Best tools for bloggers to take you to a professional level

The best tools for bloggers will, to some degree, depend on your specific needs and preferences.

However, there are some essential tools and resources that I believe will help bloggers be more productive, creative, and successful.

In summary, these are:

1. Domain Name Registration:

Registering your domain names separately from your web hosting is always wise. Then, if you get into a dispute with your web host, you can move your website to another host and redirect your domain name accordingly.

The last thing you want is someone having potential control over your domain name.

Popular domain name registrars include:

Namecheap
TSOHost
GoDaddy

2. Hosting:

There are many web hosting providers for bloggers, but among the best, in my experience, are:

SiteGround
Bluehost
Hostinger

3. Content Management System (CMS):

Unless you’re experienced in coding, using a content management system is the best way to create a self-hosted website. And in my opinion, there’s an obvious choice for CMS:

WordPress: WordPress is one of the most popular and user-friendly CMS platforms for bloggers. It offers a wide range of themes and plugins to customize your blog.

4. Essential WordPress Plugins:

Plugins are useful for adding additional features to a WordPress website. There are literally hundreds of plugins available, but there are a few that are essential, in my opinion:

Sucuri: This is a great plugin for making sure that your website is secure.
Wordfence: This is another useful security plugin.
WP Rocket: Page speed matters. This plugin will boost page speed.
Google Site Kit: Provides all sorts of useful analytics.
Monster Insights: Another great source of analytics
Yoast SEO: This is a useful tool for optimizing posts for SEO.
Rankmath: This is another great tool for optimizing posts for SEO.
UpdraftPlus: This is particularly useful for backing up your blog regularly.

All the above plugins are useful. However, it’s worth remembering that it’s not a good idea to use too many plugins, as they can slow your website down. And Google will penalize a slow website in search results.

5. Keyword Research and SEO Tools:

Creating a website is easy. Getting traffic to that website is much harder. There are literally billions of websites out there, so how do you get noticed?

The simple answer is to ensure that Google and other search engines are your friends.

Search engines are trying to provide their users with the most relevant answers to their search queries.

The most relevant answers appear on the first page of an organic search. And as few people look beyond the first page, if your webpage is to be the answer to their prayers, then it needs to appear on the first page.

How is that achieved?

Do keyword research and make sure that your web pages and blog posts are relevant to the queries being searched for and that they contain appropriate keywords and phrases.

It sounds difficult, but there are plenty of tools to help you. These include:

Google Keyword Planner: This helps you find relevant keywords for your content, and it’s free.
Keywords Everywhere: A great Chrome extension that is very reasonably priced and very useful. This is a “must-have” tool for bloggers and creators.
Ubersuggest: SEO tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, etc.
AnswerThePublic: SEO tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, etc.
Ahrefs: SEO tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, etc. It is an excellent tool and very useful, but a bit expensive for beginners.
SEMrush: SEO tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, etc. Another excellent tool, very useful but also a bit expensive for beginners.

6. Content Creation and Graphics:

If you’re a blogger, you’ll need images, infographics, and video. There are plenty of useful tools to help you create them.

However, remember this: the more you can create images, etc., that are uniquely yours, the better it will be. Stock photos can be useful, but they’re not unique, and they’re used repeatedly, thousands of times. If you want to stand out, create something special of your own.

Tools you should consider include:

Canva: This is a must-have, user-friendly graphic design tool for creating blog graphics, visuals, and videos, and it should be in every blogger’s toolbox.
Adobe Creative Suite: This is professional-class design software for more advanced graphic and video editing. There’s an excellent and powerful set of tools within the suite, but it’s not cheap, and there’s quite a steep learning curve involved.
GIMP: This is an image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows, and it’s free software available for download.
Photopea: This is an advanced image editor, and it’s free to use.
Unsplash: This is a source of high-quality, royalty-free stock images for your blog.
Pixabay: This is a source of high-quality, royalty-free stock images for your blog.
Pexels: This is a source of high-quality, royalty-free stock images for your blog.

