It’s now 2019, yet the struggle continues for many a blogger. If you have been at the game for any given amount of time, you would have realized that it takes time and effort to begin swimming with the big guns. So, what is it that you can do to get ahead of the pack during the course of the current year? We have compiled this list of 6 must have tools that every blogger needs to have to help their sites achieve the greatness that we are all looking for. If you have ever heard of the million dollar blogger’s club; these are the tools that many of the big names on the list use to help grow their blogs. Here are essential blogging tools that you should use on your blog for the year 2019;
- Get Free Photos Pixabay
Where do you get the photos that you use in your blog posts? Do you take them yourself or do you buy them from such sites as CanStockPhoto? Well, the really good news is that you don’t actually need to buy any of the photos that you use on your blog. There are a number of websites out there that offer royalty free photos absolutely free of charge.
One of these websites is Pixabay. The great thing about Pixabay is that you don’t actually need to register to get started. All that you need to do is visit the site and you can begin downloading all any of the photos that your heart is set on.
And there are over 1.6 royalty free stock photos on Pixabay. What this means is that you can find photos for almost about anything, from Science Fiction to technology. There are other royalty free stock photo repositories out there, such as Pexels, but Pixabay is, without doubt, one of the best. Indeed, all the feature and other images that we use on this website come from Pixabay and Pexels.
- RankTrackr
Keeping track of your site’s performance on Search Engine Result Pages is something that every blogger should also strive to do during the course of the year 2019. As with everything else to do with blogging, there are probably thousands of sites that offer Search Engine Rank Monitoring services out there.
Of these, one of the best is RankTrackr. The thing that we like about this particular tool is that not only is it one of the most affordable rank tracking tools that you will be able to find out there, but also that it is also one of the most accurate.
Once you have signed up, RankTrackr monitors your chosen keywords across multiple Search Engines and presents you with daily, weekly, monthly and annual overviews into your performance. You can also use the tool to carry out competitor research. This way, RankTrackr helps you identify the sites that you are competing with for you chosen keywords, which is really important in that it allows you to refine your strategies to get ahead of the pack.
You can check out RankTrackr by signing up for the 10 day, no strings attached, free trial. You can also sign up for rank checking for your site for beginning at $9 per month.
- Google’s Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner is another of the important tools that serious bloggers need to have in the year 2019. The importance of carrying out comprehensive Keyword Research to blogging can never be overemphasized.
Every article that you write needs to be geared to answer questions that your target audience have been asking. And these questions can only be identified through Keyword Research.
The good news about Keyword Planner is that it comes absolutely free of charge. That is great, considering that many of the tools that offer keyword planning services actually need to be paid for.
- Yoast
Yoast is an SEO tool that we use on this blog, and it’s important for all bloggers to begin using it in the year 2019. You may, of course, be aware of all the things that need to be done with regard to Search Engine Optimization, but have you been doing them right?
The great thing about Yoast is that it serves as a barometer, telling you where you are missing the plot as far as SEO is concerned, and where you are getting it right.
Once you have installed Yoast on your website, it will tell you if the posts that you are writing do not have the right amount of keywords, and if you are missing out on external links.
Though Yoast comes with a paid version, the great thing is that you can get away with using the free version of this amazing SEO tool.
- Broken Links Checker
Having broken links on your website has the potential to negatively affect your position on Search Engines. However, the truth is, no matter how careful you are in your link building efforts, you do not always have control over what happens.
Some of the pages to which you were linking can get taken offline or can be modified by their owners. It would be virtually impossible for you to keep track of it all without the services of a tool such as the Broken Links Checker.
You can download this tool using the WordPress Plugins sections. Once that is done, it will sent you a notification email each time that it detects broken links on your site. You can then quickly and easily take actions that include unlinking from the site in question.
- Redirection
Redirection is another must have tool for website owners for the year 2019. The great thing about redirection is that it automatically adds redirect to your website whenever you make changes to the URL. 301 redirects are also added whenever you move your site to another web host. This stops visitors from getting 404 errors when they visit your site and helps improve your Search Engine rank.
