Making money from your blog doesn't have to be costly. Here are 10 awesome and FREE blogging tools I can't live without!

Before we dive into the top 10 free tools that are essential to your blogging success, I would like to be as transparent and upfront as possible with you.

This post contains affiliate links. I make a commission should you make a purchase through my link. Don't worry, this does not incur additional costs to you.

Here is a list of contents to make it easier for you to navigate through this list. I have divided the blogging tools into three parts for you to skip to the tools that are relevant to you.

Part One: SEO, Graphic Design, Social Media

Part Two: Tech Support, Education

Part Three: Themes, Plugins, Productivity and Followers Booster

10 Free Blogging Tools I Can't Live Without (and why you need them too)

Part One: SEO, Graphic Design, Social Media

#1 Yoast- Seach Engine Optimisation

Yoast is a free plugin you can add into your WordPress blog today. It's the best SEO tool I use daily for my blog.

What is SEO?

SEO is short for search engine optimisation. It's basically how you get your content on the front page on Google.

To build a profitable blog, you'll need an audience. In order to do that, you blog titles and blog articles need good SEO. I also use the free online tool SEMrush to do my keyword research for my new blog posts. Since implementing SEO, my blog traffic has been increasing steadily.

#2 Canva- Graphic Design

Beautiful images are SUPER important when it comes to driving traffic to your blog. I use Canva for work to create beautiful images for my blog posts.

The easy to use platform on Canva, the huge amount of free photos that are available and the awesome templates this graphic design tool provides make me love Canva so very much.

While some successful bloggers outsource the graphic designing to their teams, newbie bloggers do not have the luxury to do that.

Canva is definitely my life saver!

#3 Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram- Social Media Marketing

When it comes to driving traffic to your blog and growing your blog's audience, social media is your best friend!

As an influencer, knowing how to utilise these social media platforms to your advantage is a win-win for yourself AND your readers.

As Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram are free resources, they are the perfect tool for bloggers and influencers to get noticed. If you want to pay extra to run ads, that is also another great way to drive traffic to you blog and increase your audience.

With Pinterest and Instagram, if you want to market your blog as a brand and grow your blog business, you should apply for a business account for both IMMEDIATELY.

#4 Tailwind- Pinterest and Instagram scheduler

The first time I heard about Tailwind is through a Teachers Pay Teachers influencer on YouTube called Kaysee Morris.

In her YouTube video, she excitedly talked about Tailwind and claimed that it was a game-changer when it comes successfully marketing her online TpT store.

So, I decided to give Tailwind a try to see what the fuss was all about. As soon as I started my free trial in March, I absolutely loved it. Because of Tailwind, I save more than 2 hours a day on Pinterest. It's freed up a lot of my time to focus on content creation for my blog!

Part Two: Tech Support, Education

#5 YouTube- Blogging tech support

Whenever I come across technical issues for my blog, Youtube is my best friend!

As a visual learner, I learn the best from videos. Reading blog posts to find solutions to technical issues can work too, but videos are quick and to the point.

If you're a visual learner like me, YouTube is a great resource. YouTube is also great for peer-to-peer learning. Anybody who solved an issue is helping their viewers as well as gaining exposure at the same time. It's a win-win for everybody!

#6 Podcast- Blogging education

One of my favourite tools for learning how to blog are podcasts . I LOVE podcasts as they are packed with relevant information.

The best thing about podcast is that they're free and easily accessible whenever I go.

The other great thing about podcasts is the fact that you will get a lot of free information in the show notes that you will not often get anywhere else.

Sometimes I learn about new tools or resources that would help me with my blogging during the ads within the podcasts. Podcasts are also a source of inspiration and motivation for me whenever I feel like giving up.

Part Three: Themes, Plugins,

Productivity and Followers Booster

#7 Creative Market- Themes, Graphic Design, Fonts

While shopping for a paid WordPress theme, I discovered Creative Market. After hearing great things about Creative Market, I instantly purchased a theme.

The reason why I love Creative Market is because they have a wide range of WordPress premium themes perfect for bloggers from various niche. Not to mention their weekly freebies giveaway when you subscribe to their newsletter.

What's wrong with using a free theme for your website? Well, if you use free resources, then the results you get are pretty much FREE too!

#8 Pretty Links- Affiliate marketing Nofollow plugin

Ever wondered how to make your links look presentable, clickable AND pretty?

Well, Pretty Links does just that for you.

Did you know that as a blogger, you are required to make your affiliate links Nofollow if you want to succeed with Google?

Nofollow tells search engines like Google to not follow a specific link. When you place a link on your website, the website that you are linking to gets a little bit of link juice, which helps improve its search engine optimisation.

The more links a website gets, the higher it will rank in search engines.

In short, Google does not want affiliate links to give link juice to companies, because that would mean paid links are influencing search engine results.

So, how can you start using Pretty Links today?

Just go to your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New. Search for Pretty Links and install it. After you have installed Pretty Links, you can tick the box “Nofollow” in the settings so that Google does not rank your affiliate links.

#9 Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sheets- Productivity

As a blogger, a little organisation goes a long way in improving your productivity. One of the free tools I have learnt to rely on is Google Calendar to map out my days.

As I still have a part-time job, I need to split my time between working on my blog AND my existing job. I have at least 6 hours before my evening shift, so every hour must count!

Google Calendar's notification feature is my absolute favourite!

You can get emails sent to your own inbox to remind you of your daily schedule. This keeps you accountable with your blogging as well as improve your productivity.

Google Docs is another blogging tool I can't live without.

From keeping track of my affiliate programs and networks to keeping tab of my spending, Google Docs enables me to lay out all the information I want to compile on one page. It's the best free administration tool out there to track spending, affiliate earnings and blog post analytics.

#10 Milotree- Traffic and Followers booster

I stumbled upon an amazing blog post yesterday on Pinterest that talked about a simple but effective plugin to increase traffic and followers for my blog.

Intrigued, I kept reading and signed up for a free trial with free trial with Milotree.

So what does Milotree do for you?

Have you ever visited a top blogger on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook and see a pop up window that says “Follow on Pinterest/Instagram/Facebook”?

That's what Milotree does for your social media accounts. You can configure all of your social media accounts to your blog, including the email you use to communicate with your subscribers.

To find out more about how this little plugin can boost your followers AND drive traffic to your blog, read this post.

Final thoughts

There are so many tools and resources out there that will help you succeed as a blogger. However, the 10 resources above are essential to setting you up for success as a newbie blogger.

Feel free to comment and let me know of any other free resources out there for beginner bloggers that should have made this list.