Blogging is much easier accomplished if you have a few tools at your disposal. Here are 5 of my favorite blogging tools:
PEEK User Testing
This a relatively new tool for me, but it is something absolutely EVERY blogger needs to try. When Jen’s Guy and I were redesigning things over here, I wanted to see how user friendly the site we were creating was. One of my blogger friends said she had just tried a completely free service and recommended it. It took me about 3 minutes to fill out an online form and within 24 hours my site had been tested for site speed, it’s ease of use and overall attractiveness to users. I received the feedback via this video.
Unsplash
A very important part of blogging is making sure you have visually dynamic and attractive pictures. This is something I work on consistently and my photography skills are improving, but sometimes there are posts that I really need a much more professional and on point picture than I have in my photo arsenal. That is when I hit Unsplash. You can find hundreds of 100 percent free, do whatever you wish with them photos. Here are a few of the images I have created with Unsplash.
You can read the original post HERE.
You can read the original post HERE.
PicMonkey
I use this for everything. To create and edit images, headers, buttons and pretty much every visual element you see over here on JENerally Informed. You can try out the free version or have access to all of the features for as much as it would cost you to take your family out to dinner. I can tell you it is well worth the cost to purchase the “Full Monkey”.
Managed WordPress From GoDaddy
Jen’s Guy is a huge fan of GoDaddy and has been for years. He has tried other hosting services and has always ended up referring and transferring most of his client’s websites back to GoDaddy. We are not affiliates, but I can promise you that if you want the BEST customer service available to your blog, this is it.
I am going to turn a little time over to him to explain Managed WordPress from GoDaddy and why we use it.
“If you do not own your own hosting, you need to look at that before it becomes a problem. We transferred Jen’s site from Blogger to real hosting early in the blog life cycle and it wasn’t easy, and we only had three months of work to transfer. Transferring a year or more would have been a nightmare. If you aren’t tech savvy, Managed Word Press is a great option. I AM tech savvy and I still use it. If you don’t know if your site is being backed up every night, it could be a great option. If you do not know how to create child themes and development sites to test changes you want to make on your blog, Managed WordPress may be for you. But, the reason I like it best, is because I am cheap, to the bone, and Managed WordPress is generally on “promotion” for about 60% what you would pay for a standard hosting package.
I love knowing that this site has a backup stored every night that I can revert to whenever I want and also the ability to create an exact clone of my site, with literally the press of a button, to try new styles and widgets on before I put them up on Jenerally informed. But mainly I like saving money. . .”
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the industry standard and many bloggers seriously under utilize the treasure trove of knowledge that is available to you in order to up your blogging game. For me, this is how I decide what types of articles to write to reach my target audience, because my stats detail the kind of articles, posts and commentary that is best received here at JENerally Informed. I have a lot of readers who have never, ever commented, but because of Google Analytics, I know what they like to read.
If you want to up your Google Analytics game, here is a great training session from the SITS girls that I just listened to.
Skyrocket Your Blog Pageviews With Google Analytics
Stay Happy! Stay Informed!
Love,
Jen
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