16 Blogging Tools to Write Better Blog Posts

Creating content that resonates with your target audience is challenging, but it starts with quality writing. To write well and quickly, you need the right combination of knowledge, creativity, and the best blogging tools for the job.

Fortunately, many free blogging tools are available to help improve your efficiency and turn your blog posts into top-notch content.

Creators must consider every tool, from the obvious ones like grammar and spell checkers to more specialized tools like headline analyzers, AI content generation software, social sharing plugins, and SEO keyword strategy tools.

Whether you’re a first-time blogger or an experienced writer rebranding your business, these 16 blogging tools will help you build a sensible strategy and write better content in less time.

Content Ideation Tools

Publishing great content is essential for bloggers and creators; however, one fantastic post isn’t enough to become an influential blog writer. To build a fan base that eagerly awaits your next post, you need to invest time and effort into creating a consistent flow of exceptional posts.

Content ideation tools help bloggers develop ideas quickly and generate targeted content that resonates with their readers. While thousands of tools make claims about their capabilities, it’s best to stick with the ones that have been tested and proven successful. 

When considering what tools to use on your own blog, most fall into the following categories:

• Content Ideation
• Blog Optimization
• AI-Powered Writing Tools
• Collaboration Tools
• Bonus Tools

Let’s start with some of the best blogging tools for Content Ideation:

Quora

Cost: Free forum community

Content ideation tools are research and inspiration tools. For example, Quora is a relevant platform because it’s filled with questions that could spark your next blog post topic. It’s also a great way to connect with other writers and their topic ideas.

Bloggers, marketers, and entrepreneurs can use Quora to stay informed on exciting new topics to create relevant, evergreen content. Quora is a popular social network focused on Q&A, and your content strategy will benefit from this research tool.

Quora generates a lot of traffic which is beneficial for bloggers as it can provide keyword ideas and attract targeted website traffic. 

Staying up-to-date with the latest topics on Quora is a valuable strategy for bloggers to remain current within their niche. In addition, you can find inspiration for your writing on Quora.

Remember, your audience is interested in being informed about recent social developments, so consider incorporating all these features into your blog post ideas.

Quora’s key features include:

• The Q&A Format – Quora’s main feature is its Q&A format, which encourages users to ask questions and get answers from experts in the community. This exchange helps bloggers find new content ideas, get in touch with subject experts and gain valuable insights into their topics.
• Publish Posts – Another great feature is the posting platform, which provides a place to create engaging posts; users can add their credentials on subjects they discuss. Creators can also ask questions and answer other users’ queries.
• Interact in Spaces – With Spaces, which are groups dedicated to specific topics, users can share content from around the web and answer related questions. Spaces offer an accessible place to get the latest developments and engage with like-minded individuals.

Overall, Quora provides a wealth of features that help bloggers write faster and better by giving them access to valuable resources, subject experts, and relevant content ideas.

Google Trends

Cost: Free

Have you checked the popularity of your latest blog post or idea? You can use Google Trends to see the search volume for keywords and phrases you’re considering.

Google Trends helps the search engine identify popular topics, keywords, and trends. Creators can use this information to create better content and make decisions about content creation. Here is just a bit of what you’ll find on Google Trends.

• Data on Search Terms – Google Trends shows how often people search for particular words or topics over time. It helps track the popularity of different search terms and identify emerging trends before they become popular. Creators can use this information to write relevant content around current events or topics gaining popularity.
• Related Search Terms – Google Trends offers associated queries, which anyone can utilize to enhance content ideas. With supplementary keywords, creators discover innovative perspectives or approaches that are unique. Furthermore, it helps writers generate ideas for posts that connect better with their audience.
• Data Filtering – Content creators can leverage regional data to tailor their writing to specific geographic areas for better local engagement. You can also use filters by timeframe, category, and search type.
• Trending Now Panel – Google Trends also features a “Trending Now” panel. It displays globally popular topics in real time, allowing content creators to jump on the bandwagon.

Google Trends is a helpful tool for creators who want to improve their writing speed and quality. Showing popular topics and related keywords also keeps them from wasting time on angles that won’t gain them traction.

