Blogging is amazing. Without this blog, we would not have had the momentum we did paying off our debt in 2015 and we definitely would have a challenge paying for the stuff that is outside our one-income budget.
And since I love blogging so much, I wanted to put together a little toolkit of sorts of the blogging tools I use to help me keep this place running. Some of these things are free and others do cost money. If you don’t have a budget in place for your blog yet, I recommend you read this post here on setting up a budget for your blog before paying money for anything blog related.
Blogging Toolkit
SumoMe
SumoMe is free…did you catch that, FREE! Of course, they have some paid options but the majority of their amazingness is FREE! In fact, if you want grab 12 of their free amazing tools, head here and sign up – again it’s free. SumoMe has amazing tools, like the Smartbar (the bar at the top of this page), popups so you can garner more email sign ups, the Welcome Mat which is just a gorgeous way of promoting your email sign up and so much more! Seriously, it’s free so go sign up. 🙂
And if you aren’t promoting your email list yet, you need to be. Remember that social media is rented space – Facebook could decide at any moment to change their policies and close up shop to businesses or require that we pay to use them. You don’t own the access to those FB fans but you own the access to those that have willing given you their email address.
So, make sure you’re promoting the heck out of your email list now – even if you don’t have a huge amount of pageviews yet.
BoardBooster
If you read my Developing a Pinterest Game Plan post, you know I LOVE BoardBooster! BoardBooster allows me to put my Pinterest strategy on autopilot. I don’t have to manually pin a 100 pins a day anymore (yes, I was pinning that much every day…it was a lot of work) so it frees up so much of my time and is worth the money every month.
I suggest you start off with the $5 a month plan to get you started and work your way up from there.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit makes using your email list soooo much easier. I wrote in great depth the advantages and disadvantages of using ConvertKit as your email provider in this post, but let me just tell you that ConvertKit makes organizing your email lists, and sending out emails so much easier. There’s way less frills with ConvertKit in terms of email templates, but honestly, I love the simplicity of it.
It is more money than many of the other email providers out there so definitely take your time researching the various email providers out there, so you can make the best decision for you and your blog.
Hootsuite
I use the free Hootsuite and LOVE it! I only use Hootsuite for Twitter though – Facebook seems to hate any third party scheduler out there. But it’s great for scheduling tweets like affiliate promotions. Since many affiliate promotions have a timeline – like Elite Blog Academy, which only opens up once a year. I can plan for the launch a few weeks ahead of time by scheduling various tweets to go live at various times during the launch.
I even do this with older blog posts, such as my half payment method post which is my most viral post ever, I schedule for that to go out once a month via twitter. It’s a great way to keep things going out on Twitter without having to manually do it.
Newsfeed Eradicator Extension
When I originally shared this post, I totally forgot about this one! It’s free and will help you be more productive too! Basically, this is an extension that you download on Google Chrome and it will block out your newsfeed on Facebook for you. It’s an amazing tool so you can just log in to FB and actually get those blog posts scheduled without getting sucked into a dozen cute baby photos. 🙂
These are just a few of the tools that I use to keep my blog running without having to run myself ragged. Remember, that you must do what is right for your blog and your budget. If your blog isn’t earning any money yet and you don’t have the cash flow to invest in some of these tools – don’t do it. You know I’m a huge fan of being debt-free and I’m a firm believer that your blog should definitely be a cash cow. Meaning, you don’t go into debt to fund it. Period.
So, go with what you can now and as your blog grows, add tools that make sense for you.
What tools as a blogger can you not live without?
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LOVE these tools! I use ConvertKit now based on your suggestion and it has been amazing!!
BoardBooster has been a HUGE asset to my blog. Thanks for telling us about it in the past!
I love Board Booster, and I think you’ve convinced me to get SumoMe set up on my blog! I bought a month subscription to BigStockPhoto and am very glad I invested in professional pictures. It really makes a difference on the blog and on Pinterest, too!
So great! I am a blogger so your blogging toolkit is what I am looking for. I love all of your mentioned ones: from hootsuite, convert kit, board booster to sumome. Thanks for your sharing, Jessi
This is a great resource. I have been following your blog for a long time now and I find it incredibly interesting to see how you are growing. The updates and posts like this are great insight.
Thank you for sharing your blogging secrets. As a novice blogger, these articles are invaluable to me! Thank you!!