23 Snazzy Blogging Tools Every Professional Content Marketer is Using

Here are 23 essential blogging tools. They are used by professional content marketers to streamline their marketing, and you can use too.

1. BuzzSumo ​ Here are 3 nifty features of this tool :

1. Derive inspiration from a popular headline:

● Head over to BuzzSumo.com. Enter ‘topic name’ in the search bar. And press the ‘Go!’ button.

● You’ll be presented with the most shared articles.

● Now you can model a popular post and skyscrape it.

2. Curate popular content in your niche:

Want to find high-quality content in your niche that’ll engage your social media followers?

● Type a subject related to your industry in BuzzSumo. And sort the results based on your choice of social media.

3. Discover influencers:

It’s helpful to discover individuals already sharing your type of content. They can get the ball rolling for your article as well.

● Finding sharers of your type of content is simple. Perform a BuzzSumo top content search for your keyword. Then click ‘view sharers’ button underneath article.

● You can also do a direct influencer search for a keyword.

● Once you get around with these basics, you can try these other useful features of ​ ​ BuzzSumo. ​

2a. Evernote ​ Evernote is a powerful tool having over 100 million users. You can perform the following tasks with ​ it:

● Plan your marketing strategy,

● Write your blog post ideas or outlines. ​ ​ ​ ​ ● Save articles to read later from the web using web clipper ​ ​ ● Draft complete content pieces.

● It’s available for multiple platforms and synchronizes your data automatically (you only need an internet connection).

● So you can pen down your ideas even during inconvenient times with the mobile ​ ​ app. ​ ● To organize your Evernote account – you can create multiple notebooks and add ​ ​ tags. ​

2b. Skitch ​ ● It is a neat Evernote add-on for taking screenshots. Just click and drag the portion of the screen you want to capture. Then save the snapshot in the Evernote notebook of your ​ ​ ​ ​ choice.

● There are handy annotation features in Skitch. You can circle, point, blur and add text in a ​ ​ ​ ​ couple of clicks.

3. Editorial Calendar ​ ● Following a schedule is extremely important to produce your highest degree of creative ​ ​ work. ​ ● For bloggers, publishing regularly is even more important. You’ve to keep your audience engaged with new high-quality content.

● Editorial calendar it has a a simple drag and drop functionality. And you can create, edit ​ ​ ​ and schedule with a simple quick edit dialog.

● You can also create a special calendar for custom posts like . ​ ​ ​ ● If you are looking for a more professional tool with collaboration options and social media integration then use CoSchedule. It brings planning, writing, publishing and social media ​ ​ ​ scheduling at a single place.

● CoSchedule integrates with major blogging platforms and tools – social networks, Buffer ​ ​ and Evernote.

● Here is the process to integrate your Evernote ideas into WordPress blog posts with ​ ​ ​ ​ CoSchedule.

The process is simple:

1. Connect your Evernote notebooks into CoSchedule.

2. Drag and drop your notes from your drafts bin in CoSchedule as real content on your editorial calendar.

3. Use the workflows and communication you love in CoSchedule for managing your Evernote-created content.

4. When your Evernote content is ready to publish, send it to WordPress, or even share it as a link, HTML, or a PDF.

5. After publish, use your social queue to promote your content right from CoSchedule.

4. Google Keyword Planner ​ The strategy most marketers employ to use the keyword planner is: ​ ​ ​ ​

● Enter 4-5 seed keywords. ​ ​ ​ ● Set targeting to your country and filter only high-volume keywords.

● Run the planner and go to the keyword ideas tab for 800+ keyword variations.

● Export all the keywords in an excel spreadsheet. ​ ​ ​

Here are 2 lesser used Keyword Planner strategies:

Strategy #1 – Spy your competitor’s keywords.

Plug your competitor’s blog URL in the field. And you’ll be presented with a list of ​ ​ ​ ​ keywords related to the website.

Strategy #2

Structure your website and find niche markets on the ad group ideas tab. Sometimes the name of the ad group can also spark a keyword idea. Also, look at the relevant keywords in each ad group.

5. Uber Suggest ​ Uber Suggest can help you find hundreds of long-tail keywords by scraping Google’s autocomplete results.

6. Yoast WordPress SEO ​ ● Before you hit the publish button, you’ve to ensure that your post is optimized for search engines.

● Yoast is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin. It has comprehensive functionalities on ​ ​ optimizing your content, meta description, page title and . ​

7. Buffer ​ ● You can accomplish more productive business tasks than logging into multiple social media accounts using an uber cool scheduling and monitoring tool like Buffer. ​ ​ ​ ● It allows you to manage major social media accounts (except your Google+ profile) from one ​ ​ ​ ​ dashboard.

8. Hemingway Editor ​ ● As a blogger you’ve to write a lot of content in consistent basis and Hemingway Editor can ​ ​ ​ ​ help you reduce writing errors during write up.

● Here are some of its features.

● It grades your writing level. Unless you’ve a technical audience, you should write at a six grade or lower level.

● It marks the sentences (via color coding) in your article that are passive or difficult to read. You can work on them.

● You can copy your article from other document editors directly inside Hemingway App. Or you can even create an article from scratch.

9. Canva ​ Canva can help you design beautiful original graphics for your blog posts and social media ​ ​ platforms in under 5 minutes.

