Starting a blog is a great way to make money online in passive income. If you learn and understand the steps to blogging and do everything right, you can reap quite big.
But running a blog isn’t as easy as many self-proclaimed gurus make it look.
From my experience of blogging for over 10 years, there are times when growing a blog can be just too overwhelming to sustain.
Why?
There are many driving elements behind a successful blog, from keyword research and competition analysis to content creation and link building. And you must get all of them right or your blog will more than likely fail.
With that much work for one person, blogging for beginners can seem harder than it actually is.
However, creating and growing a blog doesn’t have to be an uphill task. With so many blogging tools on the web, many of your day-to-day blogging tasks should be easy handle.
In this guide, I’ll share 50+ blogging tools that you can use to transform your blog from just another “runs on the web” site to a powerful content hub that generates hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every month.
I’ve divided this guide into different categories of blogging tools to make it easy for you to get the right set of resources in the right place.
Here we go:
Essential WordPress Plugins
1. Yoast SEO
Use Yoast SEO to create a better search appearance for your blog. No index tags and category pages, and redirect attachments properly. You can even use it to generate sitemaps and submit to Google search console.
2. Rank Math
Improve your site’s performance and grow your traffic with Rank Math. With many free cool features, Rank Math makes optimizing your pages and posts easy.
3. Akismet
I hate spam comments, especially because they take time to filter. These days I let Akismet do all the spam filtering job for you. It’s a handy blogging tool to consider if you allow comments on your blog.
4. Thrive Architect
Create beautiful, conversion focused posts and pages with Thrive Architect. This WordPress plugin is the robust tool that converts a boring step into an amazing content hub that enhances user experience.
5. Gutenberg Editor
If you need an alternative to page builders, consider the Gutenberg Editor. It’s a powerful plugin that lets you create beautiful posts and pages without the need to write code.
The Best WordPress Themes for Bloggers
6. Thrive Theme Builder
With Thrive Theme Builder, you can create a conversion-focused website in minutes. Shift from WordPress default them and use Theme Builder to make beautiful landing pages, posts, and even categories.
7. Astra
Astra is a good theme to use if you’re on a budget or if you’re just starting out. This theme doesn’t have a tight learning curve, so you should figure it out easily if you’re new to blogging.
8. GeneratePress
Available in both free and premium version, GeneratePress is a lightweight WordPress theme for beginners to blogging. Install, activate, and you’re good to go.
9. Foodie Pro
Whether you’re in a cooking blogger or you need an insanely fast theme for your WordPress blog, you should get Foodie Pro. You’ll love this one because developers have optimized it for Core Web Vitals.
Security Plugins for WordPress Bloggers
10. WPS Hide Login
Use WPS Hide Login to bar hackers from brute forcing your WordPress blog. This plugin renames your https://example.com/wp-login.php page to whatever name you give it so only you can login to your site.
11. Wordfence
If you want a more powerful security plugin that will protect your site from hackers, use Wordfence. With its Web Application Firewall, this plugin can easily detect and block spam traffic.
Speed Optimization Tools
12. NitroPack
Do you want to improve your Google’s page speed score fast? Get NitroPack today and improve your Core Web Vitals instantly. It takes about 10 minutes to set up.
13. WP Rocket
The WP Rocket is popular in the blogging world. It’s a powerful, set it and forget caching plugin built to speed up your WordPress blog.
14. Imagify
Compress larger images into versions that load faster with Imagify. You get 500MBs of free optimization every month. Also, you can set the plugin to optimize images as you upload them.
15. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
Use ShortPixel Image Optimizer to optimize and serve your images in the next generation format. There is a free and premium version.
16. GT Metrix
How fast is your website? Are your core web vital page scores good enough? Use GTM Metrix to check your current performance and make necessary speed optimization changes.
SEO Tools for Bloggers
17. Google Keyword Planner
The Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool that you can use to find some good keywords to target for your next set of blog posts.
18. Google Trends
Thanks to Google Trends, you can easily check on the seasonality of a niche before you start creating content. With Google trends, you can see the subjects that people are searching for and when.
19. Buzzsumo
If you’re looking for a blogging tool that can help you grow the size of your site, use Buzzsumo. Use it to find content ideas, build relationships with influencers, and uncover great blogging insights.
20. Semrush
Semrush is an SEO suite built to help you grow your blog’s traffic. You can use it for keyword research, competitor analysis, content optimization, and link building.
21. Market Muse
With Market Muse, you can create and optimize content fast. For many bloggers, Market Muse isn’t a cheap tool. So you should consider it only if you have a strong content marketing budget.
22. Ahrefs
I’ve been using Ahrefs for three years now. And it’s by far the best SEO tool on the internet. It’s comprehensive, straightforward, and easy to use. It’s likely the only SEO tool you’ll ever need.
