5 of the Best Free Hobby Bloggers’ Resources and Tools

By: | December 3, 2017 | Tags: , , , |

these hobby bloggers' resources are free

Hobby Bloggers’ Resources and Tools

by Max Greene

Whether you write content to promote your business or you run a website as a hobby, there’s no denying that blogging can be great fun. Not only do you get to write whatever you’d like, but you get to meet new and exciting characters through networking, social media and blog commenting. And it’s those other people who make blogging worthwhile. If you want to make your blog better and reach more people, check out these free resources


  • Jetpack

If you run your blog on the self-hosted version of WordPress, then you’re in luck. Jetpack, which is owned and maintained by WordPress itself, is one of the most valuable free tools you can use to build your blog and make it more engaging. Not only does this plugin include security and SEO features, but it allows you to backup your old blogs and media files so that you’ll never lose one of your posts. Jetpack also includes these fantastic features, too:

  • Analytics: WordPress will track how many people read your blog posts, and give you insights into where those visitors come from
  • Contact Form: Forget downloading another plugin for your contact form – the forms included in Jetpack can be customized and sent to whatever email address you’d like
  • Social media automation: Connect your Twitter, Facebook and Google+ profiles to your WordPress dashboard, and new posts will be automatically sent out.
  • Canva

With the internet becoming increasingly visual, it’s important that you follow the trends and create multimedia content to complement your blog posts. That’s where Canva helps. This free tool allows you to create blog post images, infographics and social media graphics in minutes, meaning you’ll never have to hire a graphic designer again to work on your site.

The best part about Canva is that it comes with hundreds of pre-made templates which you can edit using a simple drag-and-drop system. In its ‘Blog Graphic’ category alone, there are hundreds of attractive images which you can use for your featured images, which will help your blog posts stand out online and make them more shareable on social media platforms.

[Read: How to Use Canva: A Quick Guide]

  • Twitter

The chances are that you use Twitter already, but are you aware of just how valuable the platform can be in promoting your blog? Whether you run a business or you write on your blog as a hobby, we all want to reach more people with our writing. That’s where Twitter comes in, allowing you to network with like-minded individuals and drive traffic to your blog.

Make sure you use a scheduling tool like HootSuite or Buffer to keep your Twitter feed up to date with new content, and also take part in a Twitter hour to network. Oh, and don’t forget to create some attractive social media graphics using Canva, as we’ve mentioned above, as tweets with images get 150% more retweets than those without.

  • CommentLUV

A few years ago, blog comments were a great way to gain backlinks and make your website more attractive to search engines like Google. But the practice of spammy blog comments quickly ended after webmasters turned off the ‘follow’ tag on a blog comment link. Because of this, a lot of webmasters stopped commenting on other people’s blogs, as they no longer benefit from an SEO-perspective. But you can change that with CommentLUV.

When somebody leaves a comment on your blog, this free-to-use WordPress plugin will visit their website and then add a link to their latest blog post, giving them free promotion and incentivizing them to comment on your blog. It’s a great way to reward people who engage with your blog, and it can make the difference between somebody commenting or not.

[Read: How to Use CommentLuv to Easily Get Blog Comments]

  • Grammarly

Let’s face it: nobody will want to read your blog post if it’s littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. The good news is that you don’t have to be the world’s best writer. If you’re not using Grammarly to proof your content and check for spelling and grammatical errors, you’re missing out. This free-to-use tool is available as a web app, a Google Chrome extension, a Microsoft Word plugin and a macOS app.

To use Grammarly, you simply import the content you’d like to proofread, and Grammarly will work its magic, offering suggestions and helping you perfect your content. Oh, and there is a premium version which will offer deeper insights and recommendations, but the free version is all you need as a starting point.

[Read: Never Make Grammar Mistakes Again–How to Use Grammarly]

There you have it – five of the best free tools and resources to improve your blog. Whether you’re new to blogging or you’ve been working on a content strategy for a while, we hope that you find these tools and resources useful. Do let us know how you get on!

About the Author

Max Greene is the Managing Director of Muffin Marketing, a marketing agency specializing in content marketing, social media marketing, and search engine optimization.

Readers, what’s your favorite free blogging tool? Which resources can you recommend to other hobby bloggers? I look forward to your answers in the comments section.

Please share this post so hobby bloggers discover Max’s ideas for hobby bloggers’ resources and tools.

Related

[Host blogger’s comments: If you are a new blogger and feel you could benefit from one-on-one coaching, I hope you’ll consider my blog coaching service a resource.]

Image Source:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/business-coffee-composition-computer-265667/

  1. Jeanette S. Hall

    Had removed JetPack from my computer a long time ago, didn’t realize all the benefits offered by it. Have re-installed it now thanks to your blog’s commenter, Max Greene! Thanks, Max for your information you gave to both us and Janice.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Jeannette,
      Great to hear from you. Thank you for your comments. I couldn’t blog without Jetpack. Sometimes their updates can be glitchy. Then, I really panic because I rely on Jetpack so much.
      Janice

    • Max Greene

      Thanks for stopping by, Jeanette. It’s definitely a powerful tool – I just think their new user interface makes it hard to find and activate a lot of its features.

