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There are so many free blogging tools out there, and more seem to appear every day. It’s impossible to keep up, but here are a few of my favourites…
1. HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator
Every content writer sometimes thinks, “I don’t know what to write about.” The Idea Generator is a great tool if you’re suffering from a bit of writer’s block.
Start by filling in the empty fields with 3 basic terms that you could (maybe, possibly, perhaps) mold into a piece of content. Then click ‘give me blog ideas’. In just a few seconds, loads of relevant blog post titles pop up!
2. WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool
This is one of the tools I go to most frequently. It makes it fast and easy to do keyword research before you start writing. All you have to do is enter a keyword or website URL to get hundreds of relevant keyword results, tailored by industry and country. I use this to find the best keywords and keyword phrases (long-term keywords) to make content SEO-friendly.
3. Pixabay
The Pixabay site has over 1.1 million images and videos available for download. I know there are countless free image sites online but I find Pixabay the best. The image quality is great and everything is available in multiple sizes, so I usually don’t have to re-size after I download. And while there are sponsored (pay for them) images featured on their site, Pixabay separates them from the free options, so you won’t be constantly frustrated by searches that lead straight to paid sites.
4. ClicktoTweet
This is a great one. First, make sure there are a couple of quotes, statistics, or statements in your blog post that are tweet-worthy. Then follow the simple instructions, and voila! You’ve got ready-made tweets inside your post, increasing the chances of readers sharing your content.
5. Bitlinks by Bitly
Before sharing a completed piece of content via social media, I run the url through Bitlinks. It only takes a few seconds to generate a shortened url, which is considerably more attractive (and practical) for sharing.
6. Tiny jpeg.com
Images are great, but they can use up bandwidth and slow down the loading speed for your posts. This is NOT good because search engines punish urls that don’t load quickly! TinyJPG reduces the file size of your JPEG images. The result is a quality image without wasting storage or bandwidth.