Answer The Public

Cost: Paid plans start at $9/month or $99/lifetime

The Answer The Public tool suits content creators who want to build a keyword strategy without all the bells and whistles. It offers a range of questions, prepositions, and comparison queries related to a specific keyword. Neil Patel and NP Digital purchased it to help bloggers develop interesting, search-engine-optimized ideas through detailed SEO analysis.

With similarities to Ubersuggest, Answer The Public can go deeper into keyword research and get to the bottom of which questions people are searching for in your niche.

The Pro membership offers the most value and beats Google Analytics with keyword suggestions, search volume data, and more.

• Unlimited Daily Search – Explore all the topics you want as many times a day as you need. Premium subscribers get unlimited daily searches, so the best content ideas are always available.
• Alerts – Set up Listening Alerts to receive weekly email digests showing new questions about any topic. With these alerts, track changes in brand perceptions, identify seasonal trends, and be the first to address emerging issues.
• A Team Workspace – Answer The Public is a tool that can be used by any team, regardless of their size or structure. 
• Education and Training – Discover advanced search listening techniques for extracting valuable insights. The package includes an Ebook and premium video masterclass courses, valued at $248. 

With a developed tool like Answer The Public, become a content creator with an edge. By leveraging its advanced features and combining them with other blogging tools, your content will reach its intended audience and evolve with them.

Exploding Topics

Cost: Paid plans start at $39/month, billed annually. There is a 14-day trial for $1

Exploding Topics is a freemium tool that is a combination of Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner and helps social media channels and content creators identify topics and keywords gaining popularity in real time.

Some of the most valuable features of this tool are the following:

• Personalize Your Content – To increase the visibility of your posts and attract more traffic to your website, customize your content based on your audience’s current interests using the information.
• Leverage Graphs and Data – You can anticipate future trends using trend predictions based on past performance data. Because of this advantage, you will create content around topics before everyone else understands their popularity.
• Weekly Trend Reports – When you sign up for a Pro membership, you’ll get a weekly report that contains numerous trends with high potential. You will receive this report up to a year before they share it with anyone else.

With a Pro membership, bloggers can access more market data within unique reports. As a more developed tool geared toward small business owners and digital marketers, it’s the best tool to keep your audience coming back for more.

Reddit

Cost: Free forum community

Reddit is an online platform that allows users to share and discuss news, content, and opinions. It’s a free site with features like forums, social networking, and content rating. In addition, users who are signed up can post links, text posts, images, and videos.

• The Voting System – The voting system on Reddit is a popular feature among users, as they can freely upvote or downvote posts and comments to indicate their opinions on the content. 
• Creating Subgroups – Redditors can create subreddits; subreddits are dedicated communities focused on specific topics. Content creators can use subreddits to find relevant audiences for their work and engage with other like-minded people in the community.
• Reddit Ads – Advertising on Reddit can effectively reach potential customers and build brand awareness. This feature allows digital marketing professionals to create targeted ads that are more likely to reach their desired audience.

The voting system provides content creators with immediate feedback on their work. This feedback can help improve their writing skills since they receive input from potential audience members who have read their work rather than relying solely on algorithms.

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Why is Content Ideation Important for Your Blog?

Developing fresh content ideas that will benefit your audience can be challenging. But it’s a common challenge that many of us face. When you first start creating content for a successful blog, there are numerous opportunities and plenty of inspiration.

Over the long haul, it can be tough to keep that momentum going. As you continue writing for your website, you will face difficulties. You can use content ideation tools to overcome this challenge and ensure data supports your ideas.

Blog Optimization Tools

Blog optimization tools assist creators in increasing the visibility of their work. Anyone can use these tools to optimize titles, written copy, keywords, and images for better search engine rankings. 

Surfer SEO

Cost: Plans start at $49/month with a 7-day trial

You need to be able to research, write, optimize, and audit your content to get the most out of it. That’s where Surfer SEO comes in; this comprehensive tool provides everything you need to create a complete content strategy that yields tangible results.