10. EMV Headline Analyzer ​ Headlines are a blogger’s bread and butter. You can increase chances of getting clicks on your ​ ​ article by crafting headlines that evoke emotions. ​ ​ ​

11. Quick Sprout ​ ● You can quickly analyze your competitors on a number of different parameters: Social ​ ​ ​ ​ media, number of backlinks, website speed, total indexed pages and more.

● You can dig thoroughly in your website’s social media and SEO performance.

● Or your page level performance for a breakdown of your post popular content. And ​ ​ ​ ​ recommendation for improving your website speed. ​ ​ ​ ● Crawling your website with the free Quick Sprout grader will definitely give you a few areas requiring work on your website.

12. Email Marketing Software like Get Response or Aweber ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ● Start collecting emails of your customers from today (if you haven’t already). An email list ​ ​ ​ ​ will go a long way in building traffic, engagement and making you money from your website.

● You can use Aweber – it is a widely used email marketing solution.

● Another easy to use solution is Get Response.

● Once you choose an email marketing software, here are 3 strategies you can implement: ​ ​ ​ ​

● Build an autoresponder sequence for the new email optins. It’ll take the prospects ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ deeper into your funnel. ​ ​ ​ ● Broadcast all your latest blog posts through email. Like I do.

● Make announcements about your product updates.

13. Google Analytics ​ Here are 2 basic features to get you started with Google Analytics.

Feature #1 – Setting up goals

● You can track critical website events like email signups. And assign a value to the goal.

● After you’ve created a goal and GA has collected sufficient data, you’ll start seeing graphs on your conversions.

Feature #2 – Find the top performing content on your website

● Head over to the Site Content and check your All Pages report. You’ll find metrics on your most traffic driving page with its bounce rate, average time on page, unique page views and ​ ​ ​ more.

● Once you find your top performing content, create more content of the same kind. ​ ​ ​ ● You will also find insights on your major traffic sources, behaviour flow of your website ​ ​ ​ users, mobile usability and more. ​ ​ ​

14. Hello Bar ​ ● Collecting email is a priority for you. Right? Here is a email collection tool – it’s seen millions of times every day. Say hello to the Hello Bar. ​ ​ ● Hello Bar distinctively fixes at the top of your website. It’s eye-catching and it scrolls with the visitor as he reads the blog post. At one point, it accounted for 11% of my leads. ​ ​ ​ ● Hello Bar has also helped tons of other websites.

● DIYThemes got an additional 1,180 subscribers in 30 days. ​ ​ ​ ● Superflow saw a 116% increase in conversions from their blog. ​ ​ ● You can install Hello Bar for free on your website and A/B test variations. ​ ​ ​ ​ ● Give an incentive like subscribing to your blog updates, an eBook, a case study or even ​ ​ ​ direct them to a landing page. ​ ​ ​

15. ​ Want to remain updated with the latest happenings in your industry? An easier solution is a RSS ​ ​ reader – Feedly. It helps you discover updates from your favourite . And share them with your ​ ​ followers on social media.

16. Click Funnel ​ ● To increase your sales: You need to optimize your conversion funnel and keep A/B testing.

● Click Funnel is a powerful tool that helps you design seductive landing pages from pre made templates.

● You can A/B test variations and continuously optimize your pages to increase your ​ ​ conversions, without any technical hassles. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

17. Trello ​ ● This is a powerful project management tool based on the Kanban system. You can use it to: ​ ​ ​ ● Communicate with your team members and assign tasks to them.

● Create a checklist of things to do in a project. ​ ​ ​ ● Write down blog post ideas.

● You can download the Tello Quick Start Kit from WpCurve team for free. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ● If you like working in short focused bursts of time then convert your Trello cards into Pomodoro tasks with Pomello. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

18. BuzzStream ​ Buzz Stream enables you to research, organize and plan your outreach strategically. It helps you build relationships with influencers efficiently.

19. Quantcast ​ ● Quantcast gives you insights on your audience preferences, demographics, general and political interests.

● You can also spy on your industry competitors. And reverse engineer the platforms that ​ ​ ​ work the best for them.

20. UpdraftPlus ​ ● If you’re a WordPress blogger, use a backup plugin like UpdraftPlus. It’s easy to configure. ​ ​ ​ You can choose the backup intervals and files to include in your backup.

● The backup can be stored on the cloud – Dropbox, Google Drive and a host of other cloud ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ services.

21. Cache plugin like W3 Total Cache ​ It’s important to improve your page speed. WordPress users can optimize their website speed by ​ ​ ​ ​ using a cache plugin like W3 Total Cache. It can 10x your site performance when fully configured. ​ ​ ​ ​

22. Piktochart ​ Infographics are still an effective strategy for generating traffic and building links. Piktochart has a ​ ​ ​ ​ wide range of customization tools for modifying color schemes, fonts and pre-made templates. ​ ​ ​ ​ You can design a professional looking infographic in 15 minutes with its – ​ ​ ​ ​

● Drag and drop interface,

● Grid lines to align your graphics and resize your images proportionally.

You can export your finished graphic in an HTML format and embed it on your website.

23. Click to Tweet ​ You want your audience to interact with you and take action. For getting started with interactive content, include “click to tweet” buttons in your posts.

You can get started with the free plugin by CoSchedule – Click to Tweet. It adds click to tweet boxes ​ ​ ​ inside your content with a single click.