I get this question daily, “Sue, how do you…” (fill in the blank with the latest problem that has been causing you to tear your hair out).
So I decided to create a list of the best free (or low cost) blogging tools that answer that very question.
And, yes, I use 67 of these tools.
My newest addiction?
A membership site that you can put in a course for FREE – yes, membership software that’s forever free for unlimited courses (up to 50 students).
So take it for a spin without spending a dime.
Check out my MemberVault site here and sign up for the absolutely free course, Blog In A Box.
And I have a deal for you if you already offer courses and have more than 50 students.
Erin at MemberVault has a special code just for my readers.
Use the code Insider100 for a free month of either the pro/base monthly or $100 off the first year of pro/base annual).
So, let’s get started!
Free Images For Your Blog and Social Media Posts
- PicJumbo: Totally free photos
- StockUp: Search 16 free photo sites at once
- PikWizard: over 100,000 completely free images
- Unsplash: Free high-resolution images
- Jay Mantri: Free pics
- Good Free Photos: Free images
- Gratisography: Free high-resolution photos
- New Old Stock: Vintage photos (free)
- Pexels: Free high-quality photos
- StockSnap: Free images with a lot of business images
- MorgueFile: High-resolution stock photos (free)
- Death to Stock Photos: Free monthly photos for all your creative needs
- Pixabay: Free high-quality images you can use anywhere
- Free Digital Photos: Free images
- Little Visuals: 7 hi-res images each week emailed to you (free)
- Picography: Free high-resolution pictures
- Stokpic: Totally free photos
- A Prettier Web and Ivory Mix: Great feminine images
- Iconfinder: Free icons
- Canva: Currently my most-used image tool. Great tutorials. (free)
- RawPixel: Inspired Design and Beautiful images (free)
- BeFunky: Photo Editor
- Minimography: royalty-free images
- Stock Snap: beautiful, free images
- CreateHerStock: Images curated for female bloggers, creatives, and online influencers of color
- Snappa: Great marketing graphics in a snap
- Burst by Shopify
- PicWizard for free photos
Free Plug-Ins for your WordPress Site:
- Smush.it: Free WordPress image optimizer plug-in
- Tinyjpg/Tinypng: Compresses your images (free)
- Social Image Resizer Tool: Create optimized images (free)
- Recite: Turn any quote into an image (free)
- UserThink: 99 images for landing pages (free)
- Thrive Leads: pay just a one-time charge for optin box software
Name Your Blog Or Product
- Blog Name Generator: Name generator suggested by niche topic (free)
- Wordoid: Pick a short, catchy unique name (free)
- Power Thesaurus: free thesaurus to look up synonym’s
Create a Blog Headline
- Blog Topic Generator: Check out this topic generator at HubSpot. (free)
- Blog Post Headline Analyzer: CoSchedule’s blog headline analyzer (free)
- Portent: Content idea generator (free)
- BuzzSumo: Analyze what content performs best in your niche (free)
- Impact Blog Title Generator: my favorite one (free)
Find Keywords for SEO
- Keyword Tool: Find out what your audience is looking for on the 4 main search engines. (free).
- ToolsISeek: Page Rank Checker
- Twinword: for SEO long tail keywords
- SEMRush Site Audit Tool: the most popular SEM tool
Be a Better Writer
- Hemingway: Have bold and clear wording for your blog posts (free)
- Grammarly: Find and correct mistakes in your posts (small charge)
- Editorial Calendar: Drag and drop scheduling tool for blog posts (free)
- Cool Timer: Clock with alarm app to keep you on track while writing (free)
Be More Productive
- Wri.it: Distraction-free writing tool with a spell checker and text formatting (free)
- Evernote An all-in-one tool that acts as your dedicated assistant (free)
- NewOldStamp: have a great signature for your regular email address
- Trello: Keep track of all of your tasks (free)
- Noisli: Improve focus and boost productivity (free)
- FocusAtWill: Music optimized to boost your focus (free 30-day trial)
- WiseStamp: A free signature for your email that links to your blog and social profiles
- Coffitivity: Ambient sounds of a cafe (free)
- Kill Newsfeed: A Chrome plug-in that makes your Facebook feed vanish
- Bookafy: Free online booking service for meetings, demos, and appointments.
- Clockify: ?Completely free time tracking and time management app that lets you keep track of time spent on various tasks and projects, calculate billable hours, export reports, and so on.
- Easy PDF: Totally free online PDF converter.
Get More Subscribers
- LeadPages: I use LeadPages every day for landing pages, opt-in pages, sales pages, etc. (starts at $25/month)
- Sumo: Use a heat map, scroll bar, hello bar, pop up for your blog. (get one tool for free)
- Create an eBook: The Complete Guide: Create a lead magnet or ebook to sell
- Peek User Testing: See a 5-minute video of someone on your website navigating around
- Instapage: creates landing pages and wonderful sales pages (easy to use, also!)
- Pushmaze: to send mobile and push notifications.
Keep Track Of Your Numbers
- Google Analytics: Know where your traffic is coming from (free)
- Clicky: Instant analytics ($10/month)
- SimilarWeb: Analyze website statistics for any domain
- SE Ranking: Effortlessly check your ranking keywords in Google, Yahoo and Bing
- Small SEO Tools: totally free
- Fit Small Business: Free Invoice templates
Is Your Site Fast Enough?
- Pingdom Website Speed Test: Check the load time of your site (free)
- GTMetric: Analyze the speed of your site (free)
- Use BlueHost’s Managed WordPress Hosting for faster speeds
Capture Email Addresses
- MailerLite: (free for 500 subscribers)
- ConvertKit (can do tagging for segmentation)
- HelloBar: Free bar at the top of your blog that captures emails
- Optinmonster (creates opt-in boxes and pop-ups)
Connect With Other Bloggers For Blogger Outreach
- Feedly: Keep track of your blogger outreach bloggers’ new posts. (free)
- Klout: Social media influence score (free)
- NinjaOutreach: Efficiently search and keep track of your interactions with other bloggers.
Easiest Ways To Do Social Media
- Buffer: Share all your content on social media, timed out for prime interaction. (free)
- Social Warfare: Share the correct sized image on every social media channel from your blog post ($29)
- Triberr: Join tribes where other tribe members share your blog posts on social media. (free)
- WriteRack: Divide your blog post into tweets (free)
- Bit.ly: Create and track shortened links (free)
- Click To Tweet: CoSchedule’s tool to get more shares (free)
- AddThis: Social sharing buttons (free)
- Digg Digg: All in one social share buttons (free)
- Lumen5: Make free videos for social media
Inexpensive Shopping Carts & Affiliate Programs
- e-Junkie: Shopping cart and affiliate program (free to start, then just $5/month)
- SendOwl: Shopping cart that uses PayPal with the ability to offer your own affiliate program (starts at $9/month_
Create a Membership Site or Set Up Your First Course For Free
- MemberVault: Eternally free up to 50 students.
Help! I need something techie done
- Fiverr: You can get anything you want for your blog – graphic artists, virtual assistants, anything for $6 (yes, they now charge a service fee – should they change their domain to sevener.com?)