• AI Outline Generator – Outlining content is crucial to the writing process. The AI Outline Generator uses AI to quickly generate an outline for your work and provide your readers with structure and organization.
• The Grow Flow Feature – The Grow Flow feature helps you track your progress to see what works and what doesn’t. Completing its checklist-based tasks will give you helpful insights and the next steps or more content you should write.
• Content Editor – The Content Editor is where the real value of Surfer lies. You can write with search engine optimization in mind with the editor tool. You are in complete control of who you are competing against in the top search results, the terms you want to focus on, and the structure of your content. The tool scores your content on a 0-100 scale based on the algorithm of the content you are competing against.

With its automated optimization features, AI-driven data-driven insights, performance tracking capabilities, and competitive analysis tools, Surfer has everything to enhance your blogging efforts.

SurgeGraph

Cost: Plans start at $49/month

SurgeGraph is another blogging tool for content marketing and encourages bloggers to plan their content strategy to improve optimization. SurgeGraph, formerly LSIGraph, allows you to perform keyword research but offers a unique opportunity score that gives you a sense of whether a keyword is worth pursuing outside of the keyword difficulty score.

• Content Brief – Users can test the Content Brief feature to obtain specific information about their writing topic, which includes relevant keywords and phrases that writers can incorporate into their posts.
• Opportunity Score – The marquee keyword metric offered by SurgeGraph aids in identifying the top-performing keywords that anyone can utilize to achieve a high ranking on the top 10 SERPs.
• Intent Analysis – SurgeGraph helps bloggers understand the intention behind their content by analyzing its structure, writing style, and information.
• Frequently Linked – Which pages rank the most in terms of incoming links? Identify those pages and integrate certain sections of their content into your own, improving upon it.

SurgeGraph will soon have AI writing assistance added to the platform and, in doing so, will offer a complete tool for bloggers to use to plan, create, and optimize their posts. SurgeGraph is a valuable tool for bloggers wishing to write premium content rapidly. Its features help users streamline content creation while maintaining accuracy and consistency.

SEMrush

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

SEMrush is a SaaS platform that provides online visibility management tools for SEO, PPC, content marketing, social media marketing, and competitive research.

It’s used by over 10 million marketing professionals and Fortune 500 companies and is considered one of the best and most complete digital marketing tools.

With SEMrush, bloggers can simplify content creation, improve website performance, and enhance search engine rankings in one platform. “Rush,” as it is often called, can also connect to your social media accounts and offer blog promotion through social media sharing of your blog post content.

With SEMrush, bloggers should be leveraging:

• Keyword Research – Use the six tools in the Keyword Magic Tool to identify long-tail and short-tail keywords, get keyword ideas with related questions, and evaluate trends and competition. 
• Content Creation – The content marketing platform helps to create content ideas, optimize titles, generate topics and templates, and measure the effectiveness of campaigns.
• Link Building – Use link-building tools to track and analyze backlinks from competitors, develop an outreach plan, and find contact information for prospect websites.
• Market Research – With its suite of tools, bloggers can access information about market conditions and get up-to-date insights into their competition.
• Position Tracking – If you invest in the tool, it can track 500 keywords with the lowest-paid plan. Keywords are tracked daily and can be tracked mobile or desktop by location, and include local pack and featured snippet results.
• Site Audit – The site audits provided by SEMrush can allow a blogger to quickly see and fix issues to ensure site health and indexability. This is a critical feature anyone should take advantage of with any plan.

Creators can use SEMrush to streamline their content creation process and create better quality content faster. Using its keyword research tools, they can find relevant topics trending in their specialized niche and identify high-traffic keywords that will drive organic traffic to them.

Ahrefs

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

Ahrefs is one of the best SEO analytics tools used in marketing that assists creators in enhancing their blogging research process. Its features, including keyword research, backlink analysis, competitor analysis, and content gap analysis, can help maintain a better long-term content strategy.

• The Dashboard – Its dashboard has an overview of website data like SEO scores, organic traffic trends, and top-performing organic keywords.
• Keyword Explorer – With Ahref’s leading keyword research tool, bloggers can find new and relevant keywords to incorporate into their content. 
• Content Explorer – With this tool, bloggers can discover popular content on their topic and get ideas for new blog posts while gaining linking opportunities.
• Site Explorer – Site Explorer is one of the best blogging tools available. With this tool, you can evaluate the backlinks of any website, view top-performing content, look for content gaps between you and competitors, and find link-building opportunities.

