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Blogging Tools – If you are someone who is just starting out with blogging, then the chances are that you are looking for some tools which can help you out in your awesome Journey of Blogging. Now, if you go out on the Internet looking for some
Best SEO tools, then the chances are that you’ll land on either a Landing Page with a list of Paid tools with their affiliate links or will end up landing upon a tool page that is charging you hundreds of dollars and claiming that it is the only tool you ever need. Well, since you are just starting out, you might not have the budget or might not wanna spend too much on tools initially.
Don’t you worry, as you can still get successful with blogging even without spending a penny on tools? Surely, some of the paid tools does help and makes the job easier. But if you don’t wanna spend too much, you can still get great stats of your blog. Today, in this post, we would be listing Best Free Tools for Bloggers. Now if that sounds interesting, let us hop right into it. Should we?
Best Tools for Bloggers
Here, we have listed the best tools which will help you in your journey in blogging. Now, do note that these tools are not influenced by any third party or individual. These are just our personal picks. Also, we have categorized these tools based on their purpose. That being said, let us now take a look at the first tool on the list. Should we?
Best Tools for SEO
Google Keyword Planner (Free)
Well, blogging is all about finding great keywords and then writing awesome content on the same. Before you even start writing, the first thing that you do is find a keyword and a topic for your article or blog post. Now, you gotta make sure that the keyword you choose is something that people are searching about. Why do you ask? Well, does it make sense to write 1000 words on a topic which no one is looking for? No, right? That’s why keyword research is one of the most important yet most neglected factors when it comes to new bloggers.
Now, don’t run behind the High Volume or Highest CPC just because you wanna make money. Chances are that you won’t be able to rank for it due to high competition. With the Google Keyword Planner, you get a lot of details and stats including the Volume, CPC and much more. Since it is completely free, why don’t you give it a try?
SemRush (Freemium)
SemRush is another great Freemium tool when it comes to SEO. Well, if you don’t already know what is a “Freemium” tool. Then we would like to tell you that a Freemium tool is a paid tool that has a free version too with some limitations. Semrush has a lot of features that are free for all. For instance, you can opt-in for a 7 day Free Trial which is a great thing. There are over 4,000,000 SEMrush users out there, so you can trust this tool for your SEO needs.
Ahrefs (Paid)
Ahrefs is probably the most popular paid tool when it comes to Off-Page SEO. Now, do note that buying these paid tools won’t really ensure that you are ranking in Google. It just that, this tool can help you in finding some great keywords, analyzing your competitors and finding some good link opportunities. You still need to do the hard work yourself in order to step up your rankings in Search Engines like Google.
Also, if you are a complete beginner, then we won’t really recommend you go for a paid tool. Why? Well, take it this way, since you are a complete beginner, then why not utilize the free tools out there like Google Keyword Planner. Anyways, if you are someone who has the budget and wants to get your hands on something which is easy to use, then you should definitely consider checking out the Ahrefs.
Best Tools for Writing
Grammarly (Freemium)
Once you have decided on the topic, the second thing which you gonna wanna do is write an awesome and valuable article on that topic. Well, none of us is really perfect when it comes to writing Awesome Articles. Well, this is where Grammarly comes to rescue. There are times when we make a typo or maybe a grammatical error which we shouldn’t. Grammarly has an extension that is completely free to install on your browser and it will help you in correcting the Grammar and Format of your Blog post.
They also have a premium paid plan which offers many more features. But considering the fact that you are just starting out, the Grammarly Free version will do the job pretty well. If you have never tried out the Grammarly, then we will highly recommend you do so.
Yoast SEO (Recommended for On-Page SEO)
Now, before we start on this, we would like you to know that just because it contains “SEO” in its title, it does not really mean that it will do the whole SEO for you. It’s just that it does help in your journey of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Especially for the On-Page SEO and to generate a sitemap. It is completely free to use and is trusted by millions of blogs around the world which are powered by WordPress. If you have never checked Yoast SEO out before, then we will highly recommend you do so right now.
Best Tools for Media Files
Pixabay (Free)
Who likes reading 1000 words of Post with no images at all. Probably, No one, Right? Well, one of the worst mistakes that you can do as a newbie is copying Images from Other Blogs. You should never ever think of it. Most of the blogs reserve the rights for the images on their blogs and if you try to copy their content or images, then they can raise a Copyright Claim on your website. This can result not only in traffic drop but even deindexing of your website.
This is where royalty-free images come into play. Pixabay is one of the most popular Royalty-Free Images Directory where you can find millions of images that you can use on your blog and don’t even worry about the Copyright Claims.
Canva (Freemium)
If you want to take the images on your blog to the next level, then you should definitely take a look at Canva. Not everyone is familiar to Photoshop, right? Well, Canva can do a lot of great things when it comes to editing images and it is free to use. Though, they do have a Paid Premium Plan which has a lot of other amazing features. But, even the free version does the job pretty well. Just in case if you were wondering, Yes, even we at the Blogging Journal are using it for our Featured Images.
Since it is free to use, why don’t you give it a shot to see if it is your cup of tea?
TinyPNG (Freemium)
Do you know that the Page Speed load time is one of the factors of SEO? And do you know what is that one common thing which makes the page load slower? Well, you guessed it right, the Images. Now, you should compress the images before uploading them on your website to make sure that it does not make your page load slower. TinyPNG is a completely free website and tool which does a great job of reducing the file size of your images with the help of lossless compression. This makes sure that your images look good and load faster at the same time.
Best Tools for Analyzation
Google Analytics (Free)
Alright, so you have done a great job so far of Publishing Posts on your blog and adding images to make it more visually appealing. Now, you do need something by which you will be able to take a look at the stats of your blog. Everyone wants to see How much traffic they are getting and what are the pages which are getting the most traffic, Right? Well, this is where Google Analytics helps a lot.
It is completely free to use and gives you a lot of useful stats about your blog which includes but are not limited to Page Views, Sessions, Bounce Rate, Traffic by Countries, Operator, and much more. All this is quite useful in analyzing how your blog is performing.
Heap (Premium)
Heap is another great In Product Analytics tool which does a great job of providing stats in-depth of your website. Heap automatically captures web and mobile app behavioral data. Also, the setup process is also a pretty straightforward, simple and quick process. All you really need to do is Sign up, Place the snippet code on your website, Create Virtual Events and analyze the stats of your website in Heap.
They also offer some High Conversion Optimization which tends to work pretty decent. But again, if you are someone who is just starting out, then you should go towards the free Alternatives, like Google Analytics, since that would be enough for the most part.
Best Tools for Team Communication
Slack (Freemium)
Slack is a great platform when it comes to Team Management. Now, you might be someone who is taking a step further for your blog by creating a team for your website. Managing this team is one of the most crucial things in order to make sure that the work is always effective and your website grows. Slack is a platform that helps the team communicate in a professional way. All in all, Slack is a great platform when it comes to Efficient teamwork for every enterprise.
Trello (Free)
If you are looking for something which is much more simpler and on point, then you should definitely take a look at Trello. Trello consists of boards in which a Team Manager manages and assigns tasks to the team. For instance, a lot of people prefer using it for assigning topics to the Authors. Not only that, you can even use it to assign tasks to SEO, SMM and more teammates in your team.
So that’s it guys, this was our take on Best Free Tools for Bloggers. We hope that you found this post useful. Let us know your favorite tools when it comes to blogging in the comments section down below.
