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<strong>31</strong> <strong>BEST</strong> <strong>BLOGGING</strong> <strong>TOOLS</strong> <strong>THAT</strong> <strong>WILL</strong><br />
<strong>SAVE</strong> <strong>YOU</strong> <strong>PRECIOUS</strong> <strong>TIME</strong> <strong>AND</strong> <strong>EFFORT</strong><br />
Blogging is more than just posting compelling and engaging content online. It’s also about<br />
creating and maintaining a content marketing strategy to grow your website. Are you in need of a<br />
blogging tool for your WordPress blog? If yes, read on! Let’s contribute to your blog’s success<br />
by helping you choose among the best paid and free blogging tools around.<br />
Whether you are looking for efficient marketing applications, design plugins or blog writing<br />
tools, you’ve come to the right place. Creating, publishing and promoting blog posts can take<br />
several hours, but you don’t need to worry! This article lists reliable blogging tools under<br />
different categories that can save you immense time and effort. Time to put together great<br />
content efficiently and strategically!<br />
<strong>BLOGGING</strong> IS NOT JUST A HOBBY, <strong>YOU</strong><br />
CAN TURN IT INTO A BUSINESS! ASIDE<br />
FROM USING THE <strong>BEST</strong> <strong>BLOGGING</strong><br />
<strong>TOOLS</strong>, HERE ARE 10 MORE WAYS TO BE<br />
A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE ENTREPRENEUR!<br />
IMAGE COMPRESSION <strong>AND</strong><br />
OPTIMIZATION<br />
1. WP SMUSH<br />
Are you searching for one of the best blogging tools for image optimization and compression?<br />
Try optimizing and compressing your WordPress blog images using WP Smush.
It is one of the easiest and widely used plugins for website photos, even the ones uploaded and<br />
stored in a mobile device’s photo library. You can even use a free version if you’re just looking<br />
into trying light compression work using limited features.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Free Version – Allows limited compression and limited features<br />
WP Smush Pro Version – $19 per month<br />
WP Smush Pro Plus – $99 per month<br />
Save<br />
2. IMAGIFY<br />
Imagify is a reliable image optimizer designed to help bloggers compress photos so their<br />
websites can load faster. There may be a lot of free blogging tools out there offering the same<br />
feature, but through Imagify, you can surely compress images without compromising their<br />
quality!
It provides 3 different levels of compressions: Normal, Aggressive and Ultra. This gives you<br />
more freedom to choose which compression level suits your needs.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Lite – $4.99 per month, you get 1 GB data, about 10,000 images<br />
Basic – $8.99 per month, you get 2 GB data, about 20,000 images<br />
Standard – $19.99 per month, you get 5 GB data, about 50,000 images<br />
Plus – $39.99 per month, you get 15 GB data, about 150,000 images<br />
Enterprise – $69.99 per month, you get 50 GB data, about 500,000 images<br />
BLOG BACKUP UTILITY<br />
3. WPBACKITUP<br />
Many blogging tools are designed to protect a user from the loss of important website data as a<br />
result of server crashes, hacking, power outage and other issues. WPBackItUP is one of them.<br />
This blog tool helps you store the backup in your dashboard, so it can be easily downloaded<br />
whenever needed.<br />
Too preoccupied to manage your WordPress blog backup? Track your progress by using<br />
WPBackItUP’s reminder feature!<br />
Cost<br />
All will expire after 1 year of purchase<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Personal – $79, can be used for 1 website only<br />
Professional – $99, can be used for 5 websites<br />
Premium – $199, can be used for 20 websites<br />
DRAG <strong>AND</strong> DROP WEBSITE<br />
BUILDER<br />
4. ELEGANT THEMES<br />
Elegant Themes provides a wide range of themes for all types of blogs. The featured themes are<br />
simple and easy to use, making them ideal choices for new bloggers.
