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What are the best blogging tools? Check out our list of the top 15 for everything from strategy to distribution and for everyone from beginners to pro bloggers.
There are a million and one blogging tools out there. In fact, there are so many that it’s difficult to know which ones are worth your time and, in many cases, your hard-earned money.
This list will cover the 15 top tools for all aspects of blogging, from strategy and writing to SEO and distribution. So whether you’re a beginner or you’ve been blogging for years, you can skip the endless product comparisons and get to work growing your blog with proven tools!
Blogging without a strategy is like traveling to a destination you’ve never been to without a map or GPS. If you arrived there at all, it’d almost certainly take longer than necessary. And, more likely, you’d end up lost and frustrated. So, don’t go into blogging without a plan; use these tools to help you develop a strategy.
Ahrefs is one of the top SEO and content marketing tool suites available. Its tools include:
Pricing: Ahrefs has four pricing plans with the Lite options starting at $99 per month.
Like Ahrefs, Semrush is one of the leading tools for SEO and content strategy. It provides a huge suite of tools for:
Pricing: With Semrush, you pay for the value you get. Pricing starts at $119.95 for the Pro plan, which offers more than enough functionality for beginners and freelance bloggers, for example. The higher tiers range in price and are best suited for larger teams.
Image Source: Search Engine Journal
Research tools like Ahrefs are incredibly helpful. But, if you’ve already been blogging for some time, don’t forget about the value of analytics data specific to your blog’s performance. For example, Google Search Console can tell you:
Pricing: Google Search Console is one of many free blogging tools. Since it’s based on your data—as is Google Analytics data—it’s also one of the best blogging tools you could have in your arsenal. The same is true of Google Analytics, which pairs well with Search Console.
Writing can be labor and time-intensive. Especially if you don’t use these three blogging tools for better writing, easier self-editing, and greater efficiency.
Among the best writing tools is Jasper. Jasper is an artificial intelligence writing assistant that allows users to generate quality content and copy in minutes. And not just any content and copy, but the kind that drives conversions such as email list sign-ups and gated content downloads. The most helpful features for bloggers are available on the Boss Mode plan and include:
Pricing: Boss Mode pricing starts at just $59 per month. (There’s also a Starter plan with pricing beginning at $29 per month. However, it’s best suited for short-form content and copy.)
Simplicity, clarity, and readability are essential for bloggers to master. Hemingway Editor makes it possible by color-coding various issues, such as:
Pricing: You can use the web app for free or purchase the desktop application for Mac or Windows for just $19.99 one time price.
ProWritingAid is a robust alternative to Grammarly. It not only catches grammar errors but also calls attention to:
Pricing: ProWritingAid has three plans—$20 per month, $79 per year, and $399 lifetime.
There are millions of undiscovered blog posts on the web that get no traffic and, therefore, no results for the bloggers who’ve published them. Don’t let your blog posts land in the content graveyard; invest in SEO tools that can help you earn organic traffic from search engines.
Clearscope is an AI-powered platform with a focus on optimizing your content to drive more traffic. It shows you:
SEO tool Surfer has a handy Chrome extension and integrates with Jasper for fast content creation and search engine optimization. It’s an affordable tool for:
Pricing: Surfer’s plans start at $59 per month and range up to $239 based on your needs.
Got a WordPress blog? If so, you’ll love the RankMath WordPress plugin (similar to the Yoast SEO plugin).
Instead of bouncing between several content management tools, you can write and optimize blog content in WordPress. That means no more copying and pasting from Google Docs into an optimization tool and then into WordPress! This SEO plugin’s features include:
Pricing: RankMath has an excellent free version, as well as paid plans starting from $59.
Blog posts should include more than just text. Well-chosen images can provide extra context and clarity for readers, highlight the most important points for people who skim the content and create a more enjoyable user experience overall. Here are three of the top image-related tools.
Even if you have no design experience, Canva makes it easy to create eye-catching images (along with videos and promotional materials that may be part of your larger content strategy). This user-friendly design tool offers:
Pricing: Canva offers an amazing free plan. But, if you want access to premium images, icons, and other features, pricing starts at just $12.99 per month.
If you want to create custom visuals but don’t want to spend on Photoshop, GIMP is a good free alternative. With it, you can:
Pricing: GIMP is free and plays nice with another incredible free tool for vector imagery—Inkscape.
Sourcing images, creating them from scratch or taking screenshots is one thing. But you can’t forget about compressing your blog post visuals. Lots of unnecessarily large image files can slow your blog down and slow loading means higher bounce rates, ranking difficulties, and, ultimately, fewer conversions. TinyPNG is a simple tool for preventing those issues without sacrificing image quality. All you have to do is:
Pricing: TinyPNG is free unless you need to compress over 20 images at once, want higher file size limits, and need other pro features. To upgrade to the Pro plan, the cost is just $39 per year.
Blog post creation is one thing. But distribution is a completely different animal, and it’s necessary to get more traffic, engagement, and leads from your content.
An alternative to Buffer, Hootsuite is one of the top tools for:
Pricing: Hootsuite has a limited free plan with paid plans starting at $49 per month and ranging upward depending on the number of users, accounts, and other features you need.
A high-quality alternative to Mailchimp and other email marketing platforms, ConvertKit makes it easy to:
Pricing: ConvertKit offers a free plan for up to 300 subscribers, as well as paid plans starting at just $15 per month.
Last up is Outbrain, which is great for getting your content in front of a wider audience that’s likely to be interested in it. This two-sided media platform allows bloggers to:
Pricing: Set up a demo or contact the Outbrain team for pricing info.
Blogging requires some heavy lifting—creating a well-rounded strategy, creating content consistently, and distributing it far and wide, for example. But you don’t have to do it all on your own and hope for the best.
As you can see, there are plenty of blogging tools to help you make informed decisions and speed up your workflows. And that includes our blog writing AI tool, Jasper, which can help you create high-quality, engaging blog posts many times faster than you could write them on your own. Sign up for Jasper's Boss Mode plan and get started on your next long-form assignment!
Austin Distel is the Sr. Director of Marketing at Jasper, your AI creative assistant. He's also an Airbnb superhost in Austin, Texas. You can follow Austin's adventures around the internet and the world at distel.com.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.