Creating a blog is only one part of the blogging equation; you absolutely have to manage and maintain your blog in order for it grow and become better, faster, and more successful.
There used to be a time when trying to find helpful tools, get blog inspiration and update your blog was pain (No Pinterest, what?!) but now, thanks to the growth of the Internet and blogging community, you can find help and resources almost anywhere. From photo programs to blog design resources to social media tools, the list of helpful online programs is never ending.
Assisting you with your blog and social media personality, IFB has rounded up 50 online tools that will help you better your blog and your brand:
- IFB (obviously): Your ultimate blogging resource with tips & insights
- Problogger: Great outlet for content inspiration and tangible blogging advice
- Google Analytics: Learn more about your site traffic and how to keep visitors on your site
- Pixlr.com: Don't have Photoshop? Use this photo editing software that mirrors Photoshop
- Copyblogger: One-stop shop that offers tutorials on content marketing, SEO, email marketing and keyword search.
- Tweepi.com: Manage your Twitter following by gaining quality followers and deleting spammers
- Klout: Measure your influence across most social media platforms and see what kind of following you are garnering
- Pinterest: Gather inspiration, promote your visual graphics, and share content ideas with your following.
- Pugly Pixel: Graphic design blog that offers tips and inspiration for better graphics
- EHow.com: Learn just about everything (video-production, SEO tips, grammar help) on this guide-to-everything site
- Dictionary.com: Your grammar 101 source.
- Associated Press Stylebook: News and media guideline for writing and reporting. Abbreviations, grammar guidelines, and more
- Instagram: Social photo-sharing application that links to your Facebook and Twitter
- Thesaurus.com: Online dictionary and mobile reference source
- LinkedIn: Get job tips, newsworthy articles and more! Plus, stalk your favorite brands and companies for potential marketing opps.
- Google +: Social media program that allows you to share your posts and create various communities through the Google + Circles
- Bloglovin’: Follow your favorite blogs and share your posts in this easy-to-read and mobile browser.
- Her New Leaf’s “Primp My Blog” page: Tips on how to add plugins to your blog and advice on designing your blog better
- The Academy: Empowering You To Achieve Success Your Way: Brush up on marketing and PR tactics that will help you grow your blog
- Mashable: The ultimate source for all things technology and social media, plus news bites and 24/7 updates
- GoDaddy: A blogger's resource for domain registration and hosting services
- PSFK: Technology's destination for creative business, design and fashion topics and hot issues
- RewardStyle: Affiliate network that helps bloggers monetize their site
- Fashion Traffic: Another outlet for fashion bloggers interested in joining an affiliate marketing network
- Lyst: Social sharing shopping site that allows you to curate your own collection and share your designer finds with your readers
- CurrentlyObsessed.me: Discover the hottest fashion finds from your favorite top-tier bloggers
- Fashionably Marketing.Me: Get updates on what's going on in the fashion digital marketing space
- Business of Fashion: daily resource for fashion leaders and creatives
- ShopStyle: A shopping portal where you can create layouts with products from thousands of brands and shops
- Polyvore: Create magazine-like layouts with products, text, magazine images and more
- Webstagram: If you're iPhone-less, you can browse Instagram accounts easily through this site
- Hootsuite: A great tool to manage mutliple Twitter, Facebook and social media accounts in one place
- StumbleUpon: Use this to promote and share your posts and find new sites and inspiration as well
- Bit.ly: Create an account and use this tool to shorten your links for Twitter and Facebook then track their reach
- Style.com: For the best Fashion Week images and trend story ideas, we go here. (Remember – site your source!)
- Free Gretchen: Use this site to promote and grow a giveaway or contest on your blog
- Shortstack: Custom designer Facebook pages, for free (fancy, right?)
- Offerpop: Create contests and launch promotional campaigns with this Twitter/Facebook marketing tool.
- North Social: Create interactive tabs (video, welcome, photo gallery) with this easy Facebook customization program.
- Etsy: Promote small business owners, find cool things, sell your stuff – Etsy is great for all that
- TweetReach: Analyze your Twitter account, get total impressions and more with this impressive Twitter management dashboard.
- Topsy: Fast-indexing technological program that delivers crucial metrics from social media apps
- TwitterCounter: Get statistics and insight into your Twitter following
- Blog Milk: resource for inspiration, design and other tools that will get your creative juices following
- Icon Archive: Hundreds of thousands of icons, for your use, for free!
- MailChimp: Set up a custom newsletter for your blog
- Random.org: Use this generator to pick a winner at random for your contests / giveaways
- Flickr: Flickr's creative commons is a great source for photos you can use freely on your blog
- DaFont: Download free fonts for your blog's graphics
- Veer: View and purchase photos and exclusive fonts
Phew, now THAT is an impressive list of 50 effective tools. Have you used any of these programs? Do you have any additional recommendations? Share in the comments section!
Wow! I know what I’m doing on my lunch break…thanks for all the helpful tips! Looking forward to trying Pixrl. Polyvore, Shortstack, and Mashable are all great resources!
*Pixlr…I hate typos!
Thank you for this! Bookmarking now! BTW I love Pugly Pixel.
I love Tweepi! It’s a huge help in organizing your Twitter followers and giving you a chance to really use the site to converse with your readers.
