Free Blogging Tools at Your Fingertips
I am starting to build a list of free tools that I believe would be useful for bloggers and content creators. The intention is to come up with the best available tools that we could use that would improve customer engagement, performance management, content delivery in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The list is my first draft which I will continue to build over the next couple of days. Let me know what you all think.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Canva.com is a free graphic design platform that allows you to design your own invitations, flyers, social media assets and much more. The design templates are very easy to use and with a little help from YouTube, you could be a design extraordinaire before no time.
STOCKPHOTOS
There are a number of free image sites. The ones that I have used most are unsplash.com and pixabay.com. If you are looking for niche content these sites might be limited and you might wish to consider other options.
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
SimilarWeb provides very useful analytics on competitor sites. There is quite a bit of information to develop a well-rounded profile. From the breakout of organic and paid traffic, sources, top referring sites, audience interests and a pretty neat feature of similar competitor sites where you can gain even more information.
ONLINE MEETINGS
Since the pandemic and global lockdowns, online meetings have become second nature. This has seen the ZOOM video conferencing platform increase in sales by 40% to $3.7B. Once you download the software enter a date of birth and email you are in. The free plan will allow you to have unlimited 1 to 1 session and up to 40 minutes with a group of up to 100.
There are other platforms like Google Meet and Skype which are suitable alternatives
VIDEO HOSTING
Undoubtedly the biggest video sharing and hosting platform is YouTube. Billions of hours of videos are consumed daily. All you need is a Google Account to sign up for a YouTube channel if you want to upload content and create a playlist for instance. I have found YouTube extremely useful as well for getting just about any information on a subject. It’s like a video University. Additionally, if your country qualifies you can also enter the YouTube Partners program and earn money when your video gets 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours. The numbers vary but you can get on average $3-%5 per 1000 impressions.
I have not checked it out yet but I understand Rumble may have a better payment plan
EMAIL MANAGEMENT
I am more familiar with Mailchimp but an email responder like AWeber is a must have when you have a list of followers and you want to keep them ‘warm’. Not every customer is ready to buy immediately so with an email responder like AWeber you can create beautiful emails to move interested followers into loyal customers. The free version of the platform for up to 500 customers is loaded with benefits from segmentation, landing pages, minimal reporting, email and much more.
There are many more tools too numerous to mention however some notable ones are website performance (Google Analytics), keywords (Jaxxy, Ubersuggest), large file transfers (WeTransfer, Dropbox) and video creation (Camtasia, InVideo and OBS)
Happy to have any suggested additions.
Hugh
Recent Comments
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Thank you for sharing this useful list Hugh. I love Canva and subscribed to pro version as it has more features including free to use stock images. Dropbox has become an essential for me. and I definitely plan to start using YouTube. Another good source of free images is Pixabay
Hey Kathy. Good points. I think it is worth mentioning that apps like Canva allow you to use their pro version for a month for free so you can get your feet wet or time the usage of it when you have several big projects to pursue.
Have a super Sunday.
Hugh
Hugh, I think you just saved my life! I have been struggling with graphics; I do have a quickie course on Canva at Udemy. I was undecided about my book cover; I think I'll take your advice and check this out. Thank you so much for the information; right on time, like you just knew Hugh! :)
Enjoy your day the pleasant way!! Great post!
Awww that's the kind of thanks that makes a guy like me continuing on. I appreciate you Denise.
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Hi Hugh. Thanks for the tips. FYI it's https://pixabay.com/ .
There's also https://www.pexels.com/ for free stock images and videos. Check these out too: https://www.theblogstarter.com/ ; https://www.quora.com/ ; https://www.hubspot.com/blog – topic-generator – Blog ideas generator and https://hemingwayapp.com/ - works similarly to Grammarly.
Thanks so much Maria. I will certainly be adding this to my expanded article.