You don’t need to be a trained professional web designer to make a nice blog layout. Elegant<br />
themes is one of the best blogging tools created to customize websites using simple templates.<br />
Moreover, it helps bloggers optimize their web pages for better search results.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Personal – $69 per year with limited features<br />
Developer – $89 per year with advanced features<br />
Lifetime Access – $249 with a lifetime access to all functions (one-time purchase)<br />
SEO <strong>BLOGGING</strong><br />
5. PREMIUM SEO PACK<br />
If you want to customize your WordPress blog for better rankings in search engines and social<br />
media platforms, get Premium SEO Pack. It allows you to compress the codes of your pages to<br />
the minimum size without any loss of information, and track keywords and pages to improve<br />
your website’s SEO value.<br />
Looking for a free SEO blog tool to help you start your WordPress website? Premium SEO Pack<br />
is not a 100% free blog tool, but its Lite Version offers limited features which can be useful for<br />
up-and-coming bloggers.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Lite Version – free but offers limited features<br />
Regular License – $44, offers additional features<br />
Extended License – $400, offers all features and modules<br />
6. SEMRUSH<br />
Premium SEO Pack is a competitor analysis blogging tool that helps business owners to stay on<br />
top of their competition. Do you want to know your competitors’ keywords and track your<br />
rankings? If yes, then SEMRush is the right tool for you. SEO strategy and backlinks can be a bit<br />
complicated for a newbie blogger and entrepreneur, so you will definitely need help in analyzing<br />
the impact of your existing SEO campaign.<br />
Costs
Pro: $99.95 per month, you get 10,000 results reports<br />
Guru: $199.95 per month, you get 30,000 results<br />
Business: $399.95 per month, you get 50,000 results
Save<br />
BLOG SPEED OPTIMIZATION<br />
7. BJ LAZY LOAD<br />
Looking for free blogging tools for blog speed optimization? Do you want a solution for your<br />
website which takes forever to load because of too much image content? If you love uploading<br />
photos in your WordPress blog, you might want to regularly optimize them for loading. BJ Lazy<br />
Load is a great option.<br />
If the user chooses not to scroll down the page, the photos on the lower part are not loaded. This<br />
improves the bandwidth of the server. With BJ Lazy Load’s image selection feature, you can<br />
pick which photos you do not want to lazy load, whereas the rest of the images will continue to<br />
work.<br />
Cost<br />
You can download BJ Lazy Load for free!<br />
8. WP ROCKET<br />
Do you want to improve user engagement and user engagement in your website? WP Rocket can<br />
speed up and at the same time monetize your WordPress blog. It is a blogging tool providing<br />
efficient database optimization, cache preloading, GZIP compression and more useful features.<br />
You can improve your website’s performance through regular database cleaning schedules!<br />
Costs<br />
Offers a 30-day money-back guarantee<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
WP Rocket Personal Plan – $39, 1 site<br />
Business Plan – $99, 3 sites<br />
Pro Plan – $199, unlimited sites
APPOINTMENT SCHEDULE <strong>AND</strong><br />
BOOKING<br />
9. BIRCHPRESS<br />
BirchPress is a plugin offering online bookings and appointments. It is perfect for business<br />
expansion, and for making the business reservation process more efficient. This blogging tool<br />
also allows you to customize a booking form using a shortcode which can be integrated in your<br />
mobile phone’s calendar.<br />
Costs<br />
Personal Package – $99<br />
Business Package – $199<br />
Business+ Package – $249<br />
MISCELLANEOUS BLOG DESIGN<br />
PLUGINS<br />
10. SOLILOQUY<br />
If you want to improve the aesthetics, user experience and loading time of your website,<br />
Soliloquy is one of your best options. It is an affordable blogging tool allowing users to add<br />
responsive sliders to posts and web pages. Moreover, a drag-and-drop interface makes it easier<br />
for on-the-go bloggers to navigate even in their mobile devices.<br />
Cost<br />
Personal – $19<br />
Multi – $49<br />
Developer – $99<br />
Master – $249<br />
Get a list of 5 additional blogging tools by joining our Free Resource Library, just CLICK<br />
BELOW!
