Are you looking for the best blogging tools for beginners? Free or cheap is good, am I right?!? Maybe you are working hard to monetize your blog, but you aren’t quite there yet. And you know you need to invest in your blog in order for it to grow, but…you need to bootstrap it for the time being. So you need the best blogging tools for beginners that will give you maximum success. And you’re in luck! I’ve been blogging for six years now, and have compiled a list of free and cheap tools that I have discovered over the years. These are the things that have really propelled my blog forward. They are my most favorite tools – the ones that are responsible for massive growth in just the last year or so!!
I used free blogging tools to get started
I’m a mom of six, living in a single-income household. To say I had to bootstrap my business is an understatement!! The amount of money I had to invest in my blog over the years was almost zilch. You will find A LOT of coaches who tell you that you need to invest in your business in order for it to grow. And while they are not wrong, it is not always as easy as they make it out to be. “If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way.” “It’s all in your priorities. Is your business a priority?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard statements like that!! Yes, my business is a priority. But do you know what matters even more than my business? Those six cute little mouths I’ve had to feed. The roof I’ve put over their heads. And everything in-between, that comes with raising such a large family. And so, while I get what these coaches are saying, I’ve never had the luxury of actually being able to spend a lot of money on blogging tools. And that’s okay!!! Because you know what? While coaching IS nice, and investing in your business IS important, it’s not the only way. You can bootstrap your business. I did. And countless other people have, as well.
Bootstrapping your blog takes time
What you do need to know, however, is that you have two great resources at your fingertips: money and time. If you don’t have the money, then you will have to put in the time. That’s just a given. It’s taken me five years. So, momma, don’t lose hope!! It’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you have to bootstrap your blog, there are free blogging tools for beginners that can definitely help you out.
Tried and true blogging tools for beginners
In order to save you some of your precious time, I’m going to share with you my favorite blogging tools and resources!! I’ve tried a lot of various blogging tools over the years, and the following list is what has really made a difference for me. And because I’m a bootstrapper like you, a lot of them are free blogging tools for beginners. The blogging tools that cost money are actually relatively inexpensive, especially for what you get out of it. As you start making money, it will become easier and easier for you to invest in your business. So, keep this list handy. Pin this post so that you can come back to it when you are ready to take that next step, and spend a little money. Oh – and some of these links are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission if you decide to purchase through the link. But no worries – it costs you nothing extra. For more information on why and how I use affiliate links, click here.
Free blogging tools for beginners
Blogging is one of the easiest businesses for sahms to start, because it virtually costs nothing to get started. If you wanted to, you could even host your website for free (I wouldn’t recommend it, though.) So, if you are just getting started, and you have no money to invest in your blog, these are the blogging tools for beginners that I would recommend. I have found them super helpful! Some are resources, like podcasts, books, and facebook groups, and others are actual tools to help you blog, like Canva, Trello, and PDF Escape. Check out all of my recommended blogging tools for beginners! I’m sure you’ll find something that can help you.
