If you are a blogger or content manager like me, you probably know that the hardest part about maintaining a content strategy is not about the strategy itself. It’s about deciding what to write about and staying organized.

When you have a dozen of blog posts that you need to write for your company blog, and then another dozen guest posts you have negotiated to write for 3rd party publications, your working day starts looking like this (only 10 times faster):

Are there any blogging tools to help you out in this madness?

Luckily, “there’s an app for that”. Here are my 10 favorite blogging tools that make my life as a content manager, blogger and editor so much easier.

My list of favorite blogging tools

1. Ahrefs

You can come up with the most brilliant piece of content. But if no one searches for this topic, it’s going to sit there undiscovered on the dusty shelves of the Internet.

Basically, Ahrefs is an SEO and blogging tool that helps you monitor your competitors, get insights on what content works best on your site or blog, and helps you do your keyword research (as well as many other things).

So, before I get down to actual writing, I would research the topics that make sense to write on. I have a list of keywords that I’d love our blog to rank for. Once I choose a keyword, I’d head over to Ahrefs to give me some guidance as to how many people search for the term or phrase monthly.

SEMrush is another great SEO blogging tool that I use on a daily basis.

2. Bear

As a blogger, I needed a blogging tool that would allow me to take notes and write down drafts wherever I go. I needed a tool that would be powerful and geeky enough for all my needs (like, pre-formatting in Markdown, ability to add tags, etc.)

That’s how I stumbled upon Bear. It’s an amazing application that allows you to take notes on Mac, iPhone and iPad. With the paid subscription, all the notes are synchronized, so you can start writing something on one device and continue wherever.

Bear also allows you to edit text in a fancy way. For instance, you can create lists with checkboxes that you can tick, highlight pieces of code, and embed the pictures right within the body of the text. You can then export the text in various formats (including HTML!) and share directly on Twitter and Facebook.

A truly invaluable blogging tool.

3. Trello

There’s been a lot said about Trello and how helpful it is in terms of organizing processes. I find it particularly convenient for organizing our editorial calendar.

In our content calendar, we have several lists: Backlog, Ideas, Pipeline, In Progress, Ready to Publish and Published. Every blog post title gets its own card on Trello.

Backlog: a collection of all the article ideas we decided to postpone for a time being but which are still worthy of keeping somewhere for the team to access later.

Ideas: blog post titles that make sense to write on. Usually, our criteria for “make sense to write on” would include the relevance to our audience, high enough search volume, and overall interest in the topic.

Pipeline: ideas that we decide to work with. Basically, everything that’s been scheduled to be posted is moved to the Pipeline list.

In progress: actual stuff that we are currently working on. This might mean us working on an article, our designers preparing visuals for blog posts, or guest authors writing their posts.

Ready to publish: once a blog post has content, all the necessary links, and visuals, its card is moved this list.

Published: the name speaks for itself. Once a blog post is published, the card is moved to the list “Published”.

My favorite feature in Trello that turns it into a super powerful blogging tool is the calendar power-up. It allows you to see the cards that have deadlines in the convenient form of a calendar.

The best part about Trello? It’s absolutely free.

4. Typeform

Typeform is a data collection tool. However, it’s not your regular survey software. It allows you to do so much more: collect feedback, create contact forms and fun quizzes, and generate leads.

How is it a valuable blogging tool, you ask?

I use Typeform to create fun surveys and votes. It’s also super easy to embed it in emails and blog posts.

Uh oh, and they are based in Barcelona! If you needed an extra push to start using the product, this is it.

5. Wave.video

In the modern digital world, it’s not enough to just post your blog post and forget it. You have to be actively promoting it, including your social channels. And nothing works better on social than video. 

When a new blog post is out, we use Wave.video as a blogging tool to create short promotional videos for social. My favorite feature is the ability to create videos in all the different formats, including square and vertical (works beautifully for IG Stories).

6. TinyPNG

As a blogger, you are probably aware of the fact how important it is to make your blog faster and more convenient to use. This means that you might want to constantly optimize it for speed and performance.

That’s why one of the blogging tools I absolutely can’t live without is TinyPNG, a free image compressor. For every image that I upload to our blog or website, I make sure it’s been through the TinyPNG compression. For some images, it helps you save up to 90% of the initial “weight” without losing the image quality.

7. Zest

The Zest app is my new big love and one of my favorite blogging tools out there.

Well, it’s not exactly a tool, but rather an instrument that helps you get more eyes on your amazing content.

The way it works is that you can submit your content link via the Zest Chrome extension. After that, the content is reviewed by the Zest tribe — a community of real marketers who are quite picky about the quality of content.

Only 1% of suggested content gets approved. But if it does, everyone who has the Zest add-on installed in Chrome will see your article when they open the browser.

I find Zest to be a great — and free! — way to get our content to more like-minded marketers out there.

8. Quuu Promote

Another tool I use for blog promotion is Quuu Promote. It’s similar to Zest with the only exception: you will need to pay $40 for every article you promote.

Once your content gets approved, it will be shared organically through the network of marketers and influencers on Twitter and Facebook. Normally, I would use Quuu Promote to promote a particularly outstanding or significant article that I am sure lots of people will benefit from.

9. AddThis

AddThis is a convenient WordPress plugin that we use for social shares from the blog. As a plugin, it’s really easy to install on the blog (if it runs on WordPress, that is).

Apart from convenient social sharing buttons, AddThis provides analytics as to how many shares blog posts get. The tool even breaks the shares down by platforms. This might give you an insight what platform you might want to focus your efforts on.

10. BuzzSumo

If you haven’t heard of BuzzSumo yet, you definitely want to give it a try. This is an amazing blogging tool that will help you find trending topics to write on, tell you who exactly shared your posts and find influencers in your niche. In fact, the tool is so powerful, Brian Dean of Backlinko wrote the definitive guide on how to use it.

When it comes to content promotion, I find BuzzSumo to be great for helping me discover who shared similar content. I would then reach out to those people and kindly ask them to share our piece of content, too.

Do you have any favorite blogging tools that you use on a daily basis?