Blogging is so flexible and allows for a lot of creativity and exploration, but losing focus all together can cause trouble. Here are seven tools for bloggers to stay productive and improve blogging experience.

If you’re starting to get serious about blogging, it always helps to have an editorial calendar and an idea of where you want to take your blog. So planning is a must-have technique for every blogger.

Today I thought I’d share the nine tools I use every single day as a blogger. For me, these are the must-haves in my blogging toolbox!

Blog Topic Generator

Some writers would not admit, but many struggles when it comes to creating titles for their work. Titles are important especially since readers would look at the titles before they even spend time looking the first part of the text. With Hubspot’s blog topic generator, you no longer have to think as to what blog title you should use. You can just provide the files with nouns that you want to write about, and the platform generates relevant titles that you can use.

Also read:
10 Money-Making Blogger Tools to Make You More Money
16 Best Blogging Apps for iPhone & iPad 2017

Writeapp.net

With a busy and hectic schedule, it's hard when you have to write and edit something when you are on the go. But thanks to Writeapp, you can quickly work on your project. This tool has a cursor track-pad that makes it easier for you to view and select certain texts with accuracy. The tool also allows you to secure what you have written with its passcode lock feature. And with full tag support, you can organize your notes using tags. With this application, you can view and edit your work anytime and anywhere since you can sync your files on Dropbox.

JetPack Stats for evaluating posts

JetPack is super simple and definitely a tool I use everyday {multiple times every day if I’m honest}. For me, JetPack Stats is less about page views and more about referral sources. For example, Pinterest is my top referral source after search engines. I often click on the links to the pins in my reference list and leave a quick comment on the pin to thank the pinner for sharing my post. I also use JetPack to share older posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. When a post from a year or two ago is viewed multiple times in a day, I will share that link via social media. And I always make a note of the search engine terms leading to my blog — this is an excellent way to know what to write!

Also read:
11 Blogging Tools That Are Worth Paying For
13 Essential Podcasting Tools For Every Podcaster

Picmonkey for images

Picmonkey is my go-to photo editing and designing tool of choice. I do have the “royal” membership which costs $33 per year and gives me access to all the fonts and extras available. But the free membership will do everything most bloggers need. With Picmonkey you can add text to images, create collages, and even use a blank canvas to make your own graphics from the elements they offer. I use Picmonkey every day for blog post images as well as buttons for my sidebar, Facebook cover images, Instagram posts, etc.

Pinterest for exploring post ideas and updating graphics 

Pinterest, as I mentioned above, is a fabulous referral source for me. But I also use Pinterest for research. Did you know you can see what posts have been pinned from your website? Go to www.pinterest.com/source/designbyinsight.net {insert your blog name in place of ours}. I check this every day for all the sites I write for. I want to know if my posts are pinning — and what other posts from those sites were particularly popular. This helps me formulate post ideas and determine what sort of graphics are pinning well. I also check this for my personal blog as well for the same reasons. However, I have found an additional benefit to checking Pinterest this way: updating post images. If you started blogging pre-Pinterest, you remember we didn’t always add text to our images. When I notice a post is pinned without a text-enhanced picture, I make a priority of updating the image.

Also read:
Pinterest-Marketing: 13 Ways To Get More Followers On Pinterest
How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Google Analytics for evaluating posts

Google Analytics is my go to research point for my blog. The most important information I get from Analytics is the referral information. Analytics provides far more detail in this area than JetPack. I mainly use this information to determine how much impact posts I write on other sites has on my blog. For example, besides DBI, I write for three other sites every month. I track the referrals from these sites. I have used this information to determine if I should continue to write for specific sites. Another great piece of information I gain from Analytics is behavior flow … what are readers doing when they get to my site.

Feedly for reading blogs

I subscribe to over 300 blogs via RSS. Obviously, I don’t get those in my inbox every day. {Yikes! Can you imagine?} My reader of choice is Feedly. I tried several different readers when Google Reader was discontinued and landed on Feedly because it looks great on my computer, my iPad, and my iPhone and has all the functionality I needed including the ability to save and share. I have all the blogs I subscribe to divided into categories so I can quickly scan ones on different topics.

Pocket for saving information

As a social media coach, I often read articles I want to save for future reference. As a blogger, it is common for me to read a post I want to mention to my readers or on social media. As a speaker, I like to save illustrations and statistics to use in talks. But I don’t like to have all this information in my bookmarks or email. Hello, Pocket! I just add all those posts and articles and images to my Pocket where I can tag them for easy searching later. And, one of my favorite features of Feedly is the ability to save posts to Pocket.

Instagram for sharing posts and more

I LOVE Instagram! It is my very favorite social media site. There are countless ways I use it {and even more ways I have noticed others using it}. The two main uses I have for IG are sharing posts {which means I need square images!} and testing out post ideas. The first one is pretty self-explanatory, but here is what I do with the second. Often I share a quote or thought I’ve had after reading a book or listening to a talk. I gauge response to those posts to determine if they are the type of idea worth expanding into a blog post. IG is also an excellent way to connect with others and build community.

Also read:
How To Make Money On Instagram: 4 Ways You Can Earn Through Instagram
How To Use Instagram For Business Marketing Success 

So there you have it, my everyday tools for blogging. What are the must-have items in your blogging toolbox?