Here at Uniquely Mickie, I’ll be the first person to tell you that running a blog takes a lot of work, dedication, and multiple useful tools that make my life easier. If you’re starting a blog or worried you won’t be able to manage one, then I’m going to tell you that you can and you will! These tools that I am going to mention in this post changed the blogging game for me and gave me my life back. Okay, that sounds really dramatic, but they have saved me a lot of time and that’s what really matters. Am I right?
I make the majority of my Instagram, Pinterest, and blog images with an online tool called Canva. It’s similar to Adobe Cloud, except its free and easier to use. Canva is hands down my favorite graphic design tool for blogging and is highly recommended in the blogging world for good reasons. While I mainly use Canva for my social media accounts, there are plenty of sizes for any other project that you need to create something for, such as a Facebook banner, business cards, content upgrades, ebook covers, or flyers. You can totally go ahead and spend the money to pay for other programs, such as Adobe Cloud or Photoshop, but it’s an unnecessary cost since Canva does the same thing for free!
Google Analytics
Honestly, Google Analytics is like the heart of your blog besides your beautiful face and ground-breaking content. Blogging isn’t always about the numbers, but it’s important to know your stats, what social media sites bring you the most pageviews, and what your audience loves reading on your blog. I love using Google Analytics to see exactly what works for my blog and audience as well as what areas could I improve on.
Tailwind is the tool that literally changed the Pinterest game for me. I no longer have to spend hours on Pinterest pinning my pins to group boards or pinning other people’s content to my boards. This handy tool does it all for me with only 30 minutes a week to keep it running smoothly! If you are spending a bunch of time on Pinterest and not seeing a lot of results from your efforts, then check out Boardbooster. You can set up secret boards where you can pin content to and over the week, Boardbooster will slowly pin your posts or images to the specific boards that way you always look like your active even if you’re not. If you want to test Tailwind, you can through my referral link and get your first month free!
Convertkit is the mailing service provider that I use to send out my content upgrades, newsletter emails, and hidden freebies that only my subscribers get access to. The best part about Convertkit is that it’s easy to use, doesn’t have a huge learning curve, and their customer service is bomb DOT com. With Convertkit, you can also create a Welcome sequence, an email course series, and host your own landing page right on your page. While most new bloggers won’t want to spend money on a service like Convertkit at first, I highly recommend that you do.
Google Adsense
Getting started with Google Adsense can be a big pain-in-the-butt at first, but once you get started, I’ve seen such an improvement in the amount of money that I make through ads! I only have one ad through them on my sidebar as well as an ad that pops up at the bottom of the page for mobile users. You can easily customize how the ad looks or what kind of ads work best for your audience. Most of the ads seen on my blog are related to fashion, blogging, and anything college-related. Ads are an easy way to make money blogging that is easily passive once you get it started on your blog.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is my favorite app and website to schedule my Twitter tweets and Facebook posts. It’s super simple to either auto-schedule your posts or schedule them yourself for days or weeks in advance. I use to mass scheduling session on the weekend to schedule tweets and Facebook posts so that it always seems like I am being active on those platforms, even when I’m not. Being a working college student, I have to use every tool to help me save time, and Hootsuite is such a time-saver for me!
Crowdfire
I also love using Crowdfire to schedule posts and help me on my social media A-game. Crowdfire pulls together posts or tweets from people who are either your competition or are using the keywords you’ve designated. This way you can follow your competition’s followers as well as see what keywords are being most used in your target audience. I also love the fact that it keeps up with people who unfollow you or who are ghost on your account. That way you can keep up with your follower-following ratio with only a few minutes of your day.
Grammarly
This widget or plugin is amazing for correcting spelling errors on the go as well as catching some English errors that need to be fixed or else your email or blog post doesn’t look very professional. I make sure to allow all of my blog posts go through Grammarly’s system to verify that everything is spelled correctly and looks amazing before publishing. It’s really easy to make mistakes when you’re writing quickly, or late at night, that sometimes little mistakes get looked over. The best part about Grammarly is that it’s completely free! Unbelievable, right? So if you need a professional system to double-check your writing for emails or essays, then you definitely need to download Grammarly.
Let me be honest, blogging is a lot of work and takes a lot of time to really connect with your readers on all of your social media accounts. With the help of these tools that I’ve mentioned, I’ve been able to do the impossible, aka always look active on social media. But at the same time, these tools have helped me earn a passive income and be able to enjoy life while still growing my blog.
As always if you enjoyed reading this post, please go ahead and save it to Pinterest for later reference or share it on your accounts. It only takes a few seconds of your time, and it helps me grow my blog!
You may also like: 5 Tips to Grow Your Email List on Autopilot, The True Story about How to Make Money Blogging, and How to Start a Profitable Blog
