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This is a list of the best tools for bloggers that I recommend. I have used all of these unless otherwise noted (some have been used by friends who have told me extensively about them).

Many of these blogger tools are free or have a free option to use, but some are paid. Most of the paid ones have affiliate links, which means if you click and then decide to buy/subscribe, I get a small commission.

Laptop on wooden desk

Hosting & Domain Registration

BlueHost

If you’re just starting out, BlueHost is one of the most affordable hosts out there. If you succeed with your blog, you’ll eventually outgrow them. But they’re good for starting out.

TigerTech

Once you outgrow BlueHost, you’ll need a more robust hosting package. TigerTech handles my hosting and domain registration. I’ve been through a lot of hosts and registrars over the years, including VPS and managed hosting, but I started using these guys in 2008 and have used them exclusively since 2010. They are lightning fast and very secure.

Yes, it’s “shared” hosting, but they do it so well they can handle over a million hits per month or a sudden traffic spike like it’s nothing. I can’t remember the last time I had even 5 minutes of downtime.

Website Analytics

Clicky Website Analytics

More in-depth than Google Analytics, and yet everything is there at a glance. It’s very affordable for what it does. I love this for tracking outbound clicks, like the ones to my affiliate links. You can read my full in-depth Clicky Review here. I’ve been using it since 2011.

WordPress Theme

Kadence

This is a popular and feature-rich WordPress theme that’s known for its flexibility, performance, and user-friendly design. It’s got a lot of settings and features, which make it very easy for less techy users, and yet it’s as fast as any other theme I’ve tried.

And yet, it’s amazingly fast. I bought the lifetime deal and have been thrilled with it. I recommend adding Kadence Blocks Pro (which comes with the LTD or some subscriptions). It has a thousand uses!

GeneratePress

Can’t beat this one for speed. There is a learning curve, but if you like being able to tinker under the hood, this one’s the best. After a couple of years with Trellis, which followed a bunch of years with Genesis, I switched to Generate Press. I wanted to be able to tweak things on my own that Trellis didn’t allow.

Tools and Services for Email Marketing

Rasa.io

I’ve been using this for a few years now on several sites, and it really works. It’s an AI-powered seriously hands-off “set it and forget it” newsletter that generates from content you choose. Perfect if you’re not trying to make money from your list and want to keep people engaged without work.

Courses I Recommend

New bloggers can benefit from courses, but there are so many to choose from. Some aren’t worth it. Others actually give you bad information. I’ve taken all of these (and then some), and these are the best blogging courses I’ve found.

PINTERESTING STRATEGIES

Pinteresting Strategies is one of the few courses I recommend. It is the only Pinterest course I consider 100% reliable and always up to date. Those two things are important, because Pinterest can change so fast it leaves your head spinning. You need a course that updates as needed.

The Fat Stacks Bundle

The Fat Stacks Bundle Course is not cheap, but worth it if you are still building sites for Google. If you’re new, you’ll learn a ton. If you’re intermediate, you’ll still learn some valuable things. If you’re expert, you may not learn much. He covers a ridiculous amount of topics, but does a good job of covering what bloggers need to know on each one. And he keeps updating it. Read my Fatstacks course review here.

Graphics

You’ll probably need to make graphics and videos for articles and social media promotion. Here’s what I use:

Pixelied

Pixelied works a lot like Canva, only you might find it easier to use. Get it from AppSump for a one-time LTD and never have to pay a subscription again.

InVideo Studio

This is a surprisingly good and easy-to-use video editor that keeps getting better with new features. It’s an LTD, so you don’t have to subscribe.

Affinity Photo

I never thought Photoshop was worth the subscription. For years I used GIMP, which is good enough if you just want to make photos look better and add some text. But Affinity Photo does most of what PS does for a fraction of the cost, and does it so easily and quickly that it speeds up my workflow. It’s $50, a one-time fee that covers all upgrades until they get to 2.0, which should be a couple of years out.

Social Media Tools for Bloggers

SocialBee

I’ve switched from SmarterQueue to SocialBee. Both are great and very similar. There are a few things SocialBee does better, IMO. It handles Facebook, X (with some setup from you), Pinterest, several others, and even BlueSky. It loops your content, lets you create several variations of each piece of content, and even has AI to generate captions.

Pin Generator

It’s like Canva and BoardBooster had a baby, and the baby was an approved Pinterest scheduler! Generate a bunch of variations of a pin for any given URL, and then schedule them right from the interface. You can change colors, use AI to generate new titles or descriptions (all at once!), and create your own templates. It’s a huge time saver!

Productivity Tools

ClickUp

Clickup may have a lot going on, but you don’t have to turn on features you don’t use. I use the free version and it does all I need. It lets you keep documents alongside task lists and boards. If you start working with employees or collaborators, it’s easy to add them into the system.

