10 Essential Blog Tools: Empowering New Bloggers for Success

Are you ready to embark on a thrilling journey into the world of blogging? 

Before you dive headfirst into crafting blog content, let’s talk about some secret weapons you can take advantage of to elevate your blogging experience. 

In our fast-paced digital era, having the proper blogging tools and resources at your disposal is the key to unlocking your full blogging potential.

With the help of intuitive writing platforms, such as Hemingway Editor, you can create captivating content that holds your blog readers attention.

Blog tools such as Canva and Unsplash offer a treasure trove of eye-catching images and graphics. They will make your posts irresistible.

Google Search Console is one of the tools amateur bloggers can use as a true compass to navigate the vast amount of available data. 

Social media scheduling tools empower you to easily maintain an active online presence.

As you start on your blogging journey, leverage the power these essential blog tools, and watch your creativity soar to new heights. 

1. Content Management Systems (CMS)

These blog tools often have intuitive drag-and-drop features, customizable templates, and simple content editing options.

Content management systems allow amateurs to start blogging without having technical skills.

Content management systems make it easier to create a structured and organized blog. A well-sturctured blog improves the overall user experience. It also makes it simpler for readers to find specific content.

CMS Self-hosted WordPress

Almost every web hosting platform supports Self hosted WordPress. This makes it easy for new bloggers to install and customize their blogs.

The WordPress platform is well maintained. As a result more than a third of site owners fell comfortable using the content management system.

Why I Like WordPress

Here are three reasons why I like Self hosted WordPress:

• Control:  You have complete control over the website’s appearance, layout, and functionality of your blog. You can tailor your site to suit your unique needs and preferences.

• Flexibility: The WordPress.Org platform allows you to scare and expand your website as you grow. You can choose from thousands of plugins to easily manage the funtions of your blog.

• Ownership: When you choose self-hosted WordPress as your CMS, you keep control of your website and the data on it. This gives you the freedom to move your website to a different hosting provider if you want to.

2. Customization

Amateur bloggers want to create a unique and visually appealing blogs. There are tons of customizable templates, themes, and design options meet the unique needs of bloggers.

Most times these blog tools are included in your hosting plan. But sometimes you will need to bring in a third party tools to help you get the results you desire.

Design Tool: Canva

Canva is one of the most popular free blogging tools for beginners. Thousands of bloggers, solopreneur, and small businesses rely on Canva to create appealing visuals.

Canva helps website owners personalize their websites. Bloggers can use Canva to build out a brand starting from custom color palettes to font styles.

This allows amateur bloggers to create professional-looking blogs that align with their branding and style preferences.

However, the premium version of Canva offers a lot more options.

These include text editors with formatting options, advance image editing as well as video editing functions.

Reasons to Love Canva Pro

There are several reasons to love Canva Pro. Here are a few of them:

• Canva Pro: This tool gives users access to a vast library of professionally designed templates. The templates cover categories ranging from social media posts, presentations, flyers, and logos.

• Easy to use: Canva templates can be customized in minutes. With just a few mouse clicks you can change elements such as fonts, images and backgrounds. You can also upload your own images and videos to use in your designs.

• Image Editing: Canva recently launched ten amazing features. Some of these are part of a suite labeled the “Magic suite. These magic features allow you to remove image backgrounds and remove and replace items from your photos and images with just one click.

3. Writing Tool

Ai content creation is now all the rage. But there are some tried and tested writing tools that many bloggers rely on.

Amateur bloggers can use writing blog tools to improve the quality of their content, and save time. These tools help them produce well-written, error-free, and engaging blog posts.

Writing tools also help to boost a bloggers’ credibility which makes it easier to form an emotional connection with blog visitors.

Writing Tool: Hemmingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is a writing tool designed to help improve the clarity, readability, and overall quality of your written content.

It is named after the renowned American author Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemmingway is known for his straightforward and concise writing style.

The Hemingway Editor tries to copy his style by encouraging clear and concise writing.

Why I Recommend Hemmingway Editor

• Readability Analysis:  Hemingway Editor analyzes your text and gives it a readability score. This shows the level your reader must read at in order to understand your writing. Bloggers can use this score to simpify their writing so more people can understand it.

• Word Choice and Usage: Hemingway Editor points out excessive use of passive voice, excessive adverbs, and complex phrases. The blog tool encourages the use of active voice and simpler, more direct language.

• Highlighting for Clarity: The editor identifies and highlights phrases or sentences that may be unclear or confusing to readers. This feature helps you spot areas where you can rephrase or restructure your writing to enhance clarity.

4. Plagerism Checker

Plagiarism checkers help bloggers ensure that their content is original and not copied from other sources.

It allows them to maintain their credibility and reputation as trustworthy content creators.

