For every blogger, whether it be news-based blogs, foods-based blogs, personal, technology, business and many more of other niches that they like writing for or about has some tools in their blogger toolbox. Maybe there are some bloggers that doesn’t or even know that they exist, so this is why I am going to share what is in the blogger’s toolbox that I have been using for over a decade and I have gone through a quite a lot of tools before I could choose which ones that I would call my favorite tools. Just because you have found this article, there is a possibility that you are looking for some tools to use for your blog and I am going to share just that so to help some of you out a bit. Top name bloggers or blogs such as CNN, ABC, BBC News and many more has their tools to use which is why you would sometimes see them having their devices whether it be a laptop, tablet or smartphone when they attend some events to take some notes or actually write them as they hear them. Remember that this is what in my toolbox, there are some more of other tools that I don’t use and many alternatives to what I use because it depends on how much you will take out of your wallet for them. Some are cheap and some are expensive, but they are important tools especially for the long term if you are planning to be a blogger.
As for writing, editing and publishing an article. You and I know that at every time when we just finished writing that we would double checks to make sure that there are no errors or any misleading information which is important to look because they can easily ruin our reputation or more so credentials so we have to be careful with what we write. Here are the tools that I have in my toolbox.
My Blogger’s Toolbox
This is my toolbox for blogging and writing. These tools that I am going to list below are vital for me and they are what makes everything easier for me when it comes to writing an article for my blog or someone else’s blog. When I say blog, this also includes news too because I look at news website as blogs considering that they use the blog platform to spread the news and call themselves journalists but really they are bloggers which is something that they have a very hard time accepting but that’s fine with me. Yes, that also means that in my view that a journalist can be a blogger too. Enjoy.
Microsoft Word – Office 365
What? Microsoft Word? Yes, seriously yes. Microsoft Word (newest one) has a feature where you can connect to your blog so that you can write an article straight from your Microsoft Word software using Windows 10 and it would cost about $70 a year for personal edition one (for one person only) for all devices that you have or $100 a year for Home Edition which will allow you to have at least up to 6 users for all of your and their devices. I have the home edition one, it’s a great deal especially for a couple of my friends who is a blogger and also for my mother so I still have about 3 or 4 users remaining that I don’t need or may give the rest to my family members or friends. Microsoft has improved its programs drastically ever since their 2012-2013 software. Microsoft Word wouldn’t be the only one that comes with it, you would also get Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, 1TB space OneDrive, 60 minutes monthly for Skype and few of others which is the perfect tools for your blogging business because you can use Microsoft Word for your writing, Outlook for checking your e-mail from readers, partners, bloggers, etc., use OneDrive to share files, documents, drafts and others with other people in your circle so in other word it is perfect tools to be added to your blogger toolbox. Get Office 365 and I will leave a link under here which I will not get a commission from it or anything because it’s that great for me to share without asking for commission!
https://products.office.com/en-us
MarsEdit 4
For Mac users, even though you can have Office 365 for both Windows and Mac but I don’t think the Mac one has that blog option so you will have to get something else to write on which this is where I will recommend MarsEdit 4. I have been using MarsEdit 3 for almost a year now, I pretty much use it on regular basis for my draft works for my blogs because I use my MacBook Pro when it comes to blogging, attending events and whatnot which has been very useful for me. I don’t know what I’d do without it, recently MarsEdit has released a new update which is MarsEdit 4 and for any of you who brought MarsEdit in June or later in 2018 then I have great news for you – free upgrade to MarsEdit 4! You can find MarsEdit 4 using the apps store on your Mac and you will be set especially for a program to write for your blog. The cost for MarsEdit 4 is $50 one-time.
Grammarly
What? Joshie uses Grammarly? Yes, yes you got me. I do indeed use Grammarly especially if some words or a sentence that I am not sure of, they are a great service and what is even better is that they have a plugin for the Microsoft Office 365! Even if you are great at grammar, spelling, and whatnot, having a service to double check is a great idea to have in your blogger toolbox. I can write pretty good but I would always want to make sure that I have something to correct me just in case if I am not sure if I worded it right or if my sentencing is sounded so believe me having Grammarly would be very helpful. However, there is a downside to it is that Grammarly is somewhat expensive but the upside is that it’s free “enough” to double check all of your writing if you are already decent with grammar or spelling but if you aren’t good with English or writing then it would cost you. It would cost you $30 a month for the premium membership but if your writing skill is good enough and just need something to at least double check your writing then the free one would be the perfect option for you as it is for me.
