When I sit down and work on my blog I will use both my phone and laptop, sometimes at the same time, for keeping up to date with social media and for writing up a new blog post. I love using my mobile the most though as its useful as a tool for inspiration, note taking, editing photos, social sharing and commenting on other blogs. The laptop is only really used for the more complicated blog posts that are photo heavy and require a lot of editing.
I have been blogging for a while now and I have managed to fill an A4 piece of paper of all the best sites and apps to use to help me along the way. There are so many amazing sites out there to make life a little easier. Here are the main ones I use daily:
Social media
Iconsquare: This site allows you to follow your Instagram statistics such as how many people followed you, unfollowed, comments/likes received etc. Great for bloggers who like to keep up to date with their progress.
Ifttt.com - I have only just discovered this amazing site. I regularly post links to my newly posted instagram photos onto twitter but I find it annoying that there is no photo preview showing up on my twitter page. Ifttt.com is perfect because it will share your instagram photo and link together to twitter.
Onlypult- Onlypult will schedule your instagram photos to be posted onto your feed at a time of your choosing. Perfect if you feel like you will be too busy that day to post anything or would like to post while you are sleeping.
Buffer - This site allows you to schedule statuses and shared links to facebook and twitter for when you are just too busy in the day. It will also shorten the links down which can be very helpful.
Triberr- Triberr is great if you want to share posts from all your favourite bloggers and have them share yours as well.
Photo editing
Afterlight - If you like filters with a creamier tone, this app has some amazing filters to play around with. It also has a pretty good toolbar for cropping, frames, sizing and other adjustments.
Flickr - Flickr has always been a favourite of mine but I don't use it as much as I should do. If you are on blogger like me, then I fully recommend uploading your photos from here rather than through blogger itself as the photos will appear a more clearer. It is also a great tool to store your photos if your memory card is getting a little full.
BeFunky- Allows you to add filters, adjust brightness, crop re size and add fun stickers/frames. This site has everything you could possibly need to make your photos stand out on your blog.
Instafullsize - If your photo that you are trying to upload to Instagram just doesn't fit into that square or the square cuts out some important features then this app is for you. Insta full size allows you to post full size photos to Instagram and makes your feed look beautiful with the white boarders.
Writing
Grammarly.com- This is another new discovery for me and one that I will definitely start using. It is a site that highlights any spelling, punctuation or grammar errors in your blog post. It is much better than spellchecker and such a useful tool to have.
Portent Title Maker- Enter a subject into the portent tool, and you'll get a sample blogpost title, complete with helpful breakdowns of why the title might make for a good read.
Blog topics generator- This is similar to Portent but with this you can simply write three keywords and the site will give you a five titles to work with.
Evernote- This is great for collecting ideas. You can drop everything into Evernote- notes, snippets, photos, web pages and more. I prefer to this rather than keeping a paper note book, its so much easier.
Focus booster - Do you get distracted easily when writing up a blog post? Focus booster is super handy if you have a short attention span. You can stop yourself from Internet shopping, refreshing your social media accounts, watching cat videos on you-tube and reading up on the latest celebrity gossip. The time limits can be up to 25 minutes so you can really focus on getting the more important tasks completed.
There are so many more useful tools out there but these are some of the sites that I have personally used for blogging. Are there any that I have missed out that I need to know about? Let me know in the comments.
Gem