The is another important reason for amateurs bloggers to use plagerism checkers. Plagiarism checkers help bloggers identify any unintentional issues with content copying so they can fix them before publishing.

This way amateur bloggers avoid potential copyright violations.

Plagerism Checker: Dupli Checker

Dupli Checker is a freemium tool. Bloggers can use the free version of the tool to check up to 1000 words at a time.

One drawback is the amount of ads you will see. However, that’s how the tool creators get rewarded for their efforts. Bloggers can always upgrade to the paid version. They can use that version to check up to 93,000 words at a time.

Why I Use Dupli Checker

• Easy to Use: Copy and paste your text into the text box and within minutes you will get notified of duplicate content issues, including the percentage. You will also see the sources of those contents.

• Make It Unique: There is an option on the same page to make the content unique if there are issues with duplicate content. Just click the button that says Paraphrasing tool, past the article in the box and hit start. The tool will rewrite your content in a few seconds.

5. Blog Security Tool

Security blog tools protects your blog from malicious attacks on the internt. So one of the first things you want to do when you launch your site is to secure it.

One of the most effective secutiry tools you can take advantage of a Content Delivery Network (CDN).

A CDN offers security features that help improve website performance while protecting it against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. A content delivery sits between your blog’s server and it users.

I highly recommend adding Cloudflare to your list of most important blog tools for any website owners.

Security Tool: Cloudflare

Cloudflare is what is called a Proxy Server. This means the tool retrieves your blog content from your web host and stores it on the Cloudflare plaform.

When some visits your website they see the stored (cached) version that is on Cloudflare.

You tell Cloudflare how often to get updates from your original content so your site visitors won’t get stale information.

Why I love Cloudflare

Cloudflare has premium versions, but you can do so much with their free version.

• Speedy Connection: When you connect your blog to Cloudflare, they store copies in over 285 cities in over 100 countries around the world. So when users visit your blog they are connected to the server closest to them.

• Security: You can use Cloudflare to secure your blog. For example, you can use the tool to manage user roles and permissions for your blog. You can also limit access to sensitive areas of your blog.

6. Backup Solution

It is critical that you implement a reliable backup system for your blog. Regularly back up your website’s files, database, and any other important data.

Always store yourbackups securely on an external server, cloud storage, or offline storage. In the event of a security breach or data loss, backups will allow you to restore your blog to a previous state.

Some web hosting providers offer free or paid back-up solutions for your blog. If an option to back up you site is available through your hosting hosting plan, be sure to take advantage of if.

UpdraftPlus is my recommended back up solution for bloggers who own a WordPress website.

Backup Solution: UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is a popular WordPress plugin that provides backup and restoration functionality for your blog.

It offers a range of features to help you safeguard your website data and easily restore it if needed.

Why I recommend UpdraftPlus

• Full Site Backups: UpdraftPlus allows you to perform complete backups of your entire WordPress site, including all files, databases, plugins, themes, and media uploads.

• Scheduled Backups: You can schedule automatic backups at regular intervals, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. This ensures that your website data is backed up regularly without you having to do it manually.

• Easy Restoration: UpdraftPlus is one of those blog tools that make it easy to restore your website if you need to. You can easily restore your site from a backup with just a few clicks. It also allows you to select which restore files or databases you need to restore.

It there is no back up feature available, your will find a number of great tools on the internet that you can use to back up your website.

7. SEO Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is extremely important for bloggers who want to increase their visibility and attract more readers.

SEO blogging tools often provide built-in features, such as meta tags, keyword analysis, and XML sitemaps.

These features help improve the blog’s search engine rankings and drive organic traffic to your blog. I highly recommend using Rankmath for your SEO needs.

RankMath SEO Plugin

In a short time RankMath has become one of the most popular blog tools among WordPress users.

Some reasons for the tools popular growth are its extensive features, user-friendly interface, and the fact that it offers many advanced SEO functionalities for free.

Why I Adore RankMath

These are some key features of Rank Math that entice more that two million website owners to install the plugin on their WordPress sites.

• On-Page SEO Analysis: Rank Math provides a detailed analysis of individual pages/posts and suggests optimizations to improve their search engine visibility. It offers recommendations for keyword optimization, content length, readability, meta tags, and other on-page SEO elements.

• XML Sitemaps Generation: The plugin generates XML sitemaps automatically. This helps search engines understand the structure and content of your website. It also allows you to customize the sitemap and exclude specific pages you do not want search engines to index.

• Keyword Optimization: RankMath has a keyword optimization feature that suggests focus keywords. It also analyzes keyword density, and offers recommendations for optimizing your content for better keyword usage.

• Compatibility and Performance: Rank Math is designed to be lightweight and optimized for performance. So it won’t slow down your website. It also integrates smoothly with other popular WordPress plugins and themes.