FuseBase (Formerly NimbusNote)

This has replaced Evernote for me. It’s more affordable, much faster, and has way more features. It has a lot of features EN lacks (nested notebooks ftw!), and the devs are very responsive if you have problems. Even on a weekend, they get back to you in a few hours. Their web clipper is better than EN’s too. It’s a great tool for bloggers looking to organize a personal knowledge base. I use it to keep track of research for articles I’m writing.

Dynalist

This is my favorite tool for writing outlines and taking notes. It’s like Workflowy, but with more formatting options. It has desktop apps and several mobile versions, too, so you don’t have to run it in your browser.

Wavebox

This desktop app runs my Gmail, Todoist, Evernote, Dynalist, all your Twitter accounts, Facebook and lots, lots more. Think of it as a very sophisticated browser that holds lots of tabs without bogging down your computer, and that lets you be logged into multiple accounts (like Twitter) at once.

Legal Pages

Legal Templates for Bloggers

If you need some legal pages for your site – like Terms, Privacy, and Disability Statements – this lawyer provides a great collection at a reasonable price. The reason I recommend her over others I’ve used is her advice aligns with what I’ve heard from a lot of online lawyers for bloggers, including the ones who’ve actually dealt with ADA suits. She also provides contract templates if you’re contracting with people to write posts or use their images, etc.

WordPress Plugins

ThirstyAffiliates

Like PrettyLinks, ThirstyAffiliates cloaks your affiliate links and gives you amazing statistics on them. But unlike the others, it has an option to uncloak Amazon links on the front end, so you can use it with them to get the statistics without violating Amazon’s rules. It has auto-linking and lots of geo-targeting options. And despite all that, it doesn’t slow your sites down. And pricing isn’t by subscription.

Hubbub (formerly Grow by Mediavine)

This is THE social media plugin to replace Social Warfare. The paid version has all its features and more, yet runs reliably and get very fast support. It will make very little impact on page speed scores.

Scriptless Social Sharing

This is a totally free social sharing plugin that I recommend over paid plugins I’ve used. It’s so lightweight it makes virtually no impact on your page loading speed. It doesn’t have all the features of the above, but I no longer believe those features are helpful. People mostly share from their phones.

SEO Tools for Bloggers

You don’t need any paid tools for on-page SEO. Paid tools are only really useful for link building, which I find happens on its own when you write good content and promote it effectively. So there’s only a couple I recommend.

Ubersuggest

This is a useful app that lets you see what keyphrases you can compete for. Be aware NO tool like this is 100% accurate or has all the answers. Over time you’ll get better at figuring that out for yourself. But it’s great for getting ideas for content, and for getting a general idea of where you can compete.

SpyFu

This tool lets you see what your competitors are doing to beat you. It’s amazing how it can reorganize your whole business strategy. Take a look at phrases where you’re almost on Page 1, or have just fallen off of Page 1. See what phrases your competitors rank for to figure out how to beat them.

SmallSEOTools

This is a free suite of tools that does so much of what you need to nail down on-page SEO. Scroll down for the section of keyword tools.

Affiliate Programs for Bloggers

Amazon Affiliates: depending on your business model, you can earn a lot from the Amazon affiliate program, despite the modest commissions and 24-hour cookie. This is because people buy from Amazon more readily than from some lesser-known sites.

Linkshare: this company runs the affiliate programs for a ton of companies, including Macy’s, Nordstrom’s and BestBuy. If you want to sell products for companies like that, get a LinkShare account and get started.

Share-A-Sale: this is another company that runs affiliate programs for other companies. Their merchants tend to be smaller and hungrier than Linkshare’s, which can be very good for you. Example: TailWind, StudioPress, MailMunch.

Stock Photos for Bloggers

DepositPhotos

This is one of the more affordable paid image sites, and it’s got some great quality photos. I rely on it for most of my stock photos.

StockUnlimited

This paid image site is even more affordable than Deposit Photos, but it has fewer photos, less variety and sometimes less quality. A lot of images look very “stock.” Still, they definitely have some good stuff.

Site Testing

Some of the most important tools for bloggers involve site testing. It’s so important to test, test, test when you make changes.

Varvy. Check your sites to see how they’re complying with Google guidelines. Great for picking up little mistakes, like accidentally blocking something with robots.txt.

Ad Networks for Bloggers

Mediavine

MediaVine is an ad manager who handles your ads for you and brings in better money than you could earn on your own. They. Handle. Everything. in exchange for a small percentage of your ad revenue. The ads load fast, you have total control over them, and I immediately earned a little higher RPMs with them than I had with one of their competitors. One of the best features is their Site Health Checks, which give you actionable advice on optimizing your posts and sidebar for ads. Requires 50,000 pageviews per month.