With Ahrefs, content creators can identify gaps in their content strategy and use it to develop rich, high-quality content. With an Ahrefs subscription, there’s no guesswork to slow you down. Its features arguably make it better than Google Analytics for organic traffic evaluation and help optimize existing content for better ranking and visibility on SERPs.

Rank Math

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

Rank Math is a WordPress plugin and SEO tool that assists content creators in writing better-optimized content. Its built-in SEO tools can aid bloggers in optimizing their content for greater search engine visibility, higher rankings, and a broader audience.

• Easy Setup Wizard – Installing Rank Math is easy with its step-by-step wizard configuring SEO for WordPress. After installation, Rank Math verifies your site settings and suggests optimal performance.
• Content AI – Improve your quality and write confidently with Rank Math’s AI-generated suggestions—no need to struggle to find the right words or phrases. 
• Advanced Schema Tools – Rank Math makes adding structured data to your posts easy with its simple point-and-click interface. You can improve your click-through rate with various supported schema types and set a default category in the settings.

Rank Math offers other SEO tools in its Pro version for bloggers who want to maximize their online presence and reach more readers. Users have a complete range of features that can assist them with optimization for maximum visibility on search engines.

Why is Optimization Important for Your Blog?

Optimizing your blog for search engines is a necessary part of content marketing, as it helps you to get more views and clicks. SEO helps content creators to rank higher in the SERPs and increase their organic traffic.

Optimizing your blog is necessary to make your content accessible to the right people and seen and indexed by Google’s crawlers. It also helps to build trust with potential customers and create positive user experiences.

AI-Powered Writing Tools

With AI-powered writing tools, bloggers can create high-quality content faster than ever before. AI-powered tools optimize posts for SEO, avoid writer’s block, and write unique content quickly. 

Grammarly

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

Grammarly is a powerful AI-powered writing tool that checks spelling and grammar, suggests vocabulary enhancements, and provides real-time feedback on your writing. It also has a plagiarism-checking feature to keep your writing original.

Grammarly has a free version that brings confident writing to individuals and organizations alike. For anyone looking to speed up their writing process, Grammarly has helpful features like:

• Content Correctness – Grammarly can identify and correct typos, missing punctuation, and commonly confused words. 
• Tone Suggestions – Receive assistance in modifying the tone and perspective of your written content while retaining its original intent.
• Complete Rewrites – Using Grammarly can help bloggers improve the clarity of their writing, making it easier for their readers to understand.
• Style Guides – Grammarly can help you define your brand voice. With its style guide feature, bloggers can learn how to write in a voice that suits their brand and edit their content accordingly. Grammarly will adhere to your style guide when writing later content to edit and improve your work.

Grammarly provides customized recommendations for improving writing quality by suggesting better vocabulary and rephrasing sentences to enhance clarity. It helps bloggers save time by preventing them from publishing content that has grammatical errors or plagiarism.

Grammarly is one of the best free tools for editing because it’s compatible with various content creation tools, including WordPress and Google Docs, meaning it works on your chosen writing platform.

Scalenut

Cost: Plans start at $39/month with a 7-day trial

Scalenut is a platform that uses AI technology to assist with content marketing and SEO. Small businesses and individual marketers can create content more efficiently and save significant time while increasing organic traffic. 

• Cruise Mode – You can use Cruise Mode to generate SEO-friendly content or use AI-powered suggestions to write your content. You’ll receive guidance on using keywords to improve your ranking on SERPs.
• Topic Clusters – Using this AI-powered planning tool, you can develop a comprehensive content strategy with relevant topic ideas and targeted keywords in just minutes. Scalenut’s powerful AI tool can even handle automated topic-cluster keyword research. It analyzes crucial metrics such as search volume, relevance, and CPC to organize search terms into clusters for you.
• Optimize Existing Content – Easily improve your content’s ranking on search engines and attract relevant organic traffic to your website. Receive actionable insights and recommendations to increase your search engine visibility and website traffic.

Scalenut offers a host of competitive AI writing tools to help guide a blog through the ideation, creation, publication, and promotion phases. Using its WordPress plugin, you can connect and publish your content directly into your WordPress blog.

