List of Top Blogging Tools You Should Try in 2017

List of Marketing Tools for Bloggers and Solopreneurs

Blogging has been all the rage for quite some time now, and for all the right reasons. It gives you a platform to express your views, share your content with the world and even act as a business.

While blogging has been in existence for more than a decade, it is only recently that supporting tools have started to be developed in an effort to help you be more efficient and productive. There is a tool for practically every job, and it goes for blogging too. Here are few of the best tools you might need for a great blogging experience in 2017.

1) WordPress

The Facebook for bloggers, WordPress is tried-and-tested by many over the years and it is still one of the best content management systems around. It gives you a readily-available website to host your content, along with some great themes (most of which are free). It allows you to have your personal domain and even migrate from another CMS. Apart from that, there are the traditional features like instant grammar check and noun check. With a huge community of developers making effective plugins, WordPress is bound to be stronger in the coming year too.

2) Long Tail Pro

Finding good keywords is more essential than you could guess. Your keywords play a vital role in deciding your position in Google search results. But most people simply choose to guess some vague keywords and hope that they click! A much better approach is using tools like Long Tail Pro, which analyzes the traffic on major search engines and then tells you about the most popular search terms. It provides detailed information about the keywords and an enhanced filtering- which is why it must be in your toolkit in 2017.

3) BuzzSumo

A great title is like a great first impression; it dictates how the rest of the interaction will go. The service searches for the best titles available online and ranks them according to popularity. All you are left to do is think of a cool title inspired from these results.

4) Yoast SEO

SEO is transforming into an industry in itself, which only highlights its importance in the digital space. As such, using plugins like Yoast SEO is always a good idea. Yoast seeks to improve both the on-page and off-page factors that affect your traffic; be it backlinks, mentions, Meta titles or URLs. Another effective feature is an instant grammar checker, available online free of charge.

5) Canva

Visual appeal plays a great role in making your blog interesting and captivating, instead of just textual content. Simply put, Canva is dedicated to making your blog great to look at. Not only does it let you add quality images, infographics and related media, it also provides templates to adjust the content on your blog according to its overall visual appeal.

6) Readability Test tools

We might be diploma holders in our professional lives, but when it comes to reading stuff online we are practically high school kids who want easy-to-read content. In such scenarios, it is always handy to have a readability test tool that decides whether your content would be easily comprehended by your regular, everyday user, thereby allowing you to better structure the content on your blog. Examples include Readable and WebpageFX.

7) Trello

Another important aspect of managing a blog is team management when you are working with a group of people for a big blog. Like version control systems, Trello is a tool that helps you manage the workflow on your blog, structuring content and handling out responsibilities.

8) MailChimp

Even though those promotional emails in your inbox are annoying at times, they are also quite effective if managed properly. For expanding and consolidating your reach, having an auto-responder tool like MailChimp is essential. Every time new content is added, your subscribers may optionally get an mail notification and increase traffic to your blog. Simple, yet effective.

9) Sprout Social

Everyone knows that social media is a powerful medium, but not many know how to use it effectively. A tool like Sprout Social enables you to control the display of content across multiple social media accounts simultaneously. This enables you to manage your audience while improving your traffic all at once.

10) Google Analytics

Once everything is done, you would want to see results and data in a comprehensive manner. Google Analytics is great at displaying in-depth stats about your blog to help you make smarter marketing decisions. Not only does it give you simple details like traffic stats, it also tells you about your audience and what actions they take on your blog. Moreover, it has a great interface that allows you to draw insights about your blog without getting intimidated by these seemingly complex metrics. A great way to form strategies.

Can you recommend additional tools and services to use in 2017 and beyond?