Free tools can help start a blog and get it up on its feet. Many bloggers suggest paying for various blogging tools once you want to go pro. However, this is not necessary. There are a couple of ingredients needed to create a perfect blog that can go a long way. Some of the most important things that can turn a solid blog into a monster are amazing content, a good web hosting service, well-constructed blog posts, great content outreach and well adapted blog comment systems.
Thankfully, there are many free online blogging tools that can help you achieve all of these goals effectively, without having to pay anything. Read on to find out which blogging tools you can use to attract a lot of visitors without giving up a dime.
1. AWeber Communications
This is a tool designed for running a successful online marketing campaign. AWeber is an auto responder that allows its users to automatically send welcome emails to its new users, or send mails to inform your audience about something new. This tool will make it a lot easier to spread the information you think is necessary. It also offers data analytics that can show you how and in what measure people interact with your emails.
2. Evernote
Evernote is another great tool for storing content and fresh ideas. This tool is specially designed for collecting and storing ideas quickly. You can store anything in Evernote — photos, notes, websites, etc.
The cool thing about this tool is that it has a very powerful tagging system that allows users to memorize, share and suggest ideas efficiently. Sometimes, speed and simplicity are what count — and this is what Evernote is all about.
3. Hootsuite
This is a tool used for social media management. The most appealing side of Hootsuite is the fact that it allows you to manage three major (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) social networks from one board. The free version of this tool even allows you to add RSS feeds, enabling you to automatically tweet your or someone else’s blog posts.
4. Scoop.it
Scoop.it is a search engine specifically designed for finding content, and it works flawlessly. Not many bloggers know about this search engine, which is strange considering that it is free. It’s very easy to use and the only thing you need to do is to type in the specific topic you have interest in and the results will pop out.
Results include thousands of top rated articles which are connected to the topic you typed in. This search engine comes in handy when you are looking for top-trending topics that can help you get a better perspective on what to write about.
5. Dragon Dictation
Has it ever happened to you that you come up with an amazing idea but you are no where near your computer to make a note of it? Personally, this happened to me many times and this is why I started using the Dragon Dictation app. This app allows a person to record their thoughts by simply speaking. Not only can it record your speech, but it also turns it into text — making this an easy and fast way to form a text without even writing.
6. Trello
Creating a constant flow of good content for a blog is one of the most important things you need to accomplish. But this is easier said than done as writers often get creative droughts. No matter if a blog is run by one person or it has a lot of contributors, it happens. This is why Trello is becoming one of the most popular tools for blogging as it allows you to plan easily. With Trello, you can create boards for editorial calendars that can help you organize writers and switch tasks when they are finding a hard time to write something good. The boards are very user friendly and intuitive, allowing users to overview and organize content easily.
7. Google Analytics
Tracking your blog statistics is essential to learn about the amount of visitors your blog has and what their activities are. Google Analytics is a free tool made by Google and it can help you find out where traffic comes from, what users click on your blog and the average time users spend on your site.
This is a very useful tool that can tell you if you are heading in the right direction while also showing you on which aspects of your blog campaign you need to work more.
8. WordPress
You have probably already heard about WordPress, but this blogging platform still needs to be mentioned. WordPress is one of the most widely used platforms for blogging. People like it because it is a very interactive platform that is easy to use. WordPress can be used for relatively simple blogs, as well as complicated ones. It offers a wide range of free plugins which no other platform can match. The ability to create a cool and unique site with WordPress is astonishing and it is optimized for any kind of web browsing, meaning that you can be sure that all people will be able to visit your blog without any problems.
I guarantee that using these tools properly will enable you to achieve pretty much anything with your blog. Make sure to remember all of these tools or bookmark them so you can try using them when needed. Start slowly and get to know each one properly in order to learn their strengths. Once you know your stuff, technology will take care of the rest.