From content for your social media platforms to direct connection with your blogging platform, Scalenut is a leading tool in the AI revolution.

Copy.ai

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

Copy.ai is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to write marketing copy and content. It simplifies the writing process, making it easier to create high-quality content. There is a free tool to try that provides 2000 words per month.

AI content tools are gaining popularity since they save time and produce good content without starting from scratch. So whether you’re a professional copywriter, blogger, or content marketer, you can use these great tools now to improve your SEO.

• Infobase – This feature lets you easily save and reuse your content to quickly generate unique, engaging, personalized, and optimized copy. The idea is to store ideas in the Infobase for easy reference using hashtags. Then, when needed, the tool builds content about your subject from the data.
• Workflow Tools – Copy.ai offers workflow tools to create a project from scratch and ensure it’s on time. You can also use the tool to develop templated copy and content based on your use case from a cold sales email, outreach emails, and SEO content briefs.
• Templates – Create blog posts, landing pages, case studies, and video scripts in about five minutes.
• Freestyle Mode – Write content with the help of AI-powered prompts and suggestions, giving you better control over the end product.

Compelling copy is crucial for marketing your business. Generating fresh concepts or cohesively structuring your ideas can be challenging when you’re short on time or lacking inspiration. Copy.ai eliminates the uncertainties in writing by offering customized outlines and creative titles.

Collaboration Tools

Blogging can often be a solitary task with unique challenges, such as staying focused and motivated and finding the time to craft quality content. Luckily, there are collaboration tools available that can aid bloggers in working together on projects and creating better content quickly.

Infinity

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

There’s a long and comprehensive list of collaboration tools, but Infinity is a leading one. It’s a cloud-based solution that helps streamline group collaboration. It’s a great tool that provides an easy way to share, collect, organize, and plot your blog strategy and move beyond that to something even better.

• Project Management Templates – Use Infinity’s project management template to manage your projects seamlessly from initiation to closing. The template follows agile best practices and allows you to switch between different views, including Gantt charts and Kanban boards, to keep track of progress and meet deadlines.
• Customizable Attributes – Using Infinity’s attributes, you can easily create custom fields that capture data specific to your workflows. You can customize and save these settings for different projects, allowing your business to set up and adjust project settings quickly.
• Endless Structures – Infinity has endless organizational structures like Workspaces, Boards, Folders, and Tabs. Organization helps to keep your content accessible while also allowing you to collaborate with co-workers and clients on various projects.
• Automations – Use Infinity’s tools to create automations with a Zapier-like setup that lets you add reminders, recurring tasks, IFTTT rules, and more. These automations help streamline the workflow and make tracking tasks, deadlines, and progress easier.

With Infinity, you can easily combine all your blogging tools into a single platform, making it easy to use and manage your workflow. You can quickly ideate, collaborate, and optimize great content without switching between different apps and programs.

With its intuitive platform, you save time and write content that will attract readers and increase engagement with your blog. 

Google Docs

Cost: Free

Google Docs is a well-known program for content creators that allows them to make professional documents quickly. Google Docs has a user-friendly interface and collaborative features that enable multiple users to work on a post simultaneously in live mode.

The tool allows users to receive feedback from other writers and editors before publishing their posts. It also offers an automatic saving feature that prevents users from losing their work during unexpected computer crashes or power outages.

Some of Google Doc’s best features are:

• Sharing Options – Google Docs allows users to share documents with others just by sending a link. They can invite people to view, comment or make suggested edits, and the owner has complete control over who can access it.
• Live Editing – Live editing allows multiple users to edit documents simultaneously and see their changes in real time. Google’s word processor eliminates the need for version control when collaborating on a post, saving time.
• Built-in Templates – Google Docs offers a selection of pre-made templates that make it easy to set up documents for different projects. Bloggers don’t have to waste time formatting posts and can jump into writing.
• Relevant Add-ons – Due to the immense potential for collaboration in Google Docs, many companies have developed add-ons to enhance the user experience. Add-ons are perfect for grammar, spell-checking, formatting, and automated citations.

Using Google Docs is a great way to improve the speed and accuracy of content creation, save time, and keep your creative juices flowing. Many consider this tool to be better than Microsoft Word.

