7 Blogging Tools You Should be Using Daily

 

From photo editing to social media planning, blogging tools make the life of a blogger easier. Especially when traveling, online blogging resources help make work on the road that much easier. Here are the best blogging tools you should be using on a daily basis!

 

1. The Photo Editing Essentials: PicMonkey & PhotoJoiner

PicMonkey is a nifty photo editing website that allows you to add text and shapes to your photos. Perfect for title photos or Pinterest pictures; PicMonkey is free and easy to navigate. Similarly, PhotoJoiner is a nifty program that allows you to combine photos together (such as in the example below). While there are WordPress plugins that can do the same, sometimes stitched photos can show up as broken images. I prefer to build my stitched photos in PhotoJoiner and upload them to WordPress directly.

 

 

2. The Ultimate Social Media Planner: Hoot Suite

As I’m writing this, I am on a flight to Tokyo en route to Indonesia. I’ll be traveling in Indonesia for three weeks with limited access to wifi. Scheduling social media is a Godsend as it allows me to drop off the grid without sending The Pin the Map Project into oblivion and leaving it radio silent. Hoot Suite is a stellar program that lets you schedule social media posts well in advance. I like to schedule both old and new posts when traveling so I can keep my social media updated even when I don’t have time to write a status.

 

 

3. Mindless Monetization: Skimlinks

The holy grail of blogging is to reach the point where your website generates money on its own while you focus on creating content. It’s a difficult level to reach but the good news is there are programs that can help you monetize your site without taking up your time. Skimlinks is an online program that automatically hyperlinks key words or phrases within your blog posts. Every time someone clicks on the link, you get money!

 

 

4. For Sourcing Photos: Pixabay

While there are some bloggers who showcase all their own photography (kudos!) most of us will need to source photos from time to time. It goes without saying that simply taking a photo from Google is a big no-no as it’s necessary to credit other people’s work. A good alternative is sourcing photos from Pixabay, an online library of free photos for commercial use that require no attribution.

 

 

5. To Plan Your Life: Trello

 

I recently came across Trello and became immediately obsessed. Trello is like an online mood board where you can virtually pin to-do lists, inspirational imagery and basically anything that inspires you. I’ve used Trello for The Pin the Map Project and created a board for post inspiration, another for tasks and yet another full of imagery that inspires my own work.

 

 

6. For all your newsletter needs: MailChimp

I’ll admit it; it took me a little longer than it should have to get onboard sending a newsletter. I have often found newsletters to be spammy and so didn’t bother creating a newsletter until I realized that most readers prefer to have new posts sent to them rather than having to check back on the site. Mailchimp is my newsletter go-to! Sign up for The Pin the Map Project newsletter at the bottom of this page!

 

 

7. On page analytics with Sumo

Sumo is my favorite blogging tool! Sumo is a WordPress plug in that offers incredible on site analytics for your blog. Imagine heat maps showing where readers are clicking, on screen analytics showing you what you’re biggest traffic drivers are or how many people are currently on your site and what they’re reading! Sumo offers it all.

 

 

For more tips, check out the BLOGGING SECTION! What are you go-to blogging tools? Share them below!