RIGHT?
I, however, discourage you from buying your domain and hosting from the same company. Try to keep your hosting and domain separate. One of the main reasons is SO that you can effortlessly switch from one Webhost to another if you are not satisfied with the service you are getting now, or your business has outgrown the abilities of your present host.
NOTE: I used Bluehost for my first blog, and it was perfect for it as a beginner.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free program that allows you to track the number of visits to your blog, the age of your visitors, what type of devices they are using, and how long they are staying on your site. You can also see what KEYWORDS are driving traffic to your site.
This information can help you optimize your blog for better traffic and engagement. Analyzing this data will also help you identify new opportunities so your business can grow.
Google Docs
Google Docs is a word processing application similar to Microsoft Word, but it has way more features and is completely FREE to use! The online document editor offers a wide range of features to make your work easier.
You can compose your blog posts within the platform, organize your drafts and finished pieces, collaborate with others, and if you have advertisers, you can even use Google Docs to create invoices and send them straight to your clients. You can LITERALLY use it to track all your work, collaborate on all kinds of projects, and access your documents from anywhere in the world.
Grammarly
Grammarly is the number one writing assistant and editing software that exists. It assists you in checking for plagiarism corrects basic spelling mistakes, punctuation, and grammar. It also helps you write engaging content with solid delivery.
Within the program, you can customize your goals, such as how knowledgeable your audience is about the topic, how formal you want your message to be, and the tone you want to come across. You can even set goals based on the intent of the piece you are writing, such as telling a story, informing the public, or describing something.
Grammarly follows those guidelines to help you stay in line with your goals when you set your parameters. There is a FREE VERSION, but the premium plan is worth the investment if you are an avid writer. The paid version has more features and allows you to customize your blog post more. It also has a support team to help you with any questions or issues.
Flodesk
Part of blogging is building an email list. Email lists are the bread and butter of all businesses.
There are many companies to choose from for email marketing. For example, Mailchimp mentioned below, among others, but we recommend FloDesk. Made with design in mind, it’s easy for a beginner to quickly create a visually appealing campaign in just a few clicks.
They offer a 30-day FREE TRIAL, and afterward, you pay $38 per month. We love this company because the monthly price never changes, unlike many other platforms, where the rule is the more subscribers you have or more emails you send, the more you pay.
MailChimp
Mailchimp is also another of the popular EMAIL MARKETING tools used by bloggers and small business owners. It allows users to create, send automated messages, track emails, generate custom forms and templates.
You can also track the number of subscribers you have, the engagement rate of your emails, and the number of clicks your emails are getting. This information can help you optimize your email campaigns and increase the reach of your messages.
If you have 2000 subscribers or less, you can use MailChimp for free. The features of their free plan are however limited but okay for a beginner on a budget.
Deposit Photos
It is crucial to have great photos to accompany your posts. Not only do photos help to illustrate your ideas and stories, but they can also help to increase engagement with your readers.
The cost of premium photos can be prohibitive for some, but many free and low-cost options are available for use. One of the best free sources for STUNNING high-quality photos is deposit photos. Other options include Unsplash and Pixels. Scan through any of the mentioned sites to find the perfect picture for your next project.
Canva
Canva is one of the MOST POPULAR online tools for creating stunning graphics and graphics-based content WITHOUT EXPERIENCE. It’s simple to use and can be used by anyone with a computer and an internet connection.
Canva’s easy drag-and-drop interface makes creating graphics effortless and its library, which has thousands of templates, makes it painless to create content that looks professional. Canva also has a wide range of tools for editing graphics and content, making it an excellent tool for creating graphics for blogs, websites, or any other type of content.
ALL of your designs are SAVED, so you can create templates that you will use time and time again–making the process of designing blog graphics that much faster.
You can also use their HIGH QUALITY photos in your blog posts; this means you don’t have to spend hours looking for pictures on Pixels or Unsplash. Please note it’s essential to read their terms here before downloading any of their photos for use.
The other best thing is that it’s free!
However, the paid plan with even better and advanced features costs roughly $12 monthly, which is nothing for the value I get! Please don’t get me wrong; you can get away with using the free plan as a newbie blogger.
To be competitive in today’s market, many bloggers turn to social networks to reach their audience. These platforms allow bloggers to share their content with a broader audience and generate traffic to their website or blog. There are many different social media platforms to choose from, and each has its own set of features and advantages.
