When you start blogging, you want to make the most of each content piece you publish. Be it a small 500 word write up or something that goes in thousands, you want to make sure that it gets your blog the attention you think it deserves and of course a few social shares never hurt!
Trying to implement the same things that I recommend to those websites I work with, this weekend I spent some time looking for tools and plugins that would further enhance my blog. And maybe help me convert the website visitors that I was drawing in with so much effort – even if it was a micro conversion that could add to my end goals later. To start with, here are the first 5 blogging tools you need today.
1. BuzzSumo
One thing’s for sure, finding topics in your niche is becoming increasingly difficult. There is practically nothing someone hasn’t written on already and there is just so much out there that I either agree or disagree with. Now I can’t really run after those in my circles to brainstorm every time I need to write something, so I use BuzzSumo! It helps me identify topics that are trending for keywords that I am targeting on my blog. The tool basically helps me shortlist the possible topics I can write on for my target audience and even topics that have previously done well on digital for creating skyscraper content.
You can use BuzzSumo for FREE with a daily search limit. But if you want to dig deeper, you might want to subscribe to one of their plans instead!
2. Grammarly
When you have a team along with you, you can always pass on a read for some proofreading and editing. But blogging for yourself, also means you are responsible for the mistakes you make while writing. Although I am a bit lazy when it comes to proofreading my articles, I use Grammarly whenever it is important. It is a free online tool that makes it really easy for me to write content that is easy to read and mistake-free. Simply put, it helps me be a better writer and that’s exactly what we all want to be. Right?
They have a FREE account available for checking basic grammatical errors in your content. If you also want to use their plagiarism and other tools, you will need to sign up for one of their premium plans.
3. Buffer
Once my post is ready, the only way to get traffic to my blog is to share it on social media and communities – or that’s where I like to start with first! Now I can’t really sit down and share my posts on social media at regular intervals every other day, but I can’t be inconsistent at it either because I NEED traffic. So I use Buffer to make things simpler for me. It helps me schedule posts across all the major social channels I need to cover – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. I sometimes even schedule for almost a week in one go! I have different schedules set for different channels, so set times that suit you the best.
They have a FREE account that lets you schedule upto 10 posts. If you want to schedule for a longer duration, you could opt for one of their paid plans.
4. Exit Bee
I am making so much effort to bring people to my blog and then they leave without even making an interaction – that’s a major put off, if you ask me. It is important that I nudge my website visitors to take an action that I want from them while I have their attention. That’s exactly what Exit Bee helps me do. The tool tracks my visitor’s on-site behaviour and targets them with a personalized campaign just before he makes a move to leave from any of my web pages. For now, I am running a campaign that helps me garner some social following on Facebook to make it easier for my audience to keep track of my posts. (Try and exit the website to see the campaign)
They have an easy-to-use WordPress Plugin that you can find here and for other websites, you can simply sign up for an account on Exit Bee here to get started for FREE.
5. Wigzo
As a marketer, I have come to terms with one thing – not everyone is willing to share their contact information with a blog or a business website. This means they might not really want to follow you on social media or subscribe to your newsletter; just because they fear being spammed. This is why I swear by web push notifications from Wigzo. People can simply opt-in to web push to get notified of any new posts that I publish!
They have a FREE plan that lets you create 5 campaigns per month. But if you’re looking at further customisation, you will need to subscribe to one of their paid plans.
These are just the first 5 tools I got in place (some yet to implement) as soon as I started my blog, there are definitely a lot more on my list of ‘to-implement’ that I will be sharing in the posts to come. So keep a tab on this space, you might just find the tool your blog has been waiting for all this time!
What other tools do you recommend to a blog? Feel free to let me know by dropping a comment in the box below – I am definitely open to experimenting with various tools that are still probably unexplored. 🙂