23. Can I Rank
Can I Rank is a powerful AI in the SEO space. It gives you helpful insights that you can use to improve your blog’s performance.
24. Ubbersuggest
Ubbersuggest is no longer a free SEO tool, but it’s more affordable tool than what’s on the web. So if you’re on a budget and you need an SEO tool that you can use to grow your blog, you may want to try Ubbersuggest.
25. Keywords Everywhere
Get tons of keyword ideas for your next blog posts with Keyword Explorer. With this Google Chrome extension, you can get search volume, competition data, and current trend of a keyword fast.
26. Keyword Chef
If you’re a beginner looking for keyword ideas for your blog, try Keyword Chef. This tool gives you 1,000 keywords for free, which makes a good foundation for getting content creation process up and running.
27. Link Miner
While premium SEO tool such as Semrush and Ahrefs are useful, they can be quite pricey for beginners. So if you want to build links on a budget, try Link Miner.
28. Check My Links
Internal broken links can mess the quality of your site fast, especially if you’ve recently done massive changes. You can use Check My Links to fix this problem.
Email Marketing Tools for Bloggers
29. Get Response
Many bloggers and marketers agree that email marketing is a powerful way to build relationships, grow a site’s traffic, and boost online sales. Use Get Response to start building your email list today.
30. Optin Monster
The Optin Monster tool does more than just help you build your email list. You can use it to communicate with your audience with a more personalized touch.
31. Hunter
To reach out to and network with people in your niche, you need to find their contacts first. That’s why Hunter is a powerful tool to add to your email-marketing arsenal.
32. Ninja Outreach
Get your content in the eyes of social media influencers with Ninja Outreach. Such a tool can help you build high quality links to your blog and get a boost in the SERPs.
33. Mailchimp
Smart marketing starts with building your email list and building relationships with your audience. And with MailChimp, you can create better content, automate your marketing, and reach the right audience.
34. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is the tool you need to send personalized emails to your email subscribers. With the tool, you can create personalized email templates to make your content more engaging.
Domain Name, Hosting, and Website Tools
35. Namecheap
So you’ve chosen a niche and you want a good domain name for your blog? Now it’s time to find a good domain name.
You can use Namecheap for that.
36. Kinsta
Kinsta is a big name on the web and that’s mostly because they offer the best hosting service. I use Kinsta for hosting, and I can confidently tell you that it’s the best option on the table right now.
37. WordPress
While there are many Content Management Systems that you can build your blog on, no option beats the power of WordPress. It’s SEO friendly, cross browser compatible, easy to customize, constantly updated, and more secure.
Project Management Tools
38. Asana
When your blog starts to grow, you’ll need a team to help you scale up and this is where Asana comes in. With this tool, you can create small teams, organize task, and get projects completed in time.
39. Trello
Use Trello to create project cards and invite teams or employees to collaborate. Break tasks into manageable bits, monitor progress, and mark what’s done as completed.
40. Monday
Do you want to scale your blog’s growth with the help of talented professionals working remotely? You can collaborate on Monday. Monday is compatible with tons of marketing tools, including Hunter, Shopify, MailChimp, Slack, Gmail, and LinkedIn.
41. Clickup
Clickup is a new kid on the block, and it’s free forever. With Clickup, you put all your work in one place and collaborate with your team easily.
Content Planning and Writing Tools for Bloggers
42. Evernote
You don’t have to overthink your content writing ever again because you can use Evernote to create rich notes that can help you bring your ideas to life.
43. Google Docs
Built for marketers, bloggers, and SEOs alike, Google Docs is a powerful suite that lets you plan and create content from anywhere in the world Use it to build your keyword list and topic cluster and create high quality content and presentations for your blog.
44. Dynalist
Creating outline for you blog’s content can’t get any easier with Dynalist. Use your keyword list to structure your write up so you can produce high quality content for your audience.
45. Grammarly
Grammarly is a powerful tool that helps you make sure your content is up to editorial standards. It catches errors you may have missed and gives you suggestions you may have not otherwise thought about.
46. Hemingway App
The Hemingway App lets you write content that’s easy to read and consume. You can write your content in the app and it will give you suggestions on what you need to improve.
47. Google Calendar
Use Google Calendar to plan when to create content and when to schedule them for automated publishing.
Blog Topic Generators
48. Quora
Quora is huge. It’s the place on the internet where people ask all kinds of questions. And that makes it the best platform to discover untapped topic ideas that you can create content around.
49. Reddit
Folks on Reddit don’t hold back anything on their shoulder. With literary all the topics under the sun discussed on this platform every day, you can get so many topic ideas and content insights for your next blog post.
50. Hubspot Blog Idea Generator
I haven’t spent time trying this tool, but I’ve read some great reviews online about it Go try it out and see the kind of ideas it spits and then decide if they’re worth targeting for your next blog post.