– A few of my other favorites sites and pages:
– The Blog Stylist, Bree is a maven.
– Beautifully Invisible has a bunch of useful posts on blog improvement, and I’d be lost without her Blogger-to-Wordpress guide!
– Girl Does Geek, because Faye is amazing and she knows everything about SEO and growing your blog’s readership.
– Shameless plug, I also recently wrote a guest post for Beautifully Invisible all about blog design – people said it was useful, so hopefully it is!
– HelloCotton is my best-kept secret, part RSS reader and part social media platform. It’s run by a marvelously friendly team that works hard to interact with members and spotlight exciting new content daily.
…Annnd there you go. I’m sure I missed some things, but those are what come to mind!
Oh Casee Marie – you are too sweet. Thank you!
Thanks so much for this!!!! This will help me become more organized!!
I was surprised not to see Rafflecopter on this list. It’s a MUST for simpler and more organized blog giveaways!
Awww thanks Casee 🙂
Amazing list of useful resources!! I tried almost every one of them, except Associated Press Stylebook. I will try to read it, sounds like something that could help me improve my writing.
I have two to add to that list:
Google Fonts. You can download and install the fonts (all free, by the way) into your machine for use in your graphic design tool of choice, including…
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program): If you can’t afford (or won’t pay for) Adobe’s fine array of products, GIMP is the next best thing; it’s free, works on whatever OS you’re using, and if you’re willing to dive in, perfect for your needs.
Speaking from experience, I’ve been using the above since mid-2010. It’s all I need, really.
Really interesting list! Some of these I didn’t even have in mind! The google traffic thing is really useful, that one is my daily resourse!
Thanks!!! Useful sites! I’m already using some of them…
Thanks for the terrific resources! I feel like there are so many worth researching.
I always look forward to these things. Getting started is always the annoying part. Also, I feel like I have a blog on every blog platform…I think it’s time to downsize. Especially my free wordpress is better looking than my self hosted website…go figure. But thanks for the tips!!!
pugly pixel is the best. thankyou for making this list…there were a few that i didn’t even know about…bookmarking this.
This is sooo helpful. I have 20 tabs open right now trying to look at every tool at once!
There are definitely some sites that I didn’t know before with some amazing tips. Thank you so much for sharing! I can’t wait to keep building and developing my blog.
Love this list! So many good resources, many of whom I have never heard of. Thanks!
Amazing tips! Some I knew, but others not… I’ll try some of them more eheh 🙂
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Bookmarking this page. I knew about a little over half of these tools but a few were new to me. thanks!
WOW this is amazing and unbelievably helpful! For a newbie like me who’s still trying to grasp the basics, I had no idea all these sites existed.
Thank you soo much! I can’t wait to get started on these.
NekoCandii
Wow what an amazing list, just taken about 20 things from it, thank you so much for this post!
Fantastic round up! I will have to check some of these new ones out!
I’m already using some of these tools, but it’s always fun to explore new ones. Some become favorites. Others never make it to the bookmarking.
Great list!
Another awesome site is Rafflecopter, for giveaways and contests. I love using it!
Great post! Exactly what I have been looking for!
Thanks for the tools, I’m already using some of them. but some are definitely new to me and thank you for that. 🙂
Thank you for such a comprehensive list! I have been doing this (blogging) for ages but love that there is always something new to learn xx
This is a pretty great list. I bookmarked as well!
very informative thanks you.
I also think you need to add PicMonkey to the list. It is a free photo resource that helps enhance your photos, size them, and it can even make fantastic collages. It is the only photo resource I use.
Thanks doll,
The Glamorous Housewife
Amazing thankyou so much. Especially for the photo editor site.
Thanks for sharing. Guys try and add NewsAssist to your list of tools? It is a great productivity tool for bloggers that takes care of searching, editing, publishing and distributing blogtext. NewsAssist is an open source Firefox add-on that can be found here (newsassist.org).
“firefox add-on”:http://www.newsassist.org
Mmmm interesting tools. I’m sure going to try out a few. Thanks a lot!!!
I recommend you Trisocial ( http://www.trisocial.com ) they have an extensive suite of apps to customize the fanpages and to do contests and promotions. regards!
Amazing write up and tips for places to improve blogs! Each idea in its own way is a powerful source to drive that traffic anyone may look for and add “color” to those pages. My blog is on writing, poetry and pieces for the interested reader. You can also share and donate anything if you’d like. http://gmartiro.blogspot.com
Thanks Amanda – what a great list. However, there are even more tools in the market since you wrote this – check out www.passle.net. It is designed really for businesses and makes keeping an updated blog alot easier (most businesses struggle!) We use it ourselves and as a team of 3 create over 40 blog posts per month – before that we had about 1-2 posts per month – all of this with minimal effort.! Worth a look. I do work there, but that does not mean it is not any good!
This is great!!! I am going to start right now…………..
I’ve started using Rapidweaver with my mac to build my website and a new plugin was recently completed for blogging that works directly with Rapidweaver making it easy to blog with OUTSTANDING customer support since it is such a small community. I recently figured out how to get it to post from Polyvore!
Has anyone tried universal checkout tools like shoppable, varinode or two tap?
Nice ! I recently came across www.exporttweet.com, twitter analytics tool . Is it a good tool ?