One of the most popular social media platforms for bloggers is Pinterest.
I mean, does a creative who doesn’t love Pinterest even exist? We’re not sure! For starters, Pinterest is the best brainstorming platform around. Type any keyword into the search bar, and you will find tons of inspiration. Anyway, whether you’re looking for your next article idea or understanding which graphics go viral, Pinterest is essential. Plus, once your articles are published, you can pin your pieces and gain more traffic to your blog. Just make sure you are using relevant keywords so people can find your pins!
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that allows users to manage multiple social media accounts from one dashboard. Hootsuite offers features for tracking the performance of your social media campaigns, analytics that show the demographics of your followers, the types of content that are being shared, and the amount of engagement your content is receiving.
This information can help you optimize your social media strategies and increase the reach and engagement of your posts.
Google Keep
Google offers many excellent tools for business professionals and creatives. Google Keep is another one of those tools that are AMAZING for thinkers and writers.
Are you the type that has great ideas all the time and needs a place to write them down and store them? This app allows you to do just that, along with photos and audio. You can record voice memos, have them transcribed by the app and organize everything with easily accessible labels available in various colors.
Unfold
Make promoting your articles on your Instagram stories easy and beautiful with Unfold. One of the best places to promote articles on Instagram is through IG stories. Unfold is a brilliant app designed to make professional Instagram stories.
The app has hundreds of pre-made templates. Plus, you can edit photos and pre-plan your feed. There are free templates available, but we recommend Unfold Pro if you want access to everything. If you’re going to part with $12.99 monthly, you can purchase template bundles of a specific style you like.
Milkshake
Milkshake is an app that allows you to create a stunning landing page for all of the links and content you want to highlight. It allows you to quickly create a brand story with pre-made templates for about sections, links, and anything else.
You can use this short link for your Instagram bio and draw all of your traffic directly to the content you want to promote. Plus, you can get insights into trending topics, and content viewed the most, to help you strategize and plan for future content. Milkshake is entirely free to use and works wonders if you don’t own a website or blog.
Medium
If you’re already writing, why not publish your articles on Medium and add another revenue stream into your business. Medium is a popular and respected website where readers find engaging content, and writers get paid when anyone reads their articles.
Rank IQ
SEO(search engine optimization) tools can help you improve the visibility of your content on search engines. In simple words they create a chance for you to rank higher in search engine results pages.
Improved visibility and ranking can lead to increased web traffic and potential customers.
RankIQ is mainly for SEO purposes. It is a SEO toolset that is built specifically for bloggers.
It provides you with tips on how to write optimized content in half the time. The tool has a library for low competition keywords with potentially high traffic.
That helps you pick topics, strategize future blog posts and determine which keywords to focus on so you can improve your website’s positioning in SEARCH ENGINES and ensure more people find your content. You can also use this information to change your blog’s content and design to maximize reader engagement.
Blog Planner
As a blogger, you know that regularly creating high-quality content and sharing it is essential to your success. But with so much to do, it can be hard to know where to start—or when to stop. That’s where a blog planner comes in. A blog planner can help you plan and track your content creation process.
That can help you ensure that you are publishing content regularly. It can be an excellent tool for helping you achieve your blogging goals.
There are many different types of blog planners. A blog planner can be a physical or electronic tool.
A blogging course
Whether you’re looking to start a blog as a business or want to learn how to blog for fun, taking a blogging course can help you get started on the right foot.
That’s where blogging courses come in. By taking a course on how to blog, you’ll learn the basic skills necessary to get started.
Some of the topics that you can expect to learn from a course are:
- how to create your own blog from scratch
- the essential tools you need
- how to use social media to promote it
- how to monetize it
YES, blogging can be an exciting and rewarding experience, but it does take some time to get used to the technical aspects of the job. That is why again, you need guidance from someone who has done this before you. Trust me; you will save yourself a lot of headaches and trial and error scenarios.
If you do not have the money to invest in expensive courses from your favorite bloggers, you can go to Udemy, where you will find great blogging courses for as little as $20.
Conclusion
Choosing the right blogging tools can make your blogging experience more efficient and enjoyable. The importance of selecting the right tools cannot be overstated and will help you minimize frustrating experiences and set you up for success in blogging.
Are there any other tools you like that we left out? We would love to hear about them in the comment section below!