Top Essential Tools For Increasing Blog Performance
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Over the past decade, blogging has become one of the key content areas upon which digital marketers rely on sending the bulk of their messaging. While some industries rely more on some content areas than others, most online marketing experts agree: keeping a blog is mandatory.
Blogs that couple great writing with even better planning is the ones that generate the most revenue. Whether the blog is used as support content for a specific company or product or is being used as the primary source of income generation, keeping its quality high is also mandatory.
If you are trying to make money blogging and have had less than optimal results up to now, keep reading. Today, we would like to look at three main categories of apps that can help get the quality of your blog where it needs to be to succeed, keep all relevant thoughts and support content organized, and keep the content in front of your audience consistently and predictably.
Apps That Can Improve Writing Quality
The quality of the writing in any blog is the biggest factor in its overall success. There are a few things that people criticize more online than the use of language and the words people choose to communicate their thoughts and ideas. These four apps can help responsible bloggers avoid many common linguistic pitfalls and improve the overall quality of writing in your blog:
Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com – These two simple apps serve several purposes. First, they can both ensure that the very best words and phrases are used in the context of a sentence or paragraph. They provide definitions, synonyms, and other information that helps you choose words wisely. They also help avoid repetitive or monotonous language that can cause the reader to click away prematurely.
Hemingway – This app acts as a desktop editor or redactor, looking at and analyzing the text and showing the writer how it can be improved. Hemingway is unique in that its algorithm not only spots obvious errors but also issues with the writing style that could cause readers to turn away. This is valuable information to have for any blogger who wants to decrease bounce and increase SEO.
Grammarly – While a bit more basic than Hemingway, Grammarly is also an important tool for the aspiring blogger. We all know how active and observant the “grammar police” can be, even to the point of over-criticizing language usage in social media conversations. If people look at simple comments with that critical an eye, be assured they’re also doing it to your blog. Grammarly keeps the detractors at bay and teaches the writer to steer clear of obvious mistakes in the areas of grammar, usage, and syntax.
EssayPro – More of a professional writing service than an app, EssayPro picks up where apps like Hemingway and Grammarly leave off. EssayPro is the best essay writing service of all that can get caught. It is a full-service proofreading and editing service that can help optimize blog posts for maximum readability. Algorithms can help prevent common mistakes, but human writers, proofreaders, and editors can help produce truly superior content.
Apps To Keep Things Organized
Evernote – With both free and premium tiers, Evernote is one of the best ways to capture and recall notes and links on any subject for later use. Did something you read in a blog inspire you to write on that same subject? Save it in Evernote and call it back up later when you are ready to write.
Evernote even organizes notes into folders, making it easier to wrangle notes for multiple projects at once. All the information remains separate and easy to access. Evernote has some other practical uses which can be explored in detail here.
Trello – Bloggers who write for clients or do a significant amount of guest blogging, being on time is critical. Late delivery is one of the main complaints of copywriting clients. Writers who meet deadlines always have work, even if the writing quality could use a polish. For solo freelance writers, Trello helps keep the important stuff organized. It helps keep track of deadlines, workflows, and other details that can keep things running smoothly.
Apps That Keep Your Blog Visible
IFTTT – The acronym stands for, “If this, then that” and the tool behind it is one of the most powerful of its kind. IFTTT works with a system of applets that perform specific functions. Let’s say you want to post to Facebook every time a new blog post is published (as well you should). Creating an applet that does just that is simple. Better yet, you need only enter all the relevant information (usernames, passwords, etc.) once per platform. Later applets will use that information unless you customize or change them manually. The app works on all major social media platforms and integrates seamlessly with apps like WordPress and Constant Contact.
Zapier – In the world of automation, Zapier tops the list of many online marketers and freelance writers. It works in much the same way as IFTTT, but many freelance writers say that the Zap system in Zapier is easier to use with applications like WordPress and Google Docs. Both Zapier and IFTTT have similar features, but they complement each other by helping the writer manage a larger array of tasks.
Hootsuite – This premier social media scheduler is the ultimate automation tool for bloggers. It has the capability of publishing content and broadcasting on some platforms including all major social media channels, multiple autoresponder platforms, and more. Hootsuite can even integrate with SMS and other texting protocols, alerting readers the instant you hit “publish” on a blog post.
Google Keyword Planner – Nothing helps increase the visibility of your blog than the responsible and relevant use of keywords. While it is far from the only consideration for improving SEO, keyword planning remains the most important.
The search engines use words to determine the relevance and quality of written content. It begins with identifying keywords and analyzing their use. The Google Keyword Planner provides the most timely source of keywords that the market deems credible at any given time. It is always recommended to research keywords for every post and not use pre-determined lists in perpetuity. With this resource, doing that is so easy it would be silly to skip the step.
The tool to Create Blogging/Product Related Video
InVideo – All bloggers require to create videos time-to-time and some of us do it quite often. InVideo comes with great features that allow you to create up to 15 minutes of Full HD Videos using the 100+ custom templates. You can even use 300 Premium Stock Videos from Shutterstock and get the advantage of Automated text to speech feature to turn the text into voice. All these features make InVideo a really awesome intro Maker tool for your products and can also be used to create a how-to guide for tutorial videos. If you run a company or organization, you are allowed to add unlimited team members to use the feature under a premium subscription.
All of the above, when used properly and strategically, can help increase your readership and position you as an authority in your niche. Authorities become influencers and thought leaders, but only when their audiences read and share their content. The apps listed can help any blogger with the motivation to consider them and use them wisely to be more successful.