11. ENVIRA GALLERY<br />
Save<br />
Envira Gallery is a popular blogging tool for creating video galleries and responsive images for<br />
WordPress sites. There is a simple drag-and-drop builder to upload everything and organize them<br />
into albums. Easy sorting and access, right? You can also share photos conveniently to your<br />
favorite social media platforms, straight from your mobile devices.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Lite Version – Free<br />
Bronze – $19, available for just 1 website with limited add-ons<br />
Silver – $49, available for 3 websites<br />
Gold – $99, available for unlimited websites with advanced add-ons<br />
Platinum – $249, available for unlimited websites<br />
12. WPFORMS<br />
Having a blog means connecting to, and engaging with your readers using the right blogging<br />
tool. Do you want to create practical forms and enhance user experience while protecting<br />
yourself from spammers? WPForms makes it easier to add contact forms to websites through<br />
pre-designed templates.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
• Basic – $39 per year, offers limited functions
• Plus – $99 per year<br />
• Pro – $199 per year, offers additional features and third-party integrations<br />
• Agency – $499 per year, offers all features<br />
BLOG DESIGN <strong>AND</strong> LA<strong>YOU</strong>T<br />
CUSTOMIZATION<br />
13. CSS HERO<br />
Edit the CSS of any theme without having to write any codes! If you love customizing your blog<br />
layout designs, CSS hero is the blogging tool for you. This blogging tool helps you customize the<br />
design of your website, even if you’re not into programming or coding. Also, you don’t need to<br />
worry about the software being expensive because CSS Hero has affordable packages.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Starter – $29 per year<br />
Personal – $59 per year<br />
Pro – $199 per year<br />
14. QUICK <strong>AND</strong> EASY FAQS<br />
Do you have an online business? Are you thinking of providing a FAQs section without contact<br />
customer support? Quick and Easy FAQs is a free blogging tool for those who offer products and<br />
services. It helps you create a user-friendly FAQs section which can be added as a custom post<br />
and then displayed as shortcode.<br />
Cost<br />
You can download Quick and Easy FAQs for free!<br />
BLOG <strong>AND</strong> SOCIAL MEDIA<br />
SHARING<br />
15. SHAREBANG
Sharebang is one of the best tools you can use to stay on top of all your social media platforms. It<br />
allows you to get maximum traffic for your website through a fast and simple setup process. You<br />
can use its view counter feature to track the number of views of your products, pages, articles<br />
and other similar content.<br />
Moreover, as a blogger, you would always want to write about awesome, relevant things. This<br />
efficient blogging tool can help you spark interest by telling you which topics are trending.<br />
Do you need more social media sharing tools? Check this list of the top 10 social media<br />
management tools!<br />
Cost<br />
Regular License – $12<br />
Extended License – $95
Save<br />
ANALYTICS<br />
16. MONSTERINSIGHTS<br />
MonsterInsights is a Google analytical blogging tool that helps bloggers see how their audience<br />
reach their websites. By using the referral tracking feature, you can check if they saw your blog<br />
through a search engine result or a paid advertisement on social media.<br />
This is not a free blog tool, but trust me, it’s worth it! It can also show you which favored article<br />
format and content can grab your target readers’ attention.<br />
Cost<br />
Basic – $39<br />
Plus – $99<br />
Pro – $199, with access to all functions<br />
SECURITY, MONITORING <strong>AND</strong><br />
HACKING PROTECTION<br />
17. DEFENDER<br />
Defender is a fairly popular blogging tool which enhances a WordPress website’s overall<br />
security. It constantly works to detect any malevolent code in your site, and sends you alerts<br />
upon detection. Protect your blog from hackers by doing regular scans and looking for any<br />
corrupt files. Setting up automated scans is also possible, to make sure you wouldn’t forget<br />
anything.<br />
Cost<br />
Free 30-day trial period<br />
<br />
$49 per month
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT<br />
18. HOOTSUITE<br />
Social media management can be made easy through Hootsuite. It is handy for integrated<br />
campaigns that can be launched across all social media platforms simultaneously. Aside from<br />
scheduling content, this blogging tool allows you to track your brand mentions and find the<br />
demographics of your target audience.<br />
While Hootsuite is not an overall free blog tool, you can still use some helpful features even<br />
without a paid plan.<br />
Cost<br />
Each has a 30-day trial period:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Business – $499 per month<br />
Team – $99 per month<br />
Professional – $19 per month<br />
Enterprise – Hootsuite’s customer service has to be contacted for the pricing information of this plan<br />
