7 of the Best Blogging Tools for Beginners
When you are starting out blogging there are TONS of companies out there that claim to make your blogging life easier. Many of them don’t, I know this because, I have tried hundreds of different platforms, plugins, websites, and tools. A lot of them are confusing, expensive, or just don’t live up to the hype.
But, I got you. Here is a quick little list of five of my personal favorite blogging tools I WISH I knew about when I started my website.
Best for Email Marketing: Flo Desk
It’s official. I said goodbye to ConvertKit and hello to Flodesk. Want to know why?
It is simply so much better.
In the past I have used both Mailchimp and Convertkit, both these platforms I found difficult to use, integrate with my website, expensive and most importantly the emails produced were ugly.
I decided to give Flodesk a try last year and it has completely AMAZED me.
No more confusing tags, or blah templates, Flodesk makes it easy to make on-brand, beautiful emails! You can customize your fonts and colors seamlessly. Plus the templates are extremely user friendly, and the ‘drag and drop’ interface makes changing and customizing a breeze.
But the best part is no matter how large your list grows, you pay the same every month.
If you aren’t interested in email marketing, I would encourage you to investigate it. Building your email list from the moment you start will help you lots in the future.
Consider pain points that your audience has and develop a freebie that remedies this. Offer it basically, in exchange for their email and boom you’re done. Then, if you are with Flodesk which I definitely encourage you to be, you can create a welcome email sequence with the help of their templates.
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Best for Keyword Research: Ubersuggest
In the past, I have used Google Keyword Planner, but recently Ubersuggest has jumped to the top of my favorites list. Why?
It gives more insights that I am interested in. Both Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest, in essence, do a similar thing, and sometimes I will check both when doing keyword research but Ubersuggest seems to have better analytics and an easier interface.
With easy color-coded rankings, and you know instantly what keyword is going to work for you, plus there are loads of other helpful tools built into the site, like web audits and SEO tips.
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Best for Ranking Titles: Coschedule Headline Analyzer
I have been using Coschedule Headline Analyzer for years and it has helped me build better blog headlines. This is so important to those looking to grow their blog because having great headlines and titles is going to be what will get you traffic. The best part it’s free, no matter how many headlines you test!
Best for SEO: Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin
This plugin for WordPress is an absolute MUST. Not only does it grade your posts SEO and give actionable tips on how to improve, it also holds powerful integrations which makes connecting your site to Pinterest, google analytics and google console a breeze!
Related: Are you making these blogging mistakes?
Best for Spellchecking: Grammarly
If you have read any of my stuff before, you know that I am super-duper dyslexic, meaning spelling is SUCH a challenge for me. Grammarly is an extension that is free, and you can download it to Google Chrome. It catches things that normal grammar and spelling checks don’t.
Best for Organic Traffic: Pinterest
When you are first starting out it is hard to gain traction and web views through Google. SEO takes a while to kick in, and you might not yet have some of the things that best help SEO like having lots of backlinks and loads of related content. That’s why you 100% should be on Pinterest. When I first started Miles of Smiles I was getting a few hundred clicks a month, and within 2 months of optimizing for Pinterest, I was receiving thousands of clicks a month. This number continued to grow as well! Currently, around 80% of my traffic still comes from Pinterest!
Best for Graphics: Canva
When you are just starting out it can be overwhelming to learn new software like Photoshop and Illustrator to create your graphics. That is why Canva is perfect! Its the interface is super simple and editing graphics is incredibly easy. There are options to pay or upgrade to different levels, but their free version works well for the basics.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Keep in mind that I only share about companies that I truly believe in.