ConversantMedia (formerly ValueClick)

These guys have been around forever, always pay on time, and do an overall good job on things.

Blogger Forums

Once upon a time, before everyone would hang out on Facebook all day, we hung around in forums, chatting with people who shared our struggles and achievements.

Computer Security

Hacking is a big business and it’s only going to get bigger. I recently switched from PC to Mac, and on both platforms, there are security apps I wouldn’t be without. Read my story about getting hit with ransomware because I made the mistake of buying one of those Lenovos that had Superfish. LastPass is a password manager, and using it can protect your logins from any keyword tracker malware that’s gotten onto a computer of wifi you’re using. I highly recommend it, especially if you like to get on the shared wifi at coffee shops, airports, etc.

Windows

Emsisoft Anti-Virus doesn’t just try to catch viruses it knows about; it stops suspicious behavior of zero-day viruses (brand new ones) that nobody knows about yet. That’s the kind of protection you need against today’s ransomware.

Crypto-Prevent is a small app that changes group policy settings to make it tougher for ransomware and other takeover malware to do its thing.

Malwarebytes Premium. A lot of antiviruses shouldn’t be run side-by-side with another AV, but Malwarebytes and Emsisoft are both exceptions to this rule. Malwarebytes is relatively cheap, and it does a great job. I think it’s worth it to have both unless your computer just absolutely can’t handle the load.

Mac

Yes, Macs are pretty secure and aren’t targeted as often by malware creators. But there is malware for Macs. Why not run an AV just to be safe? Sophos Home Premium. After an update of BitDefender caused it to start using all my CPU and making my laptop run hot, I tried out Sophos’ paid home antivirus. That was a few years ago, and I’ve never looked back. It catches Windows malware as well as Mac, so you can swap files with Windows users without infecting them. And it runs light on my system so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ubersuggest: this is a useful app that lets you see what keyphrases you can compete for. Be aware NO tool like this is 100% accurate or has all the answers. Over time you’ll get better at figuring that out for yourself. But it’s great for getting ideas for content, and for getting a general idea of where you can compete.

 

SpyFu: this tool lets you see what your competitors are doing to beat you. It’s amazing how it can reorganize your whole business strategy. Take a look at phrases where you’re almost on Page 1, or have just fallen off of Page 1. See what phrases your competitors rank for to figure out how to beat them.

SmallSEOTools. This is a free suite of tools that does so much of what you need to nail down on-page SEO. Scroll down for the section of keyword tools.

 

 

 

Affiliate Programs for Bloggers

 

Amazon Affiliates: depending on your business model, you can earn a lot from the Amazon affiliate program, despite the modest commissions and 24-hour cookie. This is because people buy from Amazon more readily than from some lesser-known sites.

 

Linkshare: this company runs the affiliate programs for a ton of companies, including Macy’s, Nordstrom’s and BestBuy. If you want to sell products for companies like that, get a LinkShare account and get started.

 

Share-A-Sale: this is another company that runs affiliate programs for other companies. Their merchants tend to be smaller and hungrier than Linkshare’s, which can be very good for you. Example: TailWind, StudioPress, MailMunch.

 

Equipment for Bloggers

 

MacBook Pro. These notebooks can handle nearly anything you throw at them. They’re lightweight and thin, great to take to a coffee shop. People either love or hate the keyboard, so try it out at a store before buying. (I love it.)

 

Canon Rebel T3i. I use a Canon Rebel T3i to photograph drinks and food and tutorials for my other websites. You can do a lot with this camera, and it’s very durable, too.

 

Graphics Tools for Blogging

 

Affinity Photo. I never thought Photoshop was worth the subscription. For years I used GIMP, which is good enough if you just want to make photos look better and add some text. But Affinity Photo does most of what PS does for a fraction of the cost, and does it so easily and quickly that it speeds up my workflow. It’s $50, a one-time fee that covers all upgrades until they get to 2.0, which should be a couple of years out.

Pixelied. This tool is similar to Canva, but with less feature bloat and yet a tendency to be ahead of Canva on new features like background removal and AI imaging. And they have more pricing options. It’s so easy to create quick graphics and images in Pixelied. It’s so easy to use that you really don’t need to have an eye for graphics or do much learning. It has templates for everything – Pinterest pins, Facebook posts, blog graphics, print graphics, whatever. You just change colors and fonts to match your branding style, insert your own photo or one of theirs, and off you go.

 

ImageOptim. Once I edit an image in Affinity, I run it through ImageOptim to compress it to the smallest size it can be without looking different to human eyeballs. This helps with website load times. You can download ImageOptim or use it online. I’ve found it to be totally reliable at the default settings – just run an image through it, and it’s ready to upload to your site in its new svelte size.