Besides the plugin for your Microsoft Word, you can also install a plugin for your internet browser too! Give them a try.
OneNote – Office 365
Now we are back to Microsoft Office 365 because I want to throw another service from Office 365 in here, as I have mentioned that you would get a bunch good software or applications (for all devices, including smartphone, tablet, desktop, laptop etc.) I think I should mention OneNote. OneNote is a great tool/software/application that you can use as a notetaking, every blogger or journalist always has to have a notetaker with them whether it be notepad, smartphone, recorder, tablet and bunch of others that allows you to write or record down important things that you want to write about for your article. If you are an iOS user then you would know the Apple Notes app, think OneNote as the Notes on steroid if you will. It also has the sound recording feature in it so you can take a voice memo, drawing, writing and typing so it has all of the things that you need for OneNote to take a note but being a Deaf blogger I don’t need the voice memo so I use the typing, writing or drawing features instead which helps me so much especially adding some topics that I’d like to write in my next articles or do some notetaking for some of the articles I had to write about or need to write about like here.
TinEye
What the heck is TinEye you ask me? It is a reverse image search engines, sometimes I would get some pictures through e-mail or from somewhere that someone sent me to use in my articles, I would use TinEye to make sure that the images I have received is indeed theirs and not somebody else because otherwise, we would be violating someone’s image copyright which is the last thing that we want to do especially for our blogs. You can access to TinEye by going to TinEye.com and upload the images there then it will let you know where the images come from but if it does not show anything then there is a chance that the person who gave you the permission to use their image is indeed theirs.
Google News
I think this pretty much said it all, you can go to Google’s news via browser-based or apps and from there you can type a keyword that you want to double check or investigate to make sure that all of the information you are writing are accurate because you don’t want to share any misinformation on your blogs which can do more than harms to your blogs as it would label you as fake news or be blacklisted from all of the search engines which is never a good thing as I had a friend who went through it by accident but we had it appealed for him but Google is very strict when it comes to making sure that you don’t give misinformation on your blog or website so Google News can save your neck by doing so.
Social Media
Duh! You would be dumb not to take the advantage of social media, social media has vast of the audience and it is there for a grab so be sure to sign up on the top social media services such as Facebook (Facebook Page too), Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Medium, LinkedIn and Tumblr. Any time you published an article, always be sure to share it on social media because this way you would target the audience and have them to come over to your blog which is pretty much the best free way to have your articles, websites or blogs advertised. I highly recommend that you use or at least try to register one username for all brand or a name that is close to the name of your blog/website/news. If someone else has stolen your username or that a username you want isn’t available, then I suggest going for the alternative one. For example, someone else has stolen JoshiesWorld username on Instagram (which I am fighting to get it) so I decided to get the alternative one and that’s by adding “The” to JoshiesWorld so “TheJoshiesWorld”. For more authentic, it may cost you a little bit more. Since I own all of JoshiesWorld’s TLDs (.com, .net, .info, .biz, .org, .us etc.) I have decided to also get the one for TheJoshiesWorld and have it redirect to the main JoshiesWorld one so this way it gives me authority which is important.
Keep Up With The Trends
The least, not last important tool to be added to your blogger’s toolbox is staying with the trends so that you can capture a piece of the audience from that whatever is trending on social media or anywhere in the world. Google has a section for trends which I find it very useful, I highly recommend that you check it out and not only that if you are on Twitter then you already know where to find what is trending on Twitter so you try to fish in that pond of trend that you want to write a piece for or about and it is a hit-or-miss but if it is a hit then you’d be getting unbelievable good size of audience coming to your article!
For Google’s Trends, go here: https://trends.google.com/trends
Tor Browser
There are some places that we cannot have access to, some are propaganda websites or some countries websites (resources, news, reports etc.) blocks any traffic from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada and other country that this country does not want to allow another country to access to them unless you are in their country to be able to access to them so that is where Tor Browser comes in where it will use a special IP address from another country or pretending that you are there using their computer but you are not really there and some experts also use Tor Browser to file stories, information, tips etc. using Tor Browser to mask their IP address so that they can’t trace them. Even some congress, agents and top-ranking officers use them to share information or tips to somebody else so that they can’t trace their IP address back to them because Tor Browser masks them. Tor Browser will make them think that you are sipping a glass of wine in Bama when you are really in the 3rd floor apartment in your apartment’s complex in North Dakota. I happened to stumble upon a few of people sending me some information that they didn’t want to have a chance of me finding where it’s coming or who it’s coming from and it was weird, but it works though.