7. Writing and Editing Tools:

Being a blogger is all about creating content, and that includes written content. Content needs to be well written, and some tools to help with that include:

Grammarly: This is a grammar and spell-checking tool to help you write error-free content.
Hemingway Editor: It helps you simplify and improve your writing style.
Microsoft Office Suite: This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook. This is a professional-class suite of software and is worth the monthly subscription.
Google Docs: This is a versatile online word processor for collaborative writing and editing.
Scrivener: This is a popular writing app used by writers and researchers. It allows users to write, organize, and edit their content in one place, with features like creating outlines, citation management, and file syncing.

8. Essential social media:

In addition to optimizing your content for search engines, social media can be a powerful means of driving traffic to your website.

The most useful channels include:

Pinterest: This one is the best of the lot, by some considerable margin, particularly when used in conjunction with Tailwind.
Instagram: This is a great way to promote your domain name through memes.
Reddit: Get something on Reddit to go viral, and you’ll get plenty of traffic.
Facebook: This is a great way to promote your domain name through memes.
LinkedIn: This is great for promoting your domain name through links to your website pages and posts.
YouTube: Create videos to go with blog posts, and this is a powerful means for generating traffic.

9. Social Media Management:

The trick with social media is to post when your target audience is likely to be looking. That means you need scheduling tools to help you. Some you should consider include:

Tailwind: This tool is designed for scheduling and optimizing Pinterest and Instagram posts. This is just the best, in my opinion. It’s another must-have tool and it’s well worth the subscription.
Hootsuite: This is a tool to schedule and manage social media posts.
Buffer: This is another useful tool to schedule and manage social media posts.

10. Email Marketing:

Creating an email list is essential if you’re an affiliate marketer. Useful tools for list creation include:

ConvertKit: This is ideal for bloggers looking to create targeted email campaigns.
Mailchimp: This is a popular email marketing platform for building and nurturing your email list.

11. Analytics and Performance Tracking:

It pays to keep an eye on website performance, so naturally, some tools to help are essential:

Google Analytics: This offers in-depth insights into your blog’s traffic and user activity. It’s available through the Site Kit plugin.
Monster Insights: This is another great source of analytics.

12. Monetization and Affiliate Marketing:

Unless it’s just a hobby to amuse you, creating a blog means you’re creating a digital asset that will make money for you even when you’re sleeping.

Google AdSense: This allows you to display ads on your blog and earn money through clicks, right from the start.
Ezoic: This will also allow you to display ads and generate more income right from the start.
Mediavine: This is a better medium for display ads, but you need to achieve 50,000 sessions before they’ll consider you.
Amazon Associates: This is a popular affiliate program for bloggers to earn commissions on product sales.

13. Backup and Security:

Backing up a website regularly is essential. Webhosts will usually create backups, but it’s worth creating one of your own daily. This can be done automatically using a combination of UpdraftPlus and Dropbox.

Security is another essential activity for bloggers. Protect your digital asset, or it won’t be long before it’s compromised. Both Sucuri and Wordfence are excellent security solutions.

Another aspect of security well worth considering is the use of a VPN, particularly when you are updating your websites on the move and in public places. The best tool for this is ExpressVPN.

14. Collaboration and Productivity:

The art of generating an income should be as productive as possible. There’s also much to be gained from collaborating with fellow bloggers. Useful tools include:

Trello or Asana: These are project management tools to help you stay organized.
Google Workspace (formerly G Suite): This is for email, document collaboration, and more.

15. Grammar and Style Guides:

AP Stylebook, or The Chicago Manual of Style: These are useful for maintaining a consistent writing style.

16. Legal and Compliance:

It’s always wise to keep an eye on the law to ensure no costly errors are made through ignorance. Some useful tools include:

Privacy policy generators: Ensure compliance with data protection laws.
DMCA.com: This helps protect your content from copyright infringement.

Conclusion:

No list of tools can ever be comprehensive. However, in this list, there are many powerful tools that the average blogger will find useful.

Now your choice of tools will depend on your specific niche, budget, and technical expertise. So, it would be unwise to sign up for too many paid tools too quickly.

It’s essential that you evaluate and select the tools that best suit your blogging goals and needs.

However, there are some tools that you really will find useful, and it is worth spending some money on them to help you in your quest to build lucrative digital assets.

About the author:

Roy Sutton is an experienced blogger whose main website has generated in excess of 350,000 page views per month. Before becoming a blogger, he was a businessman and CEO of a national telecom operator and had a background in telecom systems engineering and information technology.