This year my blog turns 10 years old. That's a tremendous milestone if you ask me! Usually, bloggers share a blog post summarizing their achievements or talk about their blogging experience. That is a splendid way to somehow 'celebrate' this achievement. So, when I started writing this blog post, I thought of the same or similar topic. However, I immediately scrapped it and decided to make it more useful for all of you who are still trying to find your way around the blogging jungle. 

Having just the right tools can make all of the difference for bloggers. From organizing your ideas and inspirations to designing eye-catching graphics, there are plenty of tools that will streamline your workflow and improve your blog. In this post, we'll explore some of the most useful free online tools for bloggers that will save you time and improve the quality of your blog.

When it comes to writing, blogging, email composing, and anything else somehow connected with typing on your keyboard in English, the first online tool that comes to mind is Grammarly. I can't imagine writing a blog post without checking that little circle in the bottom right corner of my work field. Grammarly checks your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Plus, it comes in handy when you look for a suitable synonym. 

Of course, you can purchase a premium or business subscription to further polish your content, but a free Grammarly plan is a good start. It offers basic writing suggestions, helps to determine the tone of your writing, and fixes punctuation. This free tool is essential for every non-native English speaker who plans to start or already has a blog.

The next free tool I like to mention today is the Headline Studio. It is an insanely helpful online tool that will help you optimize headlines for SEO. Headline Studio will analyze the title of your post, giving it a respective score depending on different factors: character count, word choice, clarity, and more. You'll make your headline more catchy and clickable by optimizing your headline for SEO and readers.

The Headline Studio also has a premium subscription, which you can acquire monthly or annually. Premium suggestions will allow you to pick just the right amount of emotional words, helping you with word balance and granting you access to the headline history.

Words to Use is another free tool essential for bloggers and writers. It is an extensive library with words and phrases, helpfully organized by thematics and subjects. Currently, there're around 16 groups with different descriptive words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc...), which will help you creatively describe your experiences in a written form. For instance, I always like to survey the sections when I write reviews on makeup and skincare products. It is always nice to use a little help on the side to better express your emotions in a blog post.

Writing help is always welcomed by professional writers and bloggers, and what about the pictures? Collages, illustrations, selfies, and product photography comes with writing articles and blog posts like toasts with marmalade! If you need an easy-to-work-with design tool that can elevate your pictures drastically. Canvas' add text to photos feature will add a description to your snapshots, while other tools will help you to create appealing visual content for your social media and website. And the best thing about it – no designing experience is required. You can create presentations, infographics, and even videos from the comfort of your bed!

Creating valuable content that will engage and help readers is the biggest priority for every blogger. However, the quality of content goes beyond this. An article must be formatted accordingly for the best reading experience. I mean the good old paragraphs, subtitles, bullet points, and even case conversion. Especially about the case conversion, as anyone seems to talk about this particular way of title formatting.

Want your headline to look like the title of the New York Times article? That is not a problem! The NYTimes Style tool will capitalize it according to their rules! It is the style I use for all of my headlines and sub-headings. 

Noone like plagiarism. Neither your high-school teacher nor Google crawlers. With some phrases and sentences becoming cliches, writing a 100% original article for your website or blog can be challenging. But, no fret. There are a bunch of free online tools that will help you identify plagiarism in your piece. 

I like using Plagiarism Checker by SmallSeoTools as it quickly and effectively checks up to 1000 characters posts at a time. If you are a far more productive writer and aim at a higher amount, you can always upgrade your free plan and go Pro. However, you can always come back for another plag-checking session.

Let's summarize this compilation. I know that beginning a brand new blog is hard, especially if you've never had any similar experience beforehand. It is challenging even with all the fancy online helpers at your disposal. Nobody can predict the speed and direction of all underwater currents a single search engine may have. Thankfully, sometimes all bloggers need is a free, user-friendly tool. And here they are, all in love place, gathered to assist you anytime you need. Happy blogging!

Lots of love,

Liz