SOCIAL BOOKMARKING<br />
19. POCKET<br />
Are you always distracted by off-topic online articles and videos while working on your<br />
projects? Pocket is perfect for individuals who read and watch a lot of materials online, and<br />
badly need a “save it later” feature. This tool allows you to save content on your device so you<br />
can view things whenever you want, even if you’re offline.<br />
Cost<br />
Free – Limited use<br />
Premium – $4.99 per month, full functionality
ONLINE MARKETING CONTENT<br />
<strong>AND</strong> INFLUENCER OUTREACH<br />
20. BUZZSUMO<br />
BuzzSumo is a great blogging tool for those who want to stay on top and write about the mosttalked<br />
about topics. Creating interesting and relevant content is critical for every digital PR link<br />
building and blogging strategy, so it is important to gain access to different trending subjects on<br />
different social media platforms.<br />
Cost<br />
Subscription is required<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Pro Version – $79 per month, allows 5 users and basic functions<br />
Agency Version – $299 per month, allows 10 users and advanced features<br />
Enterprise Version – $699 per month, allows 100 users and is inclusive of all functions
Save<br />
BLOG E-MAIL MARKETING<br />
APPLICATIONS<br />
21. MAILCHIMP
MailChimp is one of the best blogging tools designed to help a user manage his own e-mail lists<br />
using drag and drop elements. Through MailChimp, you can design e-mails and newsletters<br />
using different templates reach out to your subscribers. In addition, it helps you improve<br />
performance by tracking and collecting essential stats.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Free Plan – Allows you to send about 12,000 e-mails to 2,000 subscribers every month<br />
Monthly Plans – From $10 (500 subscribers) to $375 (75,000 subscribers)<br />
Annual Plans – From $120 (500 subscribers) to $4,500 with (75,000 subscribers)<br />
22. CONSTANT CONTACT<br />
Constant Contact is an email management solution for online storage and brand specific e-mail<br />
creations. This blogging tool is capable of creating newsletters and e-mail lists using more than<br />
400 free templates.<br />
Cost<br />
Offers a 60-day free trial<br />
<br />
<br />
E-mail – Starts at $20 per month<br />
E-mail Plus – Starts at $45 per month<br />
WEB FEED MANAGEMENT<br />
23. FEEDBURNER<br />
FeedBurner is one of the most well-known free blogging tools when it comes creating and<br />
organizing website RSS feeds. You can use this software to track almost all the data you want,<br />
from the number of daily and all-time subscriptions to the number of users who view or click<br />
your content.<br />
Cost<br />
You can download FeedBurner for free!
NOTE-TAKING <strong>AND</strong> BLOG<br />
WRITING TOOL<br />
24. EVERNOTE<br />
Do you love writing and taking down notes? If yes, Evernote is just the right blog writing tool<br />
for you. It can help you not only with documenting your ideas, but also when it comes to<br />
managing images and contacts. Good ideas come to us anytime, anywhere, so you may want to<br />
use this tool to organize and make sure you never forget anything.<br />
You can create notebooks for all types of content, and what makes it convenient is that they can<br />
be accessed anywhere and on any device.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Basic – Limited features are offered for free<br />
Plus – $34.99 per month<br />
Premium – $69.99 per month<br />
Get a list of 5 additional blogging tools by joining our Free Resource Library, just CLICK<br />
BELOW!<br />
IMAGE EDITING<br />
25. IMAGESUITE<br />
Save
ImageSuite is a blogging tool that allows you to find free stock photos with no copyright<br />
complications. It has its own editing features, and can help you edit the image without learning a<br />
complicated software like Photoshop. Later on, you can tweak the downloaded image and upload<br />
it to your WordPress website.<br />
Cost<br />
Offers money-back guarantee within 30 days<br />
<br />
Available for $67 (discounted offers that pop up frequently)<br />
LEAD GENERATION<br />
26. OPTINMONSTER<br />
With the help of OptinMonster, it is now possible to convert your about-to-leave website visitors<br />
to e-mail subscribers. It is a widely used lead generation blogging tool that helps bloggers create<br />
signup forms using different themes, templates and layouts. You can now have that long e-mail<br />
subscriber list without spending too much time!<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
• Basic – $9 per month<br />
• Plus – $19 per month<br />
• Pro – $29 per month<br />
CLOUD ACCOUNTING<br />
27. FRESHBOOKS<br />
FreshBooks is one of the most popular accounting blog tools for small business owners<br />
worldwide. It is an excellent software for new entrepreneurs who want to manage their finances,<br />
payments, invoices and accounts online.<br />
Managing your brand can be easier and more manageable through its customizable invoice<br />
templates for logos, colors and fonts. 30-day trial period.
