When you first got into blogging, you were most likely told “Yeah, you should blog because it's free to set up! Social media is free! It's all FREEEEE!”
So you get set-up on Blogger, sign up for a few social media accounts, and BOOM start down the yellow brick blogging road.
The problem is eventually you need more. Of something.
Maybe you move to self-hosted WordPress and have to pay to have your blog hosted. Or you buy e-courses to cut your learning in half. Regardless, you do have to put some money towards blogging in order to grow. I don't really know any successful bloggers who haven't spent a penny on their blogs. I've paid for my fair share of products. And some weren't worth it.
This post contains affiliate links, which pays to keep me caffeinated.
But these five blogging tools are totally worth the money.
1Password
My husband introduced me to 1Password years ago and it's been my saving grace for my useless memory ever since.
With 1Password, you can store all your username and passwords (and your credit card numbers) in one place. No more trying to remember which username you went with for this site or that. It'll even generate passwords for you, which I let it do for any site that has my money like PayPal or my credit union. They are passwords I'd never remember on my own, but I don't need to! 1Password has an accompanying phone app so you'll never get stuck not knowing a password. Unless you forgot to save that password in 1Password. BURN.
There might be free apps out there that are similar, but sorry I don't trust a free product to hold the passwords to my bank accounts or my credit card number. Nope. No way.
Tailwind
Tailwind is mainly for Pinterest and Instagram, but don't let that stop you. Tailwind lets you schedule pins (and re-pins!); plus they have even more amazing analytics than Pinterest itself. And, yes, I know about other paid scheduling apps, but Anna and I don't recommend them in Pinning Perfect. Why? They don't have Pinterest API access, which means they aren't supported by Pinterest like Tailwind is. Pinterest treats tools with API access as if you're pinning directly through Pinterest.
CoSchedule
Oh CoSchedule, why didn't you exist years ago? Currently, I don't use it for content planning because I use the editorial calendar from Content Brew, but I DO plan to make those two co-exist in some way at some point.
I DO use CoSchedule to schedule my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts for each post. I love how I can do it all from WITHIN WORDPRESS. I just scroll down underneath my post editor and it's there waiting for me.
What I also love? Being able to see my social shares!
ConvertKit (now Seva)
I've used a few Email Service Providers over the course of my marketing career. And really, I love ConvertKit the most. While many email apps make you pay for a subscriber multiple times if they're on multiple lists, ConvertKit is per person, period.
Their tagging and automation make it totally worth it. When someone purchases a course, for example, I can tag them as a student so I don't send them any promotions about that course again. If someone clicks a link about my course, I can tag them as interested so I can send them another email about it. It's awesome!
Premium Plugins
Okay, so this one isn't exactly just ONE thing. Sometimes you just have to cough up some dough for a PAID plugin because the free ones either don't exist or they suck. Where do you find these gems? Well, there's a marketplace called CodeCanyon.
And then my favorite paid plugin ever is Social Warfare Pro. It makes it a cinch optimize my posts for social sharing (including Pinterest!) and is easy to use for your blog visitors. Try it below if you wanna test it out!
Hopefully this post helps you find some great blogging tools!
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Hey- I'm Melissa! I'm a mom, side hustler, online course instructor, and brand marketer. I run a 6-figure blog helping online biz owners find their a-ha moments with can-do tips, tutorials, and online courses. I also work at Burt's Bees as the Social Media Strategist (yep, it's as cool as it sounds). Jump start your biz productivity with my free worksheet!
Thanks, Melissa, for this post. It’s good to read about why bloggers like a particular product and I’ve been mulling over using a Pinterest scheduler. Your post gave me good information about the differences and I’m appreciative! Pinning…
You’re welcome! A pinning scheduler really helps me not be on Pinterest all the time. I just go in spurts and pin a bunch of stuff without hogging up someone’s feed!
Great post! I just started using Tailwind and I’ve used CoSchedule for a while now.
I’ll check out your Code Canyon recommendation now.
Thanks, Melissa!
Sue
Sue Anne- You’ll LOVE Code Canyon. There are a lot of great plugins- I typically read through people’s comments and see how many sales they have as a measure of whether or not to buy. I’ve been happy with my purchases there thus far!
Another fab post!
I already use MailChimp (thanks to one of your previous posts) and I discovered Co-Schedule months ago, which I ADORE!
I’m trying TailWind with a free trial right now and I know I definitely need 1Password–even though my Mac has a keychain that does it for me. If my computer craps out, I know I’ll have my passwords elsewhere and I’m forgetting them more and more lately!
Will take a look at Code Canyon next!
Love these – what’s that Click to Tweet feature? Is that a plugin? 🙂 Oh, and I love the Easy Recipe premium plugin!
Hi Katie! The Click to Tweet is a free plugin from the peeps who do CoSchedule! https://wordpress.org/plugins/click-to-tweet-by-todaymade
I just started using board booster and I really love it. I can set it and forget about it. It does my repinning for me.