Image Source: Brandon Gaille My ALL-TIME favorite!! I loved everything about Brandon Gaille’s podcast. My favorite thing is that each episode was bite-sized; about ten minutes in length, and totally actionable. I could quickly listen to an episode while folding a load of laundry or doing the dishes, and then implement everything he said, because it was nothing but actual steps to take to improve your blog. There were no theoretical teachings or fluffy fillers. It was short, sweet, and to the point. And it was all good advice. It really got me thinking about my blog strategy, content…everything. It was THAT GOOD. You need to listen to each and every episode!! And then take action! Just do what he says. 😁 Listen to Brandon’s Podcast Here
Elna is the real deal – a big time blogger. But she remembers what it’s like to just start out, and she truly does want to see you succeed! I have taken her Ready Set Blog for Traffic Course, and her Pinterest Course, and let me tell you!! I’ve come a long way, baby, since using her techniques! (I’ve also taken her freelancing writing course. If you want to offer a service, consider writing for other sites. It was the fastest way for me to make money!) What Elna teaches WORKS. Plain and simple. She has single-handedly exploded my traffic and made my blog what it is today. Listen to her videos and then go do what she says! Subscribe to Elna’s YouTube Channel Here
Image Source: Elna Cain I am no longer on Facebook, or any social media, for that matter. I actually do not recommend being on social media. Or watching the news. If you want to know why, read this post. But if you are on Facebook, and have no plans on leaving, then I’d recommend joining Elna’s group. It was the very first group I ever joined! I don’t recall how I landed in Elna’s group, but I’m glad I did. As I said, Elna is the blogger behind Twins Mommy, a site for moms who want to be bloggers. I’m a mom of twins and a mom who wanted to be a blogger…you do the math. Elna’s group is full of moms who are starting their own side hustles. So, you can ask questions and learn from people who are doing the same thing you are, or who have successfully done it. When I first started blogging, I wanted to quit so many times, but the kind words from Elna’s group members kept me going. I’ve made many friends over the years, just from Elna’s group. Although I’m no longer in the group, I do still stay in touch with some of the friends I made in the group. Check out Mom to Mompreneur
Image Source: Dara Simons I was introduced to Dara Simons through Sarah Talbert. And I met Sarah Talbert in Mom to Mompreneur. Funny how that works! Dara designs websites. And although I’d never have her design mine, I still adore her. Well, I shouldn’t say ‘never’, because who knows what the future holds. But I love monkeying around with my website – it’s one reason why I like blogging so much. So, I would never hand that over to someone else, even when I know they can do so much better than me! (I LOVE Dara’s site!) But Dara’s group is A-MAZING!! Because it is designed for busy moms like me, who want to create their own website. Anytime I have a technical question, Dara can answer it. Check out Launch It & Love It
Image Source: Canva There are a lot of graphic tools out there, but I highly recommend Canva. It is easy to use and offers beautiful templates and photos. I’ve been a Canva user for a very long time. And I can say, that over the years they have lessened their free services…kind of forcing you to pay for the good stuff. But let me tell you! It is totally worth it. I have the paid Canva membership. It was the very first thing I invested in. And I have never regretted it. I use Canva to make my logos, all of my pins, my freebies and content upgrades, and even for my blog photos. When I used to be on social media, I used it for that as well. I’ve even used Canva for slideshows! Sign up for Canva for free
Image Source: Headline Studio CoSchedule offers a free headline analyzer tool. You can visit their site each time, and enter in your headline, or you can get the chrome extension for it. I have the extension. I don’t use this tool for every post, just for the posts that I really want to draw traffic to. I shoot for a score of 72 or more, although lately I’ve been challenging myself to get in the 80’s. They do offer a premium version, but I have found the free version to be sufficient for my needs. Check out Headline Studio
Image Source: Adazing Many bloggers create guides and ebooks as freebies, to get people onto their email list. I did this as well. And I needed a way to make my guide look like it was a physical product, even though it was a digital download. Adazing worked beautifully! It provides free book mock-ups. The site is easy to use, too. If you have a pro Canva account, Canva also provides book mock-ups. 😉 Explore Adazing
