10 Productivity Tools for Bloggers

Any quick search of Google, Bing or Yahoo will quickly throw up dozens, if not hundreds, of productivity tools for bloggers (and website owners in general). Sifting through them can be quite troublesome and the sheer number of tools makes it overwhelming to make a decision on which ones to use and makes it impossible to test them all (while still blogging). In this article we will list 10 top productivity tools for bloggers.



1. LastPass
LastPass allows users to manage username and password combinations for all their sites. With most browsers, users can save their usernames and passwords, so they automatically log in when accessing a particular website, but is it secure? And what if you have multiple user IDs for a single website? Furthermore, sometimes these sites drop the automatic login and made you do it again. With LastPass you store each and every username-password combination on the secure site and use it to access your favourite sites. The application is downloadable to all computers and encrypts your data to protect your passwords from hackers.


2. Let’s Crate


Let’s Crate builds upon ideas such as Dropbox and SugarSync. With those sites, in order to share information, people need to sign in and to create a profile. This can be tiresome if, as someone wanting to share information quickly, you have to wait for people to create profiles or have to encourage them to do so. Let’s Crate evades this problem by not requiring anyone to make a profile, not even the person doing the sharing. Simply put the document into the box on the landing page and Let’s Crate will create a link you can share, embed in a blog post or send through email. There is an option for you to create an account to store information if you so wish, but the service works just as fine without an account.


3. Text Expander


As anyone who writes a lot or types a lot knows, fingers get tired. One major drag on writing is having to type the same text over and over again. For example, imagine running an insurance news site. You may have some terms and conditions you repeat often. Sure, it can be copy and pasted into place leting your customers know the conditions your cheapest home insurance is offered with, but why not have some shortcuts, which drop a chunk of text exactly where you want it? This protects you from some of the risk making a mistake with your insurance terms and conditions would have as well as making your life easier. This is the role of Text Expander. The tool allows you to create a snippet, which is coded, so that when you type it into an email, document or blog post, Text Expander automatically dumps the rest of the snippet in for you.

4. SimpleNote / Evernote

 These two sites perform the same duties, so it is better to use one or the other. Their job is not necessarily to remind yourself to do something, but perform the same function as writing in the margins of a book or bending the corner of a magazine page back, so you can find it again. They differ from bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon by allowing you to make notes on a site and then organize those notes. SimpleNote also includes a tagging system, which aids archiving.

5. Blog Desk

How many of us have more than one blog? How many of those are on different blogging platforms? Blogdesk does what it says on the tin. It is a multipurpose blogging platform, which allows you to build professional and/or personal blog posts then using a one-click system, gives you the option of posting the entry on any or all of the blogging platforms you have linked to the service. This includes images, dictionaries and tag generators.

6. Skitch

 Skitch is a combination of Evernote/SimpleNote and Windows’ Snipping Tool. Basically it is a tool for taking screenshots and then annotating them. It also has a social function allowing users to share those screenshots. It has recently been bought by Evernote, so expect it to tie in more in future.

7. Linkdip

This is a nice and relatively new site, aimed at aiding link building. As many blog and website creators know, there are good links and bad links. Linkdip has decided to turn linking into a form of social networking. Users gain points by liking or adding a +1, mentioning or tweeting links. Once points have been accrued the user can then ask other people to like, +1 or tweet their own links.

8. Rapportive

 This modern world is hyperlinked and ever changing. We are constantly interacting with new people and sometimes it can be a struggle to remember who is who, what your relationship is to them business or social wise and their history. Rapportive solves this problem for Gmail users. The Chrome extension provides you with data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other sources (providing your correspondent is on those sites of course) to help you when writing an email to them.

9. Remember the Milk

There are a rash of memory aiding websites out there like Coolender, which turns your ‘do not forget’ notes into an actual calendar and Do It Tomorrow, which creates a virtual diary, which easily allows users to move tasks from one day to the next. Remember the Milk is a website, which performs the same function. Users are free to sign up and use the site to manage tasks, increase workflow, access a phone or google calendar, and to receive SMS or IM reminders for priority tasks.

10. Oh Life

 Oh Life builds on the daily idea of the workflow applications and sites mentioned above. The purpose of this aid is to help you organize your thoughts more. Oh Life’s idea is simple. At the end of the day the service will send you an email. It will ask a single question: “how did your day go?” When replying to the message, you mention what you did, what you need to do the next day and so on, which is all then turned into an online journal. The next day you can access the journal to remind you of what needs doing.


Feel free to share any Tool/App that you have been using and has improved your Blogging process as a whole in the comments below

Author Bio


This is a Guest Post by Imogen Reed who is an active freelance writer and President of the Moon Appreciation Society. You can find her on Google+.