I also love the Nextscripts plugin. It takes a bit to set it up but once done, I can schedule my social media shares via the WordPress right below the post editor. It works for most social sharing site, I use it for FB, personal and page, G+, personal and page, Pinterest and Twitter. It’s definitely worth the money.
Yes, that’s what I love about Tailwind too! We don’t recommend Board Booster in Pinning Perfect because it’s not connected via Pinterest’s API, but I know quite a few bloggers using it with no issues!
I’ve heard great things about Nextscripts so good to hear you like it! Anything that makes sharing easier is worth the money!
Melissa,
Do you know what the advantage of using a Pinterest API pinning service is. I know I have heard a lot about it’s better to use one but haven’t actually found anything from Pinterest saying they handle them differently. Do you have a source or blog post You could point me to?
Also do you have a how to use Tailwind blog post or know of a good one? I looked at it but I didn’t try it because it looked like you needed to load the pins each week or month to keep them going out. Does it automatically repin for you? I’ve looked for a good tutorial but haven’t found one.
Hey Shelly! Yes, the big advantage is it means they’re officially approved by Pinterest so Pinterest treats Tailwind as if I were pinning directly through Pinterest. A Pinning Perfect student asked Pinterest directly and they said this:
“At this time, we only support the following third-party tools: Salesforce (Exact Target Marketing Cloud), Hootsuite, Spredfast, Percolate, Piqora, Curalate and Tailwind. Since the tool you’re writing in about (Board Booster) isn’t supported by Pinterest, unfortunately I won’t be able to say, with certainty, whether Board Booster will have any averse effects on your Pinterest profile.”
I know for certain Ahalogy has API access as well. A while back, Viraltag users started seeing their pins flagged as spam. Sounds like that got worked out, but I just would prefer to stick with the apps that Pinterest has approved and not have to worry about it!
As far as Tailwind tutorials, I don’t have any blog posts but we do cover both the analytics and scheduling in the Pinning Perfect course if you’re interested! http://shop.blogclarity.com/buy/pinning-perfect
Thanks for the shout-out! We’d love to hear about ways you would like us to play nicely with your other tools. Shoot us an email if you’d like!
I enjoyed this list. I’m currently paying for a recipe plugin and click to tweet along with of course my hosting. I have a plan to upgrade to a paid Mailchimp account once my free opt in is ready then I can set up automation. I just started using Tailwind this week and so far I’m really enjoying it, so I’m sure I’ll be adding that to my list soon.
Awesome! Sounds like you’ve got a few great plugins!
Hi there, Excellent post and list of tools.
Some others I recommend checking out are LeadPages because it’s important to capture leads and the traffic that is hitting our site, Opt-in Monster due to the same reason, Buffer which is also a great scheduling tool, and one called BuzzSumo which is great for content creation and influencer research.
Thanks again!
Ben- Thanks for the comment! Yes, LeadPages is on my “to buy” list for as well as SOME opt-in type plugin (still weighing my options). I love love love Buffer and BuzzSumo, but only use the free versions at the moment!
Thanks for the suggestions. Tailwind sounds useful. I look forward to reviewing the features.
I have been using coschedule for a while now, and I love it!
I love co schedule! It really is a life saver for my post planning and social media shares
Isn’t it the best? LOVE that plugin!
This is a great list, I LOVE CoSchedule, Tailwind (freeversion) and Code Canyon. I need to check out 1Password though. I have a spreadsheet…lol
Thanks for this Melissa. I decided to take the plunge and set up my hosting yesterday, now I’m trying to figure out where to start, this helps a lot.
Sprout Social is my favorite paid tool of the moment. It doesn’t schedule for Pinterest, I use BoardBooster/Ahalogy for that, but it does post to the others and provide awesome engagement reports.
I’m trying to decided if I want to use co-schedule. I do use hootsuite and thought they were similar?
They *do* seem similar. Although CoSchedule has a WordPress app (which, as far as I know, we don’t have in Hootsuite) so I guess that’s one major difference. I like the idea of being able to schedule all my social media updates in one place – on WP- so I might have to look into this!
Good suggestions. I love co schedule although I don’t think I use it to the full ability it has. I need to check out tailwind as well. Thanks!
I love TailWind too! And MailChimp… And OptInMonster has been well worth the money for me – totally worth it!
How did I NOT know these before? Thanks so much for the suggestions! I keep seeing 1Password and lots of people recommended it to me, although I didn’t know it was paid. (But, like you, I wouldn’t really trust a free app or site so this is definitely good news.)
TailWind and CoSchedule sound like life-savers as well! I’ll have to investigate…
Hi Melissa, I’ve just found your blog and its a goldmine, thank you 🙂
I have been using Dashlane for passwords for over a year now and just love love it! It too has mobile app, and lets you know if you need to change/update passwords etc. Can store credit cards. Sounds similar to your program; how did we live without these!
I check back in here every week and am learning so many tips from you! Thanks for this….
LOVE this list. I didn’t know about a couple of these and I am about to check them out. Thanks so much Melissa! I need to get on the tailwind wagon.