Useful Programs, Software, and Resources For Your Blog

Running a blog is supposed to be fun. You can write something every day about something you love, your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and advise people who are searching for answers. The problem is that there are so many blogs all over the internet. And, because there are so many, it’s easy to feel like your blog will never get noticed. 

This doesn’t need to be the case, though. Still, you can’t expect your blog to build traffic and gain readers just because it exists. You need to invest in the (mostly free) tools to help you take your platform to the next level. Whether you use WordPress, Blogger, or if you are a clever clogs who has built their blog from scratch, here are some useful programs, software, and resources to help your blog stand out and make it easier for you to run and adapt to increase your audience. 

Analytics 

If you’re running a blog that wants to make money, or even use it to sell products, using KPI analysis can help you identify which of your generated leads are resulting in improved sales rather than cart abandonment. 

Through this analysis, you can adapt your marketing strategy and adjust it. This will help you direct posts at a specific audience at specific times throughout the day. If the analysis is accurate, you should find an improvement with engagement, shares, and clicks. 

Affiliates

Making money off your blog is something that a lot of people think can only happen once you have hundreds of thousands of readers every month. This is not the case, though, and one way to start making money quickly and with little effort is to get involved in affiliate programs. 

These programs allow you to make money from every link clicked. You can write about products and encourage others to purchase it also, and if enough people think the product is worth buying, you can see the digits in your bank account tick up gradually. Oh, and affiliate programs are also (mostly) free to join, so it’s at no cost to you.

Grammar

Proper grammar may not seem that important to you. Still, nobody wants to read a blog riddled with spelling errors and incorrect sentence structure. Despite this, not everyone studied English at college or university. For some, it’s not always easy to figure out where to place a semicolon. 

Grammar checking services, such as Grammarly or Pro Writing Aid, can transform your writing quality to make it more readable, more concise, and make it flow better. This makes your posts more satisfying to read and will keep people coming back for more. 

Forms

Forms are a fantastic way to keep in touch with readers, understand who is visiting your blog, and also allow people to contact you for collaborations or promotional work. 

Using a plugin such as WPForms will allow your readers to input their name and email address so they can contact you more efficiently without the need for you to provide your personal email. It may seem more convenient to include your regular email address, but doing so can lead to spam and harassment from people who have nothing better to do. 

Security

Even if your blog isn’t a big name, you are still at the risk of cyber threats that could infect, hack, and breach your data, and any of the data of your dedicated readers. 

Sucuri is an excellent way to keep these malicious threats out. It will identify potential problems, flag spam, and similar suspicious links or inquiries to ensure that you do fall victim to something that can be easily avoided. While most people understand the difference between a useful link and a bad link, threats are becoming more sophisticated every day, so it’s worth having an additional line of defense. 

Images

A blog with images is immediately more appealing than one that merely feels like a high wall of text with no respite. But if you’re not a photographer or able to source these photos naturally, how can you fill your blog with the appropriate images? 

It’s tempting to use Google Images, but these images will often come with copyright, and this could get you in some legal trouble. Instead, you can use free photo sources, such as Unsplash, Pixabay, or Pexels, to find a range of pictures to go with your blog for pretty much every occasion. As they are free to you, there’s no need to credit the source, but the photographers and artists who submit them may appreciate the exposure, especially if your blog is expanding its reader base. 

Niche 

When you are trying to build followers, you might post about a range of different topics to appeal to as many people as possible. To a novice blogger, this seems like a superb idea, but more experienced bloggers will tell you otherwise. 

Too many topics make your blog a challenge to find; it makes it look like it lacks focus, and that you’re writing for the sake of writing with nothing to say. Resources such as BuzzSumo can prevent this from happening, and keep you firmly on-brand and within your niche to appeal to the right audience every single time. 

Share

Sharing buttons are one of the most crucial elements of a blog that not enough people use. These buttons give people the chance to share posts they like on their favorite social media channels without needing to copy and paste a long and tricky link that never looks good when posted.

To increase simplicity, you can consider link trimming plugins that shorten the links, which can increase the chances of people sharing your content, whether it’s a blog post, video, or infographic, with friends, family, or even everyone on the internet. 

Number One Blog

Keeping a blog is not as easy as many people make it seem, and there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that keep it up and running to ensure consistent quality posts. By exploring the potential of these resources and programs, you can make your blog run more smoothly and even take its potential to the next level, allowing you to grow your readership and also make some money from it.