Image Source: PDF Joiner PDF Joiner is a free service that lets your join single PDF’s into one file, or one complete PDF. So, if I have a few different PDF’s that I’ve created in Canva, that I want to combine into just one PDF, I use PDF Joiner. I have created many guides and workbooks this way! Try PDF Joiner
Image Source: PDF Escape PDF Escape is another free tool. It lets me add filler boxes to my PDF’s. So, I can create a PDF on Canva, and make it all gorgeous. Then download it, upload it to PDF Escape, and create the boxes for you to fill in the PDF. 😉 It’s great for making workbooks! Try PDF Escape
I used to have white boards hanging above my desk. And I’d list out categories on them, and write my ideas down in dry erase markers, so that I could move the items from one list to the next, as I worked on them. I did the same, even before I invested in white boards, with tag boards and sticky notes. And that is essentially what Trello is. You create a board, say…. your Master Editorial Calendar. And then you list out all of your categories. And then under each list, you add your cards (aka, your sticky notes). You can then create all kinds of to-do lists in those cards, attach items and links, and so much more. You can move cards around from list to list, just like sticky notes. I have a trello board for my master calendar, the blog posts that are done, the posts that need to be updated, my monetization plan, my daily work flow, and my freelancing. Trello is amazing! If you want more information, you can read this post about how I use Trello to manage my daily blogging tasks. Try Trello
Image Source: Grammarly Grammarly is another Chrome Extension. I started using it when I started freelancing. You just add the extension, and it shows you all of your grammatical errors, as you type! It even shows you how your writing is coming across – friendly, educated, cooperative, etc. 😊 I love it! Check out Grammarly
Image Source: Skitch Have you been wondering how I get all of these images of these websites? I just screen shot them. 😁 And not with my phone. Because I always blog on my computer. I use Skitch to take a screenshot of anything and everything. Back in the day, I listed all of the places I’ve written for as logos under my featured image. I extracted those logos using Skitch. 😉 It’s super easy to use, and of course, free. Try Skitch
Image Source: Yoast Yoast is a free SEO plug-in. It’s super easy to use. All you do is add in your keyword phrase, and it will evaluate your post. It’ll give you a red if you totally sucked it up, a yellow if you did okay, and a green if you rocked it. And then it tells you what you can do to improve your SEO. I love it!! If you have wordpress, then you should be able to do a general search in the plug-ins tab for Yoast, to install it. But if not, click the button below. Install Yoast
Paid blogging tools for beginners
When you are ready, momma, these are the best blogging tools for beginners to invest in! They give you the most bang for your buck if you know what I mean. 😉
Ruth is a New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, and blogger. She helps people break through their fear and live a life they love with her Do It Scared Podcast and she helps people to live in financial freedom with her blog, Living Well Spending Less. Ruth also created the Elite Blog Academy, which offers a framework for bloggers who want to turn their blog into a business. But it’s her book, How to Blog for Profit Without Selling Your Soul, that got me. It was the first book I ever read about blogging. And it taught me about creating quality content, how to set up my website and all about the various ways I could monetize it. It is a great book for anyone who is just getting started with blogging! Buy Ruth’s book on Amazon
Daniel is a self-confessed marketing nerd with a background in direct-response advertising. Uf das. That’s all I have to say about this book. I have axed a lot of the blogging tools for beginners that I originally had in this post, because they just weren’t things I used on a daily basis to better my blog. I want only the best of the best for you. But I kept Daniel’s book. Now, I am sure that Daniel Daines-Hutt is an amazing person, with tons of knowledge. But…the book was hard for me to read. In fact, I haven’t finished reading it. And I probably won’t. I just use it as a reference. Why? Because the book was poorly written. It flowed okay, and I could understand what the author was trying to say. But Daniel didn’t use punctuation! As in, he didn’t put periods at the end of his sentences. And a lot of his sentences were actually questions, rather than comments. I suspect he did this on purpose because, come on….who doesn’t put a period at the end of their sentence?!? But it drove me absolutely batty. Still…. The material was intriguing. This book really got me thinking about the content on my blog in a new way. I think Daniel knows his stuff. He taught me how to write content backwards, starting with the product, and ending with the introductory post. It’s brilliant, really. And I applied it to my sahm schedule posts. I’ll soon be applying it to all of my categories. So, if you want to monetize your blog by offering a product, momma, then you may want to pick up a copy of his book. Trust me – it’s worth it. Just imagine a period at the end of every sentence. Buy Daniel’s book on Amazon