Here’s more information about the Tor Browser and here’s the link to download Tor Browser. If you download Tor Browser, be sure to keep checking update on a regular basis because they update it so often to make sure that it is more secure than ever.
Google Analytics
I heavily use Google Analytics to get data and information on all of my blogs and websites. Google Analytics does all the jobs of giving you information on where your blog is coming from, what countries they are being viewed the most, what did they searched to get to your blog using keywords, how many visitors have been to your blog and many more. They are many of web developer including mine favorite tool to get data for my websites or blogs so that I can get an idea of what area and where to improve in term of reaching out more audience. It is free to use, all it needs is you to sign up and then they will give you a snippet code for you to copy and paste to your header in your site’s template/theme which they will give you the instruction on how doing so.
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Skype
Wait, how can I use Skype if I am Deaf? Before you ask that question, I am aware which is why I am going to share the good news in case if you have missed a few months old news about Microsoft added a live subtitle/caption in honor to the disability people which you can find my article on this (a snippets article). As we know, so many people use Skype to interview, investigate, getting information from others and whatnot which in my opinion is more professional than doing so over at Facebook. Besides, Facebook does not provide live captions when it comes to interviewing someone who is a hearing person so that is where the Skype has an advantage over this and I think you should give Skype a try especially if you are Deaf. Here’s the blog post by Microsoft themselves about this.
https://blogs.skype.com/news/2018/12/03/introducing-live-captions-and-subtitles-in-skype/
FTP – File Transfer Protocol
This is a must for anyone who does own a blog or a website, having access to FTP would mean that you have complete or almost whole control of your website or weblog. By buying a premium feature at some blogging service is good but you will not get the full control of it and have the ability to do whatever you need to do to them whether it be backing up all of the files or uploading all kinds of the files that you need or want which is something that a blogging service doesn’t offer. For instance, some blog service can only allow you to upload 1GB (if lucky) or less for any type of files including video but if you have your own server then you can upload as big as you want as long as you are under the limit that a company gives you (some offer unlimited space). I highly recommend FileZilla Client for FTP use which is absolutely free, I used to use WS_FTP for many years that I paid for every year but a couple years ago I stopped because they for some reason gets worse or coming close to closing their business (last time I check was 2 years ago so I am not sure about now) and decided to look for a different FTP client so I came across FileZilla which is free so I figured that since it’s free that I might as well give it a try. I ended up relying on it more than ever, surprised that they have so many features and more than some FTP that isn’t free which I can never understand especially that usually when they have FTP like FileZilla they are expensive but for FileZilla it’s free. If it isn’t free, I would pay for a license in a heartbeat especially that they have all kind of features and very fast when it comes to upload/download!
https://filezilla-project.org/
Plagiarism Checker
It is very important that we always make sure that we don’t copy anyone else’s work and also to make sure that they don’t copy our work either because it isn’t a good feeling to find out that someone else is stealing your work and is getting all of the rewards instead of you when it should be all go to you. Which is why I am highly recommending Copyscape, it is free to use, all you have to do is copy then paste the article’s URL address on Copyscape and then it will scan around to make sure that you aren’t copying anyone else’s work or making sure that someone else isn’t copying your work. If you do, this is where you always make sure to credit the work to them by referring to that article’s link and you will be thanked for it. Here is the link for you to bookmark and use for plagiarism checker.
/End
I am sure there are a lot more tools that I can think of or somebody else can think of, these few tools are the main tools I use from my blogger’s toolbox and I think you should too especially if you want to be a successful blogger. If you can think of something else or recommend some of the other tools that you have in your blogger’s toolbox then please feel free to leave a comment below and help out other new bloggers that are reading this article so that way we can prepare them to be successful too! Thank you so much for your time reading, if you have any question or want to share your opinion/feedback on these products I have listed in my blogger’s toolbox then please do feel free to do so by leaving a comment below! If I can think of anything else that I may be forgetting, I will edit here and add them as I remember them.
If you need any help with any of the tools that I have listed from my blogger’s toolbox, let me know by leaving a comment below, contact me through the contact page or feel free to hit me up on social media!
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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