16 Essential Blogging Tools for Beginners in 2024

This post contains affiliate links which means that I will make a small commission if you purchase a product after clicking on any of them, at no extra cost to you.

With so many blogging tools available, it can be difficult to determine which ones are best for you and your blog. In this blog post, I’ll go over the most popular and effective blogging tools for beginners so you can get started on the right track.

Just to clarify, you DO NOT need to spend a lot of money on blogging tools. Even if some of these tools are paid resources, consider your priorities and the areas you want to invest in first. But one amazing thing about many of these blogging tools is that they frequently offer free versions or are very reasonably priced!

I hope this list of the best blogging tools helps take away some of the overwhelm and helps you accomplish all your blogging dreams!

Awesome blogging tools for beginners 2023

Blogging tools for SEO and writing

Grammarly

Grammarly is a popular grammar and spelling checker that can help you improve your writing accuracy. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools for both beginner and advanced writers. With Grammarly, you can check for errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and more.

The software also provides helpful suggestions to improve your writing and helps you identify commonly misused words or phrases. Grammarly even offers an AI-powered assistant to ensure you get the best writing experience possible. Whether you are new to blogging or an experienced writer, Grammarly is a great blogging tool to have in your arsenal.

KeySearch

If you are only going to purchase one tool to start, I highly suggest it be KeySearch. SEO is crucial if you want your blog posts to be seen. KeySearch is a keyword research tool designed to help online marketers optimize their content and improve their search engine rankings.

You can easily identify the best keywords to target in your content and make sure your blog posts are optimized for both organic and paid search traffic. The tool allows you to find popular keywords that have high search volume, low competition, and provides useful insights into related search terms.

It also provides keyword difficulty scores, which makes it easy to identify and prioritize the best keywords for your blog posts. Additionally, KeySearch has an advanced algorithm that evaluates all your website data, such as backlinks, page titles, meta descriptions, and more, to ensure that you’re using the most effective keywords for your content.

If you aren’t in a rush to get this tool, you can hold out for Black Friday when they usually do 40% off an annual or monthly with code BLACKFRIDAY.

There are other keyword research tools, but this one is definitely my favorite.

HARO

Something else that helps you rank is when you have a higher domain authority (DA). One way to improve your DA is to get more legit backlinks to your website. HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. Sign up as a source and you have the potential to connect with journalists seeking expertise in certain areas.

You are able to respond to reporters who are inquiring about topics, issues, or discussions you may have insight on. Not only is this a great way for you to build backlinks, but it’s also an excellent way for you to build credibility in your field.

Blogging tools for analytics

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most popular analytics tools for bloggers and webmasters alike. It is free and can be used to measure website traffic, analyze audience behavior, and track conversions. With Google Analytics, you can monitor how users find and interact with your site, as well as gain insights into their interests, demographics, and more.

Once you install Google Analytics on your site, you can use it to track the number of visitors that arrive at your website, where they are coming from, what kind of devices they are using, and which pages they visit. This data can help you to make informed decisions about what content you should create and how to optimize your website to convert more visitors into customers.

In addition to tracking website traffic, Google Analytics also provides data on user engagement, like how long visitors spend on a page and which links they click on. You can also use it to track goals and conversions, like sales or newsletter signups. With this data, you can understand how effective your marketing efforts are and whether or not users are taking the desired action when visiting your website.

Using Google Analytics is an essential part of understanding the success of any website. With the data it provides, you can make smarter decisions about what content to create and how to optimize it for maximum impact.

SEMrush

I absolutely love this blogging tool. Even the free version of SEMrush is amazing and very beneficial. It allows you to analyze organic traffic, backlinks, advertising spend, and even allows you to do a site audit. Your site audit will elaborate on errors, warnings, crawlability, and overall site performance.

With the help of SEMrush, you can monitor your competitors’ strategies and optimize your content accordingly. You can also get detailed reports that show how well your website is performing and make any necessary improvements to get better results. Additionally, with SEMrush you can spy on your competitors’ backlinks and replicate them to increase your website’s search engine rankings. Overall, SEMrush is an invaluable tool for beginner bloggers who want to make sure their websites are getting maximum visibility and generating the best results.

Moz

Moz has somewhat similar features to SEMrush. It provides you with SEO insights that are essential to optimizing your blog. Moz helps you to analyze your website’s search visibility, track your ranking on the SERPs, and monitor competitor performance. It also allows you to run keyword research to discover the best words to target in your content and provides access to SEO audit reports which can help you make sure that your blog is technically sound and up to date.

Moz also offers tools like Link Explorer, which provides an extensive backlink analysis, and MozBar, a browser extension that helps you assess the authority of any webpage you’re visiting. With these powerful tools, you can improve the visibility and authority of your blog and take it to the next level.

GTmetrix

GTmetrix can be used to test how your website performs. It will analyze your page speed, reveal why it may be slow, and present optimization opportunities. There is a free version available for this tool.

Blogging tools for photos and graphics

Lightroom

Lightroom is powerful image-editing software that lets you easily adjust, organize, and enhance the quality of your photos and images. With Lightroom, you can crop, rotate, and fine-tune your photos, adjust the exposure and highlights, and apply special effects. You can also easily adjust the colors, contrast, and brightness of your photos and create stunning conversions.

