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  • 14+ Tools for Bloggers

    by David Sawyer / May 19, 2016

    social media toolsAre you a busy blogger?

    Looking for new, unique tools to help you work smarter?

    The right tools will help streamline and improve your blogging.

    In this article, you'll discover more than 14 tools to help bloggers quickly, efficiently perform common tasks.

    blogger tools for common tasks
    Discover tools bloggers can use to streamline tasks.

    Listen to this article:

    Where to subscribe: Apple Podcast | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

    #1: Source Free, Quality Images

    A picture is worth a thousand words. You want them to be the right ones. Unsplash and Foter help tell your story.

    With Unsplash you get access to a bank of 50,000+ free-to-use photos. No attribution is required.

    unsplash
    Use Unsplash to source free, high-resolution professional Creative Commons images.

    If there's nothing suitable on Unsplash, Foter allows you to choose from a whopping 229 million images. Here's how: type in the search term and click Commercial Use. Next, click on your image. Then download whatever size image you want. Finally, cut and paste the picture attribution into your post.

    foter
    Foter's scale and ease of attribution are both phenomenal. It's a massive time-saver.

    #2: Compress Images to Improve Page Load Speed

    The load speed of a page is a key ranking factor. Images are usually to blame for lengthy page loading times. That's where Compressor.io comes in. It will reduce image sizes by up to 90%, with no loss of quality.

    Here's how: just drag and drop your image, watch it compress before your eyes, and then download it.

    compressor.io
    It only takes an instant to compress bloated images with Compressor.io.

    #3: Do More With Screenshots

    If you write a lot of blog posts you'll need a reliable screenshot grabber to gather illustrative images. To save time, install Save to Google Drive and Awesome Screenshot.

    Save to Google Drive is a super-speedy browser extension that helps you save web pages. Click the Google Drive icon in your browser extensions bar and it saves the entire web page to your Google Drive in seconds.

    Alternatively, use Awesome Screenshot if you want to crop the page or annotate it. Click on the Awesome Screenshot extension and you'll get a drop-down where you can choose your options.

    awesome screenshot
    Awesome Screenshot is an excellent, easy-to-use browser extension.

    When you're done, save and store your screenshots in Awesome Screenshot and you can access them from anywhere.

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    #4: Research Competitor Web Traffic

    When you're competing for a target audience, it's helpful to find out where a competitor's traffic comes from, what their referral sources are, or what their top organic and paid keywords are.

    SimilarWeb is an unbelievable resource that can help you find this information.

    similarweb
    Discover where your competitor's traffic comes from.

    The browser extension works best, but you can get the same stats from the SimilarWeb website, too.

    #5: Run an SEO Audit

    Want to do a basic SEO audit on your blog, but don't know where to start?

    Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool, a small desktop program that acts as a website crawler, will check your blog for broken links, title tags, duplicate pages, redirects, the length of all your meta descriptions, and more.

    #6: Monitor Keyword Rankings

    What's My SERP is a free tool that will track up to 25 keyword phrases across 20 domains for you and up to three competitors. You can even export the data after each report.

    Just sign up, input your keyword phrases, and click Check All Keywords.

    serp checker
    The tool even tracks three of your competitors for the same keywords too.

    If you want enhanced features, try the multi-functional Monitor Backlinks. Its keyword ranking tool monitors up to 500 keywords, as well as those of your competitors.

    #7: Optimize Posts and Pages for Search

    Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that makes it easier for bloggers to optimize blog posts to rank on Google. Simply fill in the fields and tweak your entries until you get a green traffic light.

    A useful feature for bloggers who use social media is the ability to set the title, description, and featured image for shares to top social networks.

    yoast seo
    Yoast SEO allows you to tailor snippets for various social networks.

    #8: Search for Email Addresses by Domain

    Are you doing influencer outreach? Do you pitch to journalists? This tool will find anyone's email address.

    Tools Resource Guide

    Looking for something to make your life easier?

    Discover the tools we recommend to drive engagement, save you time, and boost sales across your entire marketing funnel or business.