 

Productivity Tools

 

FuseBase. This has replaced Evernote for me. It’s more affordable, much faster, and has way more features. It has a lot of features EN lacks (nested notebooks ftw!), and the devs are very responsive if you have problems. Even on a weekend, they get back to you in a few hours. Their web clipper is better than EN’s too. It’s a great tool for bloggers looking to organize a personal knowledge base. I use it to keep track of research for articles I’m writing.

Evernote. Evernote is so much more than just a note taking app. You can easily clip articles or bits of articles from online. You can organize reminders, keep a journal, or organize a team. I moved away from it a few years ago when it became clear they would never offer deeper nested notebooks. They’ve added a lot of new features since then and are a solid pick for many people.

 

Dynalist. This is my favorite tool for writing outlines and taking notes. It’s like Workflowy, but with more formatting options. It has desktop apps and several mobile versions, too, so you don’t have to run it in your browser.

 

ToDoist. This used to be my preferred task management system, and still is if if fits your needs. They’ve got an app for every platform. Organize tasks by project and priority, and in the paid version, you also get labels and filters, and the ability to add comments to a task. It’s deliberately simple, for those who don’t want all the features found in some of the more complicated task apps. Upbase is my current task management system. It’s got the combination of tasks and docs that Clickup has, without all the other more complicated features I don’t personally need. Ora.pm is hands-down the best at task management, but I’d like to see them add docs.

 

Wavebox. This desktop app runs my Gmail, Todoist, Evernote, Dynalist, all your Twitter accounts, Facebook and lots, lots more. Think of it as a very sophisticated browser that holds lots of tabs without bogging down your computer, and that lets you be logged into multiple accounts (like Twitter) at once.

 

Stock Photos for Bloggers

 

DepositPhotos. This is one of the more affordable paid image sites, and it’s got some great quality photos. I rely on it for most of my stock photos.

 

StockUnlimited. This paid image site is even more affordable than Deposit Photos, but it has fewer photos, less variety and sometimes less quality. A lot of images look very “stock.” Still, they definitely have some good stuff.

 

Site Testing

Some of the most important tools for bloggers involve site testing. It’s so important to test, test, test when you make changes.

 

Varvy. Check your sites to see how they’re complying with Google guidelines. Great for picking up little mistakes, like accidentally blocking something with robots.txt.

 

Ad Networks for Bloggers

 

MediaVine is an ad manager who handles your ads for you and brings in better money than you could earn on your own. They. Handle. Everything. in exchange for a small percentage of your ad revenue. The ads load fast, you have total control over them, and I immediately earned a little higher RPMs with them than I had with one of their competitors. One of the best features is their Site Health Checks, which give you actionable advice on optimizing your posts and sidebar for ads. Requires 50,000 pageviews per month.

 

ConversantMedia (formerly ValueClick): these guys have been around forever, always pay on time, and do an overall good job on things.

 

Adsense: a solid way to monetize a new blog that isn’t qualified for MediaVine yet.

 

 

 

Blogger Forums

 

Once upon a time, before everyone would hang out on Facebook all day, we hung around in forums, chatting with people who shared our struggles and achievements.

 

Computer Security

Hacking is a big business and it’s only going to get bigger. I recently switched from PC to Mac, and on both platforms, there are security apps I wouldn’t be without. Read my story about getting hit with ransomware because I made the mistake of buying one of those Lenovos that had Superfish. LastPass is a password manager, and using it can protect your logins from any keyword tracker malware that’s gotten onto a computer of wifi you’re using. I highly recommend it, especially if you like to get on the shared wifi at coffee shops, airports, etc.

Windows

Emsisoft Anti-Virus doesn’t just try to catch viruses it knows about; it stops suspicious behavior of zero-day viruses (brand new ones) that nobody knows about yet. That’s the kind of protection you need against today’s ransomware.

Crypto-Prevent is a small app that changes group policy settings to make it tougher for ransomware and other takeover malware to do its thing.

Malwarebytes Premium. A lot of antiviruses shouldn’t be run side-by-side with another AV, but Malwarebytes and Emsisoft are both exceptions to this rule. Malwarebytes is relatively cheap, and it does a great job. I think it’s worth it to have both unless your computer just absolutely can’t handle the load.

Mac

Yes, Macs are pretty secure and aren’t targeted as often by malware creators. But there is malware for Macs. Why not run an AV just to be safe? Sophos Home Premium. After an update of BitDefender caused it to start using all my CPU and making my laptop run hot, I tried out Sophos’ paid home antivirus. That was a few years ago, and I’ve never looked back. It catches Windows malware as well as Mac, so you can swap files with Windows users without infecting them. And it runs light on my system so far.