Image Source: Twins Mommy I discovered early on that the majority of my social media traffic came from Pinterest. So, naturally, I wanted to up my game on Pinterest. When I was able to, I enrolled in Elna’s course, and literally implemented everything she taught. I learned, from participating in Elna’s Write Your Way to 1K Course for freelance writers, that if I literally did everything she said, in the order she said to do it, then I’d see success quickly. And that is exactly what happened with her Pinterest Masterclass as well. Traffic to both my website and my Pinterest profile has exploded since I took her course!! I’m growing so fast it makes my head spin. And the funny part is, it took me nearly five years just to get a smidgen of the traffic I have now. Don’t waste your time, momma!! When you can afford to, invest in Elna’s Pinterest course. It’ll make all the difference. Enroll in the Pinterest Masterclass
Image Source: KeySearch There are a lot of SEO keyword research tools out there. But I use Key Search. I tried Ubber Suggest, which is a free tool. I think Neil Patel is great, but I didn’t know how to use his tool and didn’t want to learn. It seemed too confusing. I also tried Sem Rush, but again, it seemed too confusing. I somehow stumbled upon KeySearch. I was looking for something, and saw a video on how to use it. And it was super easy. Exactly what I needed. So, now that’s all I use! (And it’s cheap too!!) All I do is type a keyword phrase into the box and check out the score. If it’s below 30, I’m good to go! (My DA isn’t that high yet…. ) I also look at the search volume of a term. If it’s below 30, but no one is searching for it, well then that just sucks. No point in using that term. I used to look at the DA and PA of the competitors as well. I stopped doing it a long time ago though, because it didn’t seem to make much difference for me. I know there is so much more I could be using Key Search for, but I’m pretty happy with how it has helped me out already! When I get more competitive, maybe I’ll up my keyword research. If you decide to use KeySearch, use code KSDISC for an extra 20% off!! Just for being a loyal reader. Explore KeySearch
Image Source: ConvertKit I love love love ConvertKit and am not going back. 😁 When I first started out, I used Mail Chimp for my email server. And it was….okay. I used it for many, many years. Until it just didn’t do what I wanted it to. Plus, I was on the free plan, and they really narrowed the scope of services that their free plan offered. I tried MailerLite. Didn’t like that one either. So, I finally tried ConvertKit. I started out on their free trial. And was immediately hooked. The difference with ConvertKit is that the funnels are VISUAL. I never understood funnels. I had a hard time laying them out in my emails. But with ConvertKit, it was so stupidly easy!! I finally get it. And I’m not going back. You only get 14 days free, if I remember right. So don’t even try it until you know you can invest in it. It is only $29 a month, which, believe me, is well worth it!! But if you can’t afford it right now, you’ll cry when that free trial is over. 😆 So do it when you’re ready to commit. Start my free trial
Image Source: Elementor Elementor is a page builder. Let me guess: you are using a free wordpress theme. Yeah, I did that too. For almost seven years. I had Astra. And loved it! (I use Laura now.) But a theme only lets you do so much…. And you see all of these other websites with really fancy pages, slide shows, and videos. And you want to do all that! Well, most people do it with with page builders. There’s Divi, and a really crappy one that I paid for and HATED… I don’t even remember what it is called now…it was that bad. And then I stumbled on Elementor. You can start out with the free plugin. And then when you love it, you can upgrade to the premium. I say “when”, because I know you will. I do every page with Elementor. And some posts. In fact, I’m writing this post with Elementor! It just gives you more options for layouts and widgets. You can pretty much customize anything with Elementor, regardless of what theme you have. You can go to your wordpress plug-ins and search for Elementor, or click the button below. Try Elementor for free