Cost<br />
Lite Package – $15 per month, lets you handle 5 clients<br />
Plus Package – $25 per month, lets you handle 50 clients<br />
Premium Package – $50 per month, lets your handle 500 clients<br />
WEB ANALYTICS<br />
28. GOOGLE ANALYTICS<br />
Google Analytics can track both website traffic and user engagement. It allows you to<br />
understand your blog readers better by telling you which types of content they prefer. You just<br />
need to set your goals and monitor the performance of your website from time to time. These<br />
website performance reports can be sent to you through e-mail, according to pre-defined<br />
schedules.<br />
Cost<br />
Free Version – Limited features<br />
GRAPHIC DESIGN<br />
29. CANVA<br />
If you want to make beautiful graphics and visuals for your blogs and social media profiles, use<br />
Canva. Not all of us are photoshop experts. More so, most people don’t have the time and<br />
patience to learn new, complicated editing applications. This is the perfect free blogging tool for<br />
you if you want your visuals to look like a professionally done graphic design project.<br />
Cost<br />
Free Forever – Free with limited features<br />
Canva for Work – $12.95 per month and per user, advanced features<br />
Enterprise – Customer service should be contacted for price information
Save<br />
WRITING <strong>AND</strong> GRAMMAR<br />
30. FEEDLY<br />
Feedly is one of the most reliable Google Reader replacements out there. Oftentimes, we’re too<br />
busy to read all the web articles we find interesting, so we’ll always save them for later. This<br />
user-friendly blogging tool has a “save for later” feature, so you surely wouldn’t lose any of<br />
those interesting content.<br />
You can keep them organized by categorizing them into separate folders and use them as a<br />
reference for your blog posts later on.
Cost<br />
Free Version – Allows you to organize your feeds, and integrate different social media platforms<br />
Pro Version – Offers 2 different subscription plans with more advanced features such as third-party<br />
integration, improved search and full article search; new content is made available faster with premium<br />
support. $65 and $145 per year.<br />
<strong>31</strong>. GRAMMARLY<br />
By far, we can say that Grammarly is one of the best blog writing tools out there. It is designed<br />
to make your written content free from grammatical errors, and improve the overall quality of<br />
your posts.<br />
From increasing your content proofreading speed to double checking existing online content for<br />
plagiarism, rest assured that it will come in handy when producing posts for your new blog.<br />
Cost<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Free – Limited features<br />
Premium – Access to all features<br />
Monthly – $29.95 per month<br />
Quarterly – $59.95 as one-time payment, which totals up to $19.98 per month<br />
Yearly – $139.95 as one-time payment, which totals up to $11.66 per month<br />
OPTIMIZING <strong>YOU</strong>R BLOG IS<br />
OPTIMIZING <strong>YOU</strong>R BUSINESS!<br />
It’s 2018, and we are very lucky to be exposed to powerful blogging tools that can help us drive<br />
more qualified leads to content marketing. Never let your blog fall behind the competition. Save<br />
more time. Grow your blog and business.<br />
TO EARN SERIOUS MONEY AS A<br />
BLOGGER, <strong>YOU</strong> NEED TO TREAT <strong>YOU</strong>R<br />
BLOG AS A BUSINESS. THESE 9<br />
EFFECTIVE TIPS ARE THE FORMULAS TO<br />
<strong>YOU</strong>R SUCCESS!