What is your biggest concern as a blogger?
According to a study CoSchedule conducted, lack of time is the biggest concern bloggers have.
Wouldn’t it be life-changing if tools existed to help you blog faster?
Fortunately, they do, and the best part–most of them are free.
These tools have been grouped by blogging activities.  If you need a tool for a specific blogging task, check out the bold subheads. To save you time finding a needed tool, the tasks have been organized in alphabetical order.
[bctt tweet=”Bloggers need to save time to get all their blogging tasks done. These tools will help you save time. “]Indispensable Tools to Expedite Your Blogging
Blog Analysis
- Quicksprout.com: Neil Patel’s site will analyze the overall strength of your blog for you.  Simply put in your URL, and the analysis is free.  I am giving you fair warning, though. You may not like the result.  Patel and the QuickSprout staff will help you fix the weaknesses they find, but then there is a charge involved.
2. Grammarly.com:Â Grammarly is a free site that will check your grammar for you. Â Supposedly, the site is able to catch 250 more grammar errors than your word processor.
3. Google Analytics: Whether or not you self-host, you have access to the information available on Google Analytics to varying degrees. Let the data it reveals to you guide your future planning.
4. Alexa.com: Many experts revealed they won’t subscribe to someone’s blog if that person doesn’t have a low Alexa score.
5. Check Page Rank: is Google’s way of checking your blog’s importance.  However, Google’s score is based on quality backlinks.  The more quality backlinks, the higher the score, and the better the blog. (Note: Subscribers to MostlyBlogging have access to a Link Exchange where we strive to build quality backlinks.)
Comments
6. CommentLuv: While there is a small charge for CommentLuv, many users feel the nominal price is more than worth it to encourage others to leave comments on your blog.
Graphics
7. Picassa: I Email the photo from my phone to my Email and open it on the computer. I then use Picassa to modify my image. Once in Picassa, you can crop the image, change its colors, blur it, add a border, and do many other special effects.
8. Canva: Once the graphic is the way you want it, put it into Canva. There are free backgrounds, and templates with text are already designed for your use. If you’d prefer, you can just write the text and not use a predesigned template. You can crop once you’re in Canva as well.
9. Paint: I use the Paint app for cropping my graphics.  My screenshot have all been modified in Paint.  I circle the important elements in red and then save them to my desktop  You can write on your graphics in Paint as well.
10. Piktochart: At Piktochart, you can create infographics, presentations, or banners. The site is versatile, free, fast,  and easy. The graphics can easily be downloaded onto your computer and uploaded onto a blog post.
11. Easel.ly: Easel.ly and Piktochart can all be used to create infographics, but I find myself repeatedly returning to Easel.ly more than the others when I need an infographic.
Headlines
12. Contentideator: Stuck for a headline idea? Plug your topic into this website.
13. Contentrow.com:Â Not feeling terribly creative? Let this site do the thinking for you.
14. Portent: Like with Contentrow, the folks over at Portent tend to offer silly, albeit entertaining, headline ideas.
15. Tweakyourbiz.com offers more serious headline ideas.
16. Hubspot will offer you three headline ideas, and then charge you after that.
17. Capitalizemytitle.com This free site is great for those of you that have trouble remembering your capitalization rules! It capitalizes your headline for you while you type, and then lets you copy the headline to your post.
18. Advanced Marketing Institute:Â The Advanced Marketing Institute will analyze the merit of your headline for you. Advanced Marketing Institute actually takes the guess-work out of headline writing, so the effectiveness of your headline is no longer subjective.
19. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer: No matter where I begin my journey to find a headline for an article, I always end at CoSchedule.  I won’t use a headline unless CoSchedule gives it a satisfactory score.
Money
20. A spreadsheet: Excel, or any spreadsheet, is fine for this purpose. If you are spending money on your blog, your accountant will want your outgoing (and incoming) expenses if there are any.
Networking
21. WordPress Reader: I will often scroll through the reader and comment on blogs that I find there. I have made wonderful connections that way.
Organization
22. Evernote: The value of Evernote is not overrated.  I use it for blogging use as well as for personal to-do lists. You can add a photo you are planning to feature with your article to your Evernote, so you won’t forget what photo you had in mind.
23. An Editorial Calendar: Self-hosted bloggers have access to the WordPress calendar. However, any calendar will do. You need a place to plan when you are scheduling your blog posts.
24. Dropbox: Never lose your documents or photos again. You will always have them handy since Dropbox is both an app and a website.
 Platform
25. WordPress: I read a recommendation that Tumblr is good for people who write shorter pieces.  I am not familiar with Weebly.  I have used Google’s Blogger and WordPress. I recommend WordPress.
Research
26. Content Curation sites:Â Pinterest, Flipboard, StumbleUpon, and Reddit are great places to do research for an article. Â Many have a bonus of bringing traffic to your blog if you use them correctly.
Scheduling
27. Ahalogy: I use Ahalogy to schedule all my Pinterest pins to my boards and community boards. I believe this is one of the perks of self-hosting.  I am such a fan, I wanted to review the site favorably, but the post wouldn’t be relevant to WordPress.com users who aren’t able to use the site.
28. Hootsuite: Bloggers need to use social media to promote their blogs. Save time, and let Hootsuite do your scheduling on social media for you.
Social Media
29. Click to Tweet: This site enables others to promote your posts for you.
30. Hashtagify: You want like-minded bloggers to be able to find you on Twitter. This site will tell you what hashtags to use with your Tweets, so they can.
SEO
Bonus Tool:
31. Google AdWords: KeyWord Planner:Â Bloggers dream of being on the front page of Google. This site will enable you to tag your posts, so Google can find you.
In conclusion, many bloggers work outside of the home in addition to dealing with all these blogging tasks. Â Use these tools to expedite your blogging, and the time you put into blogging will be that much less. Perhaps you could use the time you gain to network and grow your readership, now that you will have time to do it.
Bloggers, please share this post, so others know about these blogging tools.
What do you think? Are there any you’d recommend not on the list? Are there any tools on the list you are currently using that you would recommend to others? I look forward to your views.
Related Posts:
How to Use Canva: A Quick Guide
6 Top Photo Effects that Will Make You Glow with Pride
11 Ways to Absolutely Help You Simplify Your Blogging
101 Best Blogging Tools & Resources (2016 Edition)
Sources:
http://coachdebbieruns.com/15-free-blogging-tools-that-will-make-your-life-easier/
http://writetodone.com/bestselling-book-titles-2/