Lightroom is a great tool for creating impressive visual content for your blog or website. It also allows you to store and manage all of your images in one place, making it easy to access them whenever you need them. You can find affordable presets on websites like Etsy, or 123Presets.

Overall, Lightroom is an excellent tool for bloggers looking to enhance the visual appeal of their content. Whether you’re a beginner or a professional photographer, Lightroom has the features you need to take your photos to the next level.

Canva

Canva offers a range of features to help create beautiful visuals for your blog posts. It provides a library of templates and design elements that can be used to create custom visuals such as images, infographics, posters, banners, and other graphic design materials. It’s easy to use and provides users with basic photo editing tools such as cropping, resizing, and adding text.

Canva is a great tool for those who want to add professional-looking visuals to their blogs without having to hire an expensive designer or pay for expensive software. The platform also offers a range of pre-made design templates that you can edit and customize to fit your blog’s theme and branding.

The great thing about Canva is that it’s completely free to use. While there are some premium features in their pro version such as additional templates and more advanced photo editing tools, these are not essential for most bloggers. For those who are looking to take their blog visuals to the next level, Canva also offers subscription plans that unlock additional features.

With a Canva subscription, you have access to millions of premium stock photos, videos, graphics, and templates as well as tools such as background remover.

Blogging tools for education/help

Facebook groups

Facebook groups are such a great free tool for bloggers. My favorite ones are the ones that post for link swaps, and collaboration opportunities, or have weekly threads that allow you to be seen and shared by other bloggers. Here are some of my favorite groups for travel bloggers:

Blog Management system

The Blog Boss Management System has totally helped me get my business in order. The system uses Airtable and has several different tables, charts, and spreadsheets all set to help you keep financials, plans, and ideas in one convenient location.

I cannot recommend this system enough! It helps me track my income, expenditures, emails, my affiliates, my blog post plans, and so much more.

For a better visual of what to expect, click here.

Affiliate marketing course

If you are just starting out in your blogging journey, an affiliate marketing course certainly isn’t necessary right away. I would definitely sign up to be an affiliate with a network such as Travelpayouts to start. Their system is the most user-friendly that I’ve found, plus they have a program with companies such as Viator, Get Your Guide, Rentalcars.com, Booking.com, and more! Making all of your links in one place and easy to manage.

Once you’ve gotten a feel for affiliate marketing, Leanne’s course Affiliate Marketing Superstars dives deeper into the ins and outs of affiliate marketing and gives you foolproof strategies to implement on your blog (or social media/email list)!

Check out her page where she gives a full breakdown of what you can expect with the modules and lessons. And if you aren’t ready to pull the trigger on buying the course she has a free 5-day email marketing course. I did the free 5-day email course at first, but she provided so much awesome info in it that I had to buy the course!

If you can hold out, Leanne almost always does a kickass Black Friday sale on her website as well.

Blogging tools for organization and efficiency

Notion

For bloggers and content creators, staying on top of research, drafts, and publishing schedules is crucial. That’s where Notion comes in as a remarkable asset in your creative toolkit. What’s even better? Notion is free and offers customizable templates.

I actually spent time perfecting and designing one specifically to cater to the unique needs of content creators! Check out the template here!

Tasty Pins

This plugin is super affordable and allows you to easily optimize your images for SEO and Pinterest! You can set all of your Pinterest descriptions at once, as well as individualize certain ones if you prefer.

You can also hide Pinterest-specific images from your page, disable pinning on certain images, force pinning of hidden images, and so much more!

Check them out here for all of its amazing features!

Mailtrack

Mailtrack is an excellent tool for bloggers looking to track the performance of their emails and ensure that they are reaching their intended recipients. This tracking system allows you to know if your email has been opened, as well as how many times it has been read.

Mailtrack has been sooo helpful when it comes to pitching! If I pitch to someone and they don’t open my email, for example, I know that I need to find a different contact. You can save 50% by paying for the annual plan, which is only $60 (equating to around $5/month)!

Hunter.io

This is another tool that is very helpful when it comes to pitching. Half of the battle with pitching is finding the right contact. Hunter is an extension that helps you get the emails behind web addresses.

Not only can you find them, but you can also verify and see the email pattern for a company. Meaning if you know the person’s name you want to contact, you will be able to figure out the email address based on the pattern.

I don’t even use the paid tool for this one, as with the free version you get 25 free searches a month!

Tailwind

Pinterest is typically a huge traffic source for bloggers, and Tailwind makes pinning and scheduling pins seamless. Tailwind is a powerful platform for social media automation. It allows you to schedule your posts across multiple platforms and channels with ease.

It also provides real-time insights into your followers’ interests and demographics, giving you a better understanding of what content works best on which platform. With its drag-and-drop interface, it’s easy to customize and optimize campaigns, creating highly targeted ads. Tailwind’s automated workflow makes it simpler to manage campaigns, while its AI-based optimization engine helps you get maximum engagement.

I hope that you find these tools helpful! If I missed one of your favorite blogging tools let us know in the comments below <3