8. Performance Blog Tools

Performance blog tools are essential for bloggers to assess and optimize the performance of their websites. These tools for blogging provide insights into various areas of a blog’s performance.

All bloggers can use them to identify areas for improvement and enhance the user experience.

Performance blog tools will look at factors such as page load time, mobile-friendliness, and overall page performance of your blog.

They they will suggest optimizations, such as compressing images, minifying code, and leveraging browser caching for better performance.

Performance Tool: Perfmatters

Perfmatters is a paid performance tool for WordPress websites. But it is worth every penny.

Perfmatters focuses on improving website speed and performance by allowing users to optimize various aspects of their WordPress site.

Why Every Blogger Needs Perfmatters

• Asset Optimization: Speed it critical for blog owners. This tool for bloggers allows you to minify CSS and JavaScript files to reduce their file size and improve loading speed.  This results in faster rendering and improved user experience.

• Lazy Loading: Lazy loading delays the loading of off-screen images and iframes until they come into view. This action dramatically reduces the initial page load time of the page is reduced leading to improved performance.

• Database Optimization: Database optimization helps to reduce the database size and improve the overall performance of your site. Bloggers can use the database optimization option to optimize their WordPress database to remove unnecessary data, such as post revisions, spam and comments.

• Modify Unused WordPress Features: By default WordPress has many built in features that you will never use on your blog. These unused features can significantly affect the performance of your site. Perfmatters give you the option to disable or modify them.

9. Analytics and Insights

Understanding the performance of your blog is essential for growth and improvement. Many tools for bloggers often include built in analytics and reporting features.

These features provide valuable insights into website traffic, user engagement, popular content, and more.

The insights they provide will help amateur bloggers track their progress, identify successful strategies, and make data-driven decisions.

Analytics Tool: Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an essential tool for website owners. They need this tool to monitor and optimize their websites’ performance in Google search results.

It provides insights and data that help improve search visibility, diagnose issues, and ensure the website is properly indexed by Google.

Why Google Search Console Is Essential

• Mobile Usability: The majority of users on the internet are on their smartphones. Therefore, your blog needs to user-freindly for them. Search Console alerts you to any mobile usability issues on your website.

• Links and Backlinks: Search Console provides information about internal and external links to your website. This imformation includes which pages link to your site and the anchor text used.

• Security Issues: Googe Search Console notifies you of any security issues, such as malware or hacked content, that may affect your website’s performance or reputation in search results.

• Manual Actions:  If Google takes any manual action against your website for violating its webmaster guidelines, Search Console will inform. . You can review the issues, fix them, and submit a reconsideration request if necessary.

10. List Building Blog Tool

List building is a crucial aspect of blogging. Building a list allows a blogger to engage and maintain a loyal audience.

List building blog tools give bloggers to create various types of opt-in forms, such as pop-ups, slide-ins, and floating bars.

They offer features like exit-intent technology, A/B testing, targeting options, and integrations with popular email marketing services.

Recommended: Hello Bar

Here is a great blogging tool for self-hosted WordPress bloggers. Use Hello Bar to capture leads on your website as well as direct visitors to where you want them to go on or off your blog.

Many online entrepreneurs and popular Pro Bloggers including Neil Patel use Hello Bar on their website.

Why This Tool Is A Must Use

• Versality: This tool let’s you place, header or footer bars, pop-up modals or small floating messages on web pages.

• Redirect Users: Once you capture the visitors attention, you can direct them to other pages based on their interests.

• Cost Effective: Hello Bar has a free plan that gives you 5000 monthly page views.

When you exceed the limit, you can unlock advanced versions with more features. These versions cost between US$29 and US$99 per month.

Bonus List Building Tool

Get Response is a popular blog to that many bloggers use. It started out as an autoresponder to it has grown into a lot more.

GetResponse give you the ability to collect your blog visitors data so you can stay in touch with them.

You are able to embed sign and contact forms to capture leads. You can also use the platform for creating newsletters, landing pages and host webinars.

GetResponse offers a forever free plan that has a 500 contacts limit. As you grow you can upgrade to a bigger plan.

These plans are between US$12 and US$81 per month based on the size of your contact list and the features you need.

Summary

Blog tools help bloggers in many ways. Bloggers can use them to enhance their blogging experience and improve the quality of their content.

These tools offer features such as spelling and grammar checking, readability analysis, plagiarism detection, and performance, and tracking.

Blog tools help bloggers maintain high writing standards by providing spelling and grammar checking features, ensuring error-free content.

These tools save time and enhance productivity with features like auto-saving, word count tracking, and formatting options.

Some blog tools analyze the readability of blog posts, offering insights and suggestions to optimize content for better comprehension and engagement.

Other tools for bloggers check for plagiarism issues and identify potential instances of unintentional plagiarism, ensuring originality in blog posts.