Blogging, when done with excellence, can take dozens of hours of your week. That’s a lot of time you could be spending getting new customers or, better yet, spending time with family. Thankfully, the right tools for blogging can cut your time in half—or more.
Most of these tools are 100% free. A few do cost money, but I’ll be sure to let you know which those are. Also, please note that I’m an affiliate for some of the tools that cost money. (Again, I’ll let you know which those are for the sake of transparency.) As a business owner, I only promote tools I love, so enjoy!
Tools for Blogging: The Writing Process
Grammarly for Editing
If grammar isn’t really your thing, that’s OK. Grammarly, even with its free version, is pretty good at catching basic mistakes. That includes things like spelling, incorrect verb tense, etc.
It won’t catch more complex errors, though. So if you are concerned about your writing, consider hiring a writer or a copy editor.
Hemingway Editor
The Hemingway Editor tool is pretty cool because it doesn’t just focus on the grammar of your article. It also helps you catch clunky sentences, passive voice, and any monotony in your cadence. In other words, it helps write the kind of content people online want to read.
Tools for Blog SEO
Are you trying to research SEO on your own and going over your blog again and again to make sure it’s optimized for search engines? If so, you know how it can suck hours of your precious time.
These tools can help you out, especially if you’re an SEO beginner!
Yoast SEO
If you have a WordPress site, the Yoast SEO plugin can help you optimize every single blog post. Plus, it’s just super satisfying to get that green SEO light when you’re done. 😉
If you need help learning how to work your Yoast plugin, or if you need basic SEO help in general, check out my blog post on SEO for WordPress. The basic teachings in this post will help you even if your blog isn’t on WordPress.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest has a free plan that will help you research keywords for your blog posts. You can also type in your site’s URL and have Ubersuggest run a test to check your website’s SEO health. I highly recommend this tool!
Tools for Blogging Graphics
Free Photo Sites
I may not be a fantastic photographer, but I love beautiful photos, especially for my blogs. If you need some sites that offer copyright-free photos that cost nothing, check out this blog post:
9 Places to Find Copyright-Free Photos
A lot of these sites have photos that are absolutely gorgeous. And it beats spending hours each week taking photos yourself.
Canva
I’m a teensy bit obsessed with Canva if I’m honest with myself. I introduced my mom to Canva just a few months ago and she’s hooked too!
We love it so much because it makes designing graphics and PDFs SO easy. And it saves a ton of time… seriously!
It also has a bunch of easy-to-use design templates to get started if you’re not a natural designer (like me).
I use Canva Pro and love it because it gives me access to countless more photos and templates that save me a ton of time on graphics for my business and for clients. In fact, I love it so much I’m an affiliate for Canva Pro!
Social Media Templates
I love templates, what can I say? They just save me so much time! These social media templates by Bluchic are lovely and easy to customize.
I’m an affiliate for them as well, so if you use my link to purchase from them, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Tools to Promote Your Blog
Later.com: Social Media Scheduler
Later is pretty great as a social media scheduler, especially if you focus primarily on Facebook and Instagram. You can easily switch between your different schedules for your social media platforms and copy/paste any posts you want to repurpose.
Plus, it gives you direct access to Unsplash, so you don’t have to go through the whole process of download the photo and then reuploading it to Later.
One more thing I really like about Later is that when you’re creating Instagram posts, it has a “Suggested Hashtags” tool that lets you find relevant hashtags for your topic.
Tailwind for Pinterest
Many bloggers get most of their traffic from Pinterest—and Tailwind is the reason why. It lets you quickly schedule dozens of posts at a time and join “Tribes” that will help share your content.
I’m an affiliate for Tailwind because I’ve seen how well it can work for bloggers. Click here to get started with Tailwind!
Flodesk for Email
I love Flodesk’s templates. They’re beautiful and easy to use and customize to match your brand. Plus, they also have templates that are more plain if that’s what you need too.
I started out my business with Mailchimp and found it to be a little difficult for me to use with the free version. I finally made the leap over to Flodesk in June and I couldn’t be happier with my choice!
While using Mailchimp, my email open rate was between 15% and 20%, which isn’t bad… but a few weeks after switching over to Flodesk, I found my open rate increase. It’s now between 25% and 35% (sometimes 40% or higher), depending on the content.
Because I love it so much, I’m an affiliate with them. If you sign up using my affiliate link, you actually get 50% off of your monthly price–for life.
Flodesk normally charges $38 per month (and doesn’t increase as your subscribers increase like other email service providers do). But with my link, you will only pay $19 for as long as you have Flodesk.
Click here to start a free trial with Flodesk.
Want to Save Even MORE Time With Tools for Blogging?
I have an entire list of 18+ different tools you can use for writing, graphics, social media, email, and more. Plus, I also have a long list of blogging prompts to get your creative juices flowing.
Click here to get my FREE Blogging Bundle, which includes those lists!
Jenny Rose is a freelance copywriter and content marketer specializing in B2B marketing, real estate, and accounting. She's written for clients like AAA, Edward Jones, Flyhomes, Guild Education, and more. Her writing has also appeared in publications like Business Insider and GOBankingRates.
