Home Icon LS Blogging Tips Icon LS Family Icon LS Photography Icon LS Social Media Icon LS Consumer Info. Icon LS Strabismus Icon LS Freebies Icon LS Link Ups Icon LS Advertise Icon LS

July 18, 2013

Blog tools you should definitely consider

I know in blogging, taking programs, applications, widgets, etc. for granted is easy to do.  I know with me, my main focus is getting the task at hand completed.  Whether it be wrapping up a post, running an analytical report, rolling out a blog hop, setting up ad spots, creating a giveaway, updating my blog design, etc., the most important thing is to get it done in a timely fashion ‘cause, let’s face it, there’s always more to do!  Today, I’d like to take a step back, take a breather, and remember the tools I currently use that help me tremendously with the various aspects of blogging.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that these tools are what makes it all come together; what makes me be able to present to you Cropped Stories!

Just when I think I don’t have a topic to blog about, it hits me like a ton of bricks.  Just because I know of the existence of these blogging tools doesn’t mean everyone does.  And why shouldn’t you know about them?  If it’s going to make your life easier, than I’m going to share them with you!

BLOG TOOLS TO CONSIDER

Blog Tools to Consider

DOCUMENT STORAGE:

Google Drive: sync files to your computer and share them
Dropbox: Share your documents, photos, videos, (pretty much anything)

CREATING:

1. Forms
Wufoo: “The Online Form Builder”
Google Drive: Just go to Create/Form and choose from a variety of templates
widgetbox (Form Pro): “Easily create and share a customizable form widget”
MailChimp: “design and send email marketing campaigns”.  Great for creating newsletters!

2. Link ups
inlinkz: “easily create and manage link-ups”

3. Giveaways
Rafflecopter: “the worlds easiest way to run a giveaway”
promosimple: “Creating a new giveaway is just a matter of a few simple steps”

4. Polls/Surveys
Polldaddy: Online survey software
SurveyMonkey: Create a survey and share via a link or display it in a pop up window
Poll Code: “Create and customize your own poll”
widgetbox (Poll Creator Pro): Create a poll widget

5. Ad Spots
Passionfruit: “The easiest way to sell your own ads”

6. Fun Stuff
Hello Bar: “Direct Your Visitors and promote your website’s most important content”

CONTENT SHARING:

AddThis: Create code for share buttons like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. to display on your website
widgetbox (BLOG/FEED): Create a customized blog feed widget

CAMPAIGNS:
Looking for giveaways or a product to review, look no further.

Sverve: “Monetize your influencers by promoting the brands you like”
SocialSpark: “connects Advertisers and Publishers to create sponsored blog posts”

ANALYTICS:

Pingdom: Website performance monitoring. See how quickly your website loads.
Feedjit: A live traffic feed
Backlink Watch: Track your number of backlinks

CLIP ART/PHOTOS/DIGITAL TEMPLATES:

Photobucket: Upload/download, edit, and share photos and graphics
Flickr: Upload photos, organize, and share via links or with html code
The Coffeeshop Blog: A great resource for anything digital like photo templates, frames, clip art, graphics, textures, photo actions, and more
My Freebies Page: Another great resource for photo templates, frames, borders, printables, and more

Did I cover everything?  Not even close, but it’s a good start!  Hope you find this post helpful and if you know of additional blog tools that weren’t included on my list, feel free to drop me a comment and fill me in!

If you missed my previous post, A sponsor spotlight and the dog days of Summer giveaway, I hope you’ll check it out!  There is still time to enter into the giveaway for a chance to win some exciting things!  You can also head over to Her & Nicole for a chance to win a $30 Barnes & Noble gift card that I’m giving away! 

My featured sponsors:

 

30 comments :

  1. As usual, this is awesome!! I'm already going through and checking out what I'm not using already. I've never done any giveaways yet so I want to get more familiar with Raffle Copter for sure. Thanks for sharing!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is seriously a great list and pinning to refer back, too. You really nailed all the great tools out there right now for bloggers and thank you for sharing that here!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great resource Elena ... definitely pinning this for my blog section!
    A lot of these tools are SO helpful as I use several of them.
    I really need to look into Dropbox more for my photo storage though. I have SO many pictures and I think it would free up a lot of space on my laptop.

    ¤´¨)
    ¸.•*´
    (¸¤ Lanaya | xoxo
    Raising-Reagan.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow so much information here. Definitely some things I am going to look into. Thanks for sharing it all with us!
    Hope your enjoying your vacation.

    Pia
    pjmscloset.blogspot.ca

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a great list of blogging tools! I haven't heard of many of these so I'll check them out.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for this great list! I use Google Analytics, though.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Elena. First of all, I love your new look, and your beautiful banner! This post has a lot of great info, thanks for sharing!

    Hugs,
    Heather
    My-Sweet-Mission.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. As a newb, this post is tremendously helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to put it together!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Passion fruit ads are indeed my favourite. The guys made it TOO easy to arrange the bloggy stuff!

    Areeba Aree With Umbrella

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for sharing this! I admit I didn't not know about half (maybe more) of these! :)
    XO,
    Stephanie
    www.neverthesamespicetwice.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm learning inlinkz and rafflecopter for some upcoming posts. I love them! I just heard about sverve this week, actually. So much to do and explore. I love this world of blogging tools.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks you for sharing. This is very helpful ! I am going to try some of the tools out. Lovely blog!

    www.muslimahluvsmakeup.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is an awesome list! Thanks so much for putting it together and sharing it on #LOBS!

    ReplyDelete
  14. What great info!! I can't wait to check everything out. I'm looking forward to more posts like this and being your newest follower :)

    Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Holy cow!! I even found a few new ones!! Thanks for sharing with us at LOBS!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I use a bunch of the ones on your list :) It's nice that you compiled everything together into a post!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks for sharing. I have never heard of Hello Bar so I am headed over to check it out now.

    http://naturalbeautism.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  18. I am trying to find a way to highlight my content in a fun, easy to use table of contents. Any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  19. great post my friend, please tell me you shared this at my hop ( you can still add it today) xo

    ReplyDelete
  20. These are awesome suggestions! Thanks for sharing at LOBS!

    ReplyDelete
  21. So many helpful tools in this post! Thanks for tying it all together and putting a bow on it. I can't wait to explore some of these.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Found this from the Pin It party and I pinned it on my board! I love this! I can definitely get some useful information to use from here!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Great list! There are a few in here I wasn't aware of! Thanks so much for sharing it with us at LOBS!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Fabulous post my friend! Fun to find you over at Pin It Tuesday! XO ellie

    ReplyDelete
  25. p.s. Pinned to my ULTIMATE Blogger's Toolkit board! http://pinterest.com/creativegeekery/the-ultimate-bloggers-toolkit/

    ReplyDelete
  26. Wow such great resources! Thanks a bunch for putting it all together and I'm looking forward to checking all of them out.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Thanks for the amazing resource list! Can't wait to try out some of these!

    ReplyDelete
  28. This post was one of my top three picks from the Pin It Party last week. You have been pinned to the party board. Thanks so much for sharing this with all our readers and participating in the party! Can't wait to see what you bring to the party this week!

    Jessie @ www.thenilaughed.com

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...