    Whether you need help planning content, organizing social posts, or developing your strategy, you’ll find something for every situation.

    FIND YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TOOL

    Email Hunter offers 150 searches with the free plan. For most people, that's plenty.

    Type in the domain name of the company the person you want to contact works for. If a specific email address isn't located, Email Hunter will give you enough information to make an educated guess.

    email hunter
    Each month you'll get 150 free searches without choosing a pricing plan.

    #9: Learn More About the People in Your Inbox

    This is one of those tools you never knew you needed until you have it. Rapportive, a Gmail and Firefox add-on, will help you find out who a person is, what he or she does, whom you know in common, and where the person is based. You can even send connection requests, all of which can be accomplished without leaving Gmail.

    rapportive
    Rapportive is a great tool for growing your LinkedIn following.

    And if you like Rapportive, you'll love Clearbit Connect. This handy extension will show you even more information about your contacts. Easily see who sent the email you're viewing, what company he or she works for, the person's social handles, and more.

    #10: Strengthen Your Headlines

    Whether someone clicks through to your content depends how good your headline is. It's 80% of the battle. Luckily, there are three useful tools to help you.

    Type your headline in CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and you'll get a rating of 1 to 100. Anything over 60 is good, headlines between 70 and 80 are considered great, and a score of more than 80 is considered stellar.

    coschedule headline analyzer
    Not bad at all.

    But what about feelings? The Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer will rate your headline's emotional appeal. The sweet spot is 30% to 40%, and anything above that is great.

    advanced marketing institute headline analyzer
    The headline on this post has emotional appeal.

    And if you can't come up with a headline, SumoMe offers the Kickass Headline Generator. Enter a topic to get a suggested headline based on that topic, which is useful when you're looking for inspiration.

    #11: Collect Email Addresses on Your Blog

    So you've set your blog up right and you're producing great content, but your email list is growing slower than a bonsai tree. Who you gonna call? SumoMe, that's who. You'll get a cost-effective straight-out-of-the-box list-building option.

    SumoMe is a WordPress plugin, but it works on any website. You'll receive a welcome mat, scroll box, scroll bar, smart bar, and list builder.

    sumome
    Small business social media marketers should give this a whirl.

    And if you want to grow your list through giveaways and gated content, you can check out Thrive Landing Pages, Thrive Leads, or Leadpages.

    #12: Rank With Semantic Search

    Google is always evolving, and semantic search is where it's at. Whenever you write a blog post, always have a keyword phrase and a topic in the back of your mind.

    When you're done with the post, pop over to LSIGraph or Answer the Public to see what terms are linked semantically to your topic and phrase. If any of the terms you see in the results fit naturally in the piece and enhance it, include them in your post.

    lsi keyword generator
    LSI is a rich source of synonyms and related phrases.

    #13: Catch Typos Wherever You Type

    Remember when you had to stick everything into Word to do a spell check? Grammarly can help with that. Add it to your browser and it will seamlessly check your grammar and spelling, whether you're typing in Gmail, on Facebook, in Word, and more.

    grammarly
    Wherever you go online, Grammarly has your back.

    #14: Improve the Readability of Your Copy

    If you struggle with writing, Hemingway can help. Even if you're a good writer, Hemingway will raise your game by helping you cut passive voice, shorten sentences, and make your copy easier to read.

    hemingway app
    How this post rated (before the edit).

    Conclusion

    Whether you're a small business starting out on your marketing journey or a seasoned pro looking for a few useful hacks, each of these tools will help streamline and improve your social media marketing.

    What do you think? What are your top three social media marketing tools? Please share them in the comments.

    tools for bloggers
    Tips on tools you can use to work smarter and more effectively on your blog.

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    Tags: Blogging, Social Media Tools

    About the authorDavid Sawyer

    David is a United-Nations-award-winning digital public relations specialist. Founder of Zude PR, he helps SMBs across the UK and Europe ace their digital marketing. Lover of SEO and marathoning.
    Other posts by David Sawyer »

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