Trello

Cost: Free w/ paid plans

If you’re a writer, Trello can be a practical project management tool to help you stay organized. Trello’s exceptional characteristics, such as card organization, labeling system, and checklists, are perfect for creators who want to manage their projects and tasks.

• Automations – With Butler, bloggers can achieve no-code processes that allow you to assign labels, move cards, and add members — without manually doing it. Butler can help you save time and stay organized by automating mundane tasks.
• Board Templates – Organize your work with Trello’s variety of templates for editorial calendars, website maintenance tasks, blog post ideas, and more. 
• Power-Ups – These add-ons give bloggers advanced capabilities like Google Drive integration, screen capture, and calendar sync. 
• Integrations – Utilizing Trello’s integrations with time tracking apps, Scrum, Slack, Pabbly Connect, and more, you can automate processes and get the most out of your workflow.

Trello is among the best productivity tools today, so it’s ideal for startups and individual bloggers. With Trello’s versatile features, anyone can stay organized and enhance productivity. 

Why are Collaboration Tools Important for Your Blog?

Collaboration tools can significantly benefit blogging by providing a centralized platform for sharing and storing data, streamlining communication, and improving content creation.

With collaboration tools, multiple people can work on a project simultaneously, meaning teams can complete tasks much faster than before, even remotely.

• Sharing and Store Data – With collaboration tools, bloggers can easily share and store data such as blog post ideas, images, research material, and more. Collaboration tools simplify sharing files between team members, making it easier to keep track of progress.
• Streamline Communication – Brainstorming sessions are necessary for most projects, especially remote ones, and collaboration tools make it more efficient. Through group customizable task management features, bloggers can easily keep in contact with all project members.
• Content Creation – Writing and editing content quickly can be a daunting task. However, collaboration tools such as Slack make it painless to contact team members and promptly review and prioritize edits when needed.

In the competitive space of blogging, collaboration tools are a requirement for content creators looking to create high-quality content quickly without losing quality.

With the multitude of features and customizations, collaboration tools can significantly benefit those looking to improve their workflow.

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Bonus Tools: Where to Find Free Images for Your Blog

Most written content needs visuals to keep readers engaged and make your blog posts eye-catching. Additionally, you can use visuals to emphasize the value of your content and help you rank better in search engine optimization.

Having featured images helps in the design and creation process for new blog posts and provides additional relevance to the written content. For those who don’t want to create visual content, the following sites offer the best tools with tremendous value.

Pexels

Pexels is one of the best free image sites providing high-quality images. With an extensive library of photos and videos from a global community of creators, Pexels is the go-to source for bloggers needing visuals.

Pixabay

Pixabay is a community where authors, artists, and creators can share royalty-free images, videos, and audio. Although there are many similarities to Pexels, Pixabay offers vectors, video, music, and illustrations, making it an ideal platform for bloggers looking for more than photos.

FreeImages

FreeImages is a fantastic resource for bloggers who want to create better content faster. It offers a variety of free stock photos, vectors, clipart, PSD & icons that are ideal for any project. All content is public domain, so it can be downloaded and used without worrying about copyright issues, with a few caveats.

Unsplash

Unsplash is another excellent source for impressive visuals. With millions of high-resolution images from talented photographers, Unsplash is an excellent resource for creating content that looks professional and does it quickly. The site also makes it easy to curate visuals and add them to your blog and social media posts in seconds.

Blogging Tools Final Thoughts

Writing quality content is more important than ever in a competitive space such as blogging. To compete, you need content that resonates with your audience, but you also need to be able to generate this content rapidly and at scale.

Blogging tools come in many flavors and have multiple applications for their use. The best blogging tools can organize your ideas, build post outlines quickly, find relevant topics, assist in keyword research, and help establish a process.

We use these tools to craft our blog posts, as do many bloggers who have spent the time to build their entire process for blogging. From beginner bloggers to experienced bloggers, tools can help with the time it takes to produce content, but they won’t replace the human element.

Trust in your instincts when building your blog and using blogging tools to assist. An easy-to-use tool doesn’t replace your expertise, so use all tools as guides, but put in the work to make the blog post yours.