5 Helpful Tools you need to Know about as a Blogger

Treating your blog as a business is easier said then done. Besides the fact that it takes a lot of time and effort to get to this stage, there’s also lots of organization and skill required to make your blog look and feel ‘professional’. Not only do you have to be a writer and a photographer, you also have to be a SEO guru, art director and graphic designer all at once. Pretty much. For someone like myself who has got no professional background (read: degrees) in any of the above, it’s a little tricky at times to keep up! Today I’ve listed my favourite apps and tools that will make it a little easier to add that hint of professionalism to your blog.

Picmonkey
This web app is great if you love a good graphic, but don’t have the Photoshop skills to create one. I personally like adding text to blog post covers or give a collage a cool finishing touch. With a variety of different fonts, effects and editing tools you can easily create something that looks professional and matches the voice you’re trying to send out through your blog. After all, a good article needs a good image, right?

Buffer
I briefly mentioned this social-sharing app in my previous post with tips on how to be an efficient blogger, but I think it deserves a little more explanation. Buffer allows you to schedule social media posts at a strategic time, super handy because this way you’ll ensure you’re getting the biggest reach out of your posts. Being able to work ahead of time is another advantage, for example when you go on holiday or simply don’t have the time to look after your social media every day. Another great thing to use it for is to draw attention to old blog content or give a new post some extra attention by sending out different headlines or images twice a day. On top of that, Buffer also provides some helpful analytics that will help you analyse what social media strategies work best for your blog.

Buzzsumo
Do you have a 100 cool topics in mind that you want to write about but are you having a hard time to narrow down the angle of the post? Then Buzzsumo is going to be your lifesaver. This has been a recent discovery of mine and it has proofed so helpful for me already. Simply put in a topic you’re interested to write about, for example ‘career’ or ‘happiness’ and you get a huge variety of different article ideas. Moreover, you get to see how articles about this topic have performed on social channels, so you can get inspiration not only on what kind of articles will reason with your audience, you’ll also learn how to phrase your post titles in such a way that it will get the maximum visibility in the search engines.

Pixlr
I use the Pixlr app for a number of different purposes, but one of them is to create collages that I use to share my social media channels such as Lookbook or Pose. You can simply choose a collage format and adjust the spacing in between images and proportions accordingly. So easy!

Google Drive
I know that most of you are probably already familiar with Google Drive, but I thought I’d share a little trick that might be helpful. In this day and age where Instagram is almost as important as the blog itself (or at least, for some of us), having high quality imagery for grabs can be a super easy way to keep your Instagram feed going at all times. All you have to do is download the google drive app on your phone to access the photos you’ve dropped in there. For me, I put travel photos in there that haven’t been published on the blog or old outfit photos that I think deserve it to make their way onto my Instagram. These day I (almost) exclusively post my own photos, but if you like posting quotes or other inspirational images from the net, it’s a handy way to keep it all in one place.

Do you know any good blogging tools or apps that I have to add to the list? Which ones can you not live without?

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