  2. Philip Verghese Ariel

    Hi Janice and Max,
    Thanks for the informative piece.
    I have been using all these tools on my websites.
    But never knew some of the features of Jetpack.
    Of course, Canva is no doubt a blogger’s wonderful tool
    Even its free version carries a lot of features. thanks for the video too
    CommentLuv is really amazing but sad, it’s working well with one of my sites and on another one, it’s playing havoc. 🙂
    Thanks for sharing.
    Have a great week ahead to both of you.
    Keep sharing
    Best
    ~ Phil

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Philip,
      Thanks for writing us. I’ve heard mixed reports about CommentLuv on Twitter. I’ve heard there is no support for the plugin but others report everything is fine.
      Janice

  3. Wednesday Elf

    Thanks for the link to a tutorial about Canva. Looking forward to incorporating some special images in my social sharing of my blog posts. Always appreciate your blogging advice.

  4. Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski

    I removed JetPack from my main blog because my host said it was slowing it down. I have it on my other sites but am not sure about it now. I love Canva, Grammarly, and Twitter. I used to use Comment Luv but it’s not being supported anymore because the developer became ill.

    • Janice Wald

      My side has run slowly and I believe this cost me organic traffic; however, I cannot imagine blogging without Jetpack. Thanks for writing!
      Janice

  5. Terri Webster Schrandt

    Great info, Janice! Most hobby bloggers are likely on WordPress dot com (the free site), so Jetpack automatically comes with it. You can’t add comment luv or any other plugins to a dot com free account. For new bloggers and people just having fun with their blogs (like me), using the free site is the best way to start a blog. Many move on to self-hosting from there. The only care and feeding I want to do is to change the theme, colors or header images.

  6. Freddy G. Cabrera

    Hey Max!

    I love these tools!

    I really like the Jetpack and Grammarly tool. They are very helpful.

    Jetpack is very helpful for your WordPress blog. It comes with a few different features.

    I love the grammarly tool because it really helps with grammar!

    Thanks for sharing this!

    Cheers! 😀

  7. Yasar Ali

    Hi Janice,
    I’m using Grammarly, Jetpack & Canva myself on my blogs and they are really great tools. But Commentluv I won’t recommend to my fellow bloggers.

  8. Mehmood ali

    These are the best tools and you done very fine effort to make uor work easy…God bless you

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Mehmood,
      Thanks for writing. I am glad you agree with my guest author’s choice of tool recommendations.
      Janice

  9. JoeHx

    I start every blog post in Grammarly. I used to use MS Word, but Grammarly provides better grammar suggestions, plus it’s “in the cloud” so I can access it from anywhere.

    Also a lot of Word’s autocorrect is annoying.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Joe,
      Thanks for writing. I never heard of this. I have heard of people starting in Google Docs. I’m not surprised by MS Word, but Grammarly? Am I understanding? A place to blog in Grammarly? Cool! Another function of Grammarly! I have Grammarly installed so I use that and WordPress editor. Thanks for commenting.
      Janice

      • JoeHx

        It’s not a public post in Grammarly, I just type my blog post on the Grammarly web app and copy-paste it over to my blog when I’m done.

  10. Manish Balda

    Thanks for the Tools Provided. I Used all Free resource Tools Provided in this Article.Great Article!! thank You.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Manish,
      I use them and love them as well. Thanks for writing us.
      Janice

  11. Moss

    Hi Max & Janice,

    Great article. Though my blog is relatively new, I use all these plugins already. But as for jetpack, I never knew about it’s incredible features until now.

    Canva, Twitter, and the others tools are a must use for every blogger. They help make your blogging life a lot easier.

    Keep up the good work.

  12. Nisha

    Hey!
    Great post!
    I enjoyed reading your blog, I already bookmark it. As your content is the “king” of blogging and you describe it so well. I appreciate your affords. keep on posting
.

  13. Andrew Lynn

    I totally agree with you that commentluv is a great tools to detect spammer. Thanks for sharing this great resource.

  14. Zain Khan

    Thanks for sharing the great article. It’s very useful. I appreciate you.

  15. Eve Hunt

    Great post, but you said Chrome is the world most popular browser. That is Google’s aim to be the only browser. Remember when Google’s logo was “”We won’t be evil.””? Too late now. Soon Chrome will force web developers to build in code to slow down Firefox or Duck Duck Go. Like Microshit did with Wordperfect.ï»ż

  16. Rozen

    Hey Janice Wald ,
    Thank You for Sharing your informative Article..
    Already i used Canva & Grammarly . Really it’s work awesome.
    those tools is very helpful for every Blogger & Freelancer.
    i am gladly to read your article.

    • Janice Wald

      Thanks for the kind words. I am also a huge fan of Canva and Grammerly. Thanks for commenting.
      Janice

  17. AKMAL

    I used to write all of my blog post in Grammarly. I used to use MS Word, but Grammarly provides better grammar suggestions, plus it’s “in the cloud” so I can access it from anywhere and use these tools on mobile also.

  18. Samuel

    Great topics!

    but where I get a jetpack and how I attached it on my site?

    help me, if you have a video.

    • Janice Wald

      Hi Samuel,
      I don’t have a video but I brought you a link. If you want to download Jetpack for your WordPress site, go to this link
      Thanks for commenting.
      Janice

  19. Knownepal

    Great post ,Thanks for the tools .Hope it will help me. I tried twitter for promoting my website but i didn,t suceeded.

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