Everybody loves free and while there are always things you give up when you go for free tools there are some pretty good tools out there to make your life as a business blogger a little easier.
These are the free tools I’ve used and still use today for my personal blogs and for the blogs of clients.
1. WordPress
WordPress is the most popular blogging software. There are tons of plugins and themes to get you started. WordPress is free and you can even get a theme for free. When most of our clients here at GBW ask about setting up a blog I always point them to WordPress.
2. Google Analytics
It’s good to keep an eye on the analytics of your overall site and your blog. For blogging, analytics helps you understand where your traffic is coming from. You can also see what posts are most popular with your target audience allowing you to create more refined content to bring in even more traffic, leads and sales.
Google Analytics is free and easy to use. It’s been getting more robust. While it’s free Google does keep tabs on all the activity happening on your site. It’s also really simply to setup.
3. MailChimp
One of the first things you should do with your business blog is setup a blog broadcast. You want to get subscribers so you can eventually market to them and make money from your blogging efforts.
MailChimp is popular, easy to use and free up to 2,000 subscribers. I pay a little each month for Aweber, but I’ve heard good things about MailChimp.
4. Flickr Creative Commons
It’s good to use photos on your blogs. People seem to appreciate a visual element. I use Flickr Creative Commons quite often for a lot of photos on blogs. The photographers make their photos available for free as long as you give proper attribution on the post. The photo on this post and the credit show you how easy that is to do.
5. SEO Title Tag WordPress Plugin
I use the SEO Title Tag plugin on this blog and a few others. Basically you can change the title that appears in Google results from the title in your WordPress blog post. The advantage is you can make something catchy for your regular title like “Are You Leaving Home Without This?” into something more suitable for search results like “Why You Should Never Leave Home Without Your Insurance Card”.
The plugin hasn’t been updated in over two years, but it still works. You can also get the same functionality from other plugins that relate to SEO.
Image Credit: zzpza