Image Source: Tailwind I could not live without Tailwind! I cannot be on Pinterest all day long. And I’m not on any other social media platform. (Although, technically, Pinterest is a search engine…) Tailwind allows me to schedule pins to my boards. And it even auto-fills my schedule for me, based on when my audience is online and looking….which I LOVE. When I take the time to load up my pins in Tailwind, I see a huge boost in my traffic. When I neglect that task, I see ants…or peanuts…or maybe dust bunnies… not sure what the right analogy is there. (It’s late….) I HIGHLY recommend you grab Elna’s Pinterest Masterclass (she walks you through how to use Tailwind) and the paid subscription for Tailwind. Trust me – it’ll be worth the money. Yes…you can get a free subscription to Tailwind….but it’s extremely limiting…. Get Tailwind
Image Source: Bluehost I assume, if you are looking for the best blogging tools for beginners, that you already have a website. So, maybe you don’t need Bluehost. But, if you don’t have a website, or you have a free wordpress url, then I think you might want to upgrade to a paid hosting service. (The free wordpress urls will look like www.wordpress.makingmommas.com and they aren’t very professional….) So, if this is you, and you are ready to upgrade, then I recommend Bluehost. I started out with a free wordpress site. It didn’t take me long to upgrade to Bluehost! What I love about Bluehost is that they are super cheap to get started with, and that they are super easy. And I mean EASY. You can read my post about how to start a mom blog here, where I help you get started with Bluehost. But I love Bluehost because in the six years I’ve been blogging, I’ve only had trouble once or twice. I don’t remember what it was (probably operator error) but all I did was get on a chat with them, and keep my computer open, and they fixed the problem immediately. I didn’t have to be on a phone call!! Any sahm will tell you that making phone calls is torture when you have little ones at home!!! 🤣😂 Their customer service won me over immediately. Get started with Bluehost
⇢⇢The ultimate blogging tool for beginners to grow your blog freaky fast⇠⇠
Image Source: Elna Cain
Ready, Set, Blog for Traffic!
This is the best kept secret of all the blogging tools for beginners out there!! DO NOT buy any other course on blogging. Seriously, don’t. I’ve taken a lot of courses now, and I’m telling you, this is where you want to put your money. I took this course in December of 2020… if I remember right. And I immediately implemented everything. I worked hard all of January and February. And my traffic SKYROCKETED. Both on Pinterest and on Google Analytics. I was amazed!!! And then, I moved in March. And my freelancing really picked up. So, I was really busy. I stopped implementing Elna’s techniques, and traffic dropped again. Then, in September of 2021, I picked it back up again, and implemented her techniques. And I’m growing faster than I ever imagined!! So much so, that now, as of this update, I’m in the process of rewriting all of my posts and redesigning my entire site, to make it even better for you – and all of my other readers. I’m telling you, momma, if you use Elna’s strategies, you WILL see freaky fast growth!! I spent five years trying to do what Elna taught me in just a couple of months! If you can only invest in one thing this year, make it Elna’s course. It’ll change your blogging life. Enroll in Ready Set Blog For Traffic
At the end of the day…
At the end of the day, momma, we want our blogs to grow, and to be profitable. Because we started them so that we could stay home with our children. It’s hard when you are living on a sahm budget, to invest in a business. So, use these free blogging tools for beginners, you see some profit and growth. And then you can invest in some of the paid tools. I promise you, they will all be well worth your money.
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I’m a mom of six, living in a single-income household. To say I had to bootstrap my business is an understatement!! The amount of money I had to invest in my blog over the years was almost zilch. You will find A LOT of coaches who tell you that you need to invest in your business in order for it to grow. And while they are not wrong, it is not always as easy as they make it out to be. “If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way.” “It’s all in your priorities. Is your business a priority?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard statements like that!! Yes, my business is a priority. But do you know what matters even more than my business? Those six cute little mouths I’ve had to feed. The roof I’ve put over their heads. And everything in-between, that comes with raising such a large family. And so, while I get what these coaches are saying, I’ve never had the luxury of actually being able to spend a lot of money on blogging tools. And that’s okay!!! Because you know what? While coaching IS nice, and investing in your business IS important, it’s not the only way. You can bootstrap your business. I did. And countless other people have, as well.
Oh – and some of these links are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission if you decide to purchase through the link. But no worries – it costs you nothing extra. For more information on why and how I use affiliate links, click here.
