6 Free Essential Tools You Need for Your Blog

Here are 6 Free essential tools that you need for your blog right away. If you have a new blog these free tools are a must have to get started the right way.

Use these 6 Free Essential Tools for Your Blog and you’ll be blogging like a pro in no time. For all practical purposes when I use the word blog in a sentence on this website I will be referring to the greatest blog platform of all time. That’s WordPress.

The 6 Free Essential Tools You Need for Your Blog

1) Akismet

Akismet which I discuss in further detail here, is an almost perfect SPAM fighting tool for your blog. One of the challenges that you will face on your way to blogging stardom will be how to stop all that comment SPAM. The Akismet plugin is the answer.

Just install Akismet and activate with your API key and you are good to go. Akismet will take care of the SPAM so that you can focus on blogging. Cool. Moving on.



2) WPtouch

If you want to give your readers a pleasant and easy reading experience when visiting your blog from their mobile device then you need the WPtouch plugin.

WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects when viewed from the most popular mobile web browsing devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, Android mobile devices, Palm Pre/Pixi and BlackBerry OS6 mobile devices.



3) WordPress SEO

I just can’t say enough about the WordPress SEO plugin from Yoast. Holy s#?t does this plugin work! Yes it’s that good. This plugin forced me to write good SEO optimized content by analyzing several different SEO criteria as I write. Superb!

In addition to that it also comes with a killer XML sitemap generator and a host of other delicious SEO configurable goodies. It has really helped to get my content indexed and ranked on this fresh blog. Check out WordPress SEO right now.



4) Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

here is yet another essential tool that you need for your blog. The Yet Another Related Posts Plugin or YARPP as the cool kids call it. In a nutshell this plugin will help keep your readers engaged and on your blog longer by displaying a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry and introduce the reader to other relevant content on your site. Done. You can read more about YARPP features in a post I wrote here.



5) Twitter Facebook Social Share

You need this plugin. This plugin is the most efficient way to integrate the important social share buttons like Twitter, Facebook like, Google +1 (plus one) and Stumbleupon and LinkedIn in three different position and styles. The more readers share your posts the more traffic you get. Period. You can download this essential tool here. Just look to the left of this post to see in action.



6) Google Analytics

It’s the mother of all traffic Analytics apps. Number 6 on the list of 6 Free Essential Tools You Need for Your Blog is Google Analytics. You need this essential tool right now.

Google sums it up best so in their own words,“Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you’re more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.”

I can’t even begin to describe all the features and benefits of using Google Analytics. With that said, go here and sign up for an account. You will need to verify your domain and add a small piece of tracking code to your blogs theme to get things rolling. Then go explore the vast wealth of information that Google Analytics can provide to you about your visitors and traffic.

Conclusion

There are so many great free tools that are available to help you become a successful blogger. This is a only a small list of 6 Free Essential Tools You Need for Your Blog, however with these 6 essential tools in place you will be on your way to building a great blog.