There’s not much I love more than a cinnamon roll, but great blogging apps definitely hit that list! We spent Christmas break visiting with our family and enjoying our annual tradition of eating cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Also over break I had an awesome jam session with my brother and sister-in-law who are both wonderfully into all things blogging. I’m always surprised at how many new ideas and helpful sites are out there.
Since it’s a new year, I thought I’d share a list of my 10 favorite blogging apps and tools. A few of these I’ve been using over the past year, and a few that are new to me. None of them have paid me for this promotion, I just really use and love them all and think they’ll help you to be a better blogger, business owner, social media sharer etc in 2015.
1. Canva
Graphic art for everyone! That’s the idea behind this awesome site. The site is filled with pre-loaded templates for social media, blogging, business card creation and even greeting card design. Just pick a layout, enter your text and be amazed.
2. Steller
Have you guys heard of Steller yet? I don’t tend to be an early adapter to much; I was years late to the Instagram party. But Steller is an app I’ve jumped head first into and I love it. I swear it is going to be the next big thing and even if not, I so enjoy it. The fabulous thing about the app is that you can create albums instead of just photos. So often I actually have 5 photos I want to share, but the feed only allows for one. In Steller I can create an album, mixing video, photos and text. A mini magazine for everything. I’m thoroughly obsessed.
3. Hello Sign
A blogging app I use daily. Hello Sign is the best site for signing contracts, W9 forms and all the other goodies… from my phone, from the beach, from anywhere.
4. Brusheezy
Backgrounds, brushes and fun ways to play with photos. This site is like a blogging app scrapbook store of embellishments for blogs. I used it for our Thanksgiving pie roundup and have a couple other fun projects in mind. It’s a great resource for giving a fun edge to photos, classroom newsletters and office reports.
5. Expensify
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get better at separating my work and life budgets. This nifty blogging app will make it so easy! Take photos of your receipts, track miles driven and time worked all in one place. Plus it will send a nice little report to whoever keeps your books.
Especially for small businesses, this can be a great way to expense out those necessary pieces in a completely legit way. I always say if you start the right way you won’t find yourself sitting in a massive pile of receipts weeping and eating a cinnamon roll at tax time.
6. Longtailpro
I have never invested much in SEO for this site, but over the past year I have learned a ton! My brother and sister in law are really good at it and suggested this service to me. It is one that you do have to pay for but, if you are serious about increasing your online presence, it is well worth the investment. I’ve been using it latley and it is pretty awesome.
7. Portent
This is my new favorite tool! I almost don’t want to share it, but I will. Because I love you that much. Ever get stuck staring at a post title? Having great content and feeling super bored with titling it. Just put in the topic here and you’ll have an awesome post title in seconds. I even used it for this post, just to make a point.
8. Trello
This is the year of big projects for A Subtle Revelry. We have a lot happening behind the scenes and I’m so glad I learned about Trello. It’s a list system on steroids, with check marks that I can check! Check marks make me very happy:). It is allowing me to keep everything in one spot as I change hats and projects throughout the day.
9. E.ggTimer
A genius way to keep on task. Say I’m going to pop over to Pinterest for 5 minutes… then all of a sudden the work day is over. What the frick happened!?! Instead of getting lost for time, I’ve started setting the egg timer and it sends over a catchy little update when my time is up to keep me focused and moving forward.
I must sound like a doof, but I honestly didn’t know this tool existed before Christmas break. If you own a blog, or online business jump on there right now – it’s like a handy little report card right from google.
What about you? Do you have any favorite tips and tools use use for blogging, business owning, or general life organizing?
Happy Blogging this year! xoxo
Oh my goodness, BLESS YOUR HEART! Canva is EXACTLY the thing I never knew I needed!
I used to use Trello, but then I switched to Teux Deux because I prefer the clean layout. Expensify sounds great, I’ll give that a try!
These apps sound amazing! Eggtimer sounds like the thing I need right now!
These are great, thank you! I don’t have any brilliant blogging resources to share, but I did start using Rescue Time and I think it’s very interesting! It shows you where you spend most time online, which means that you can see what you can skip to gain some more time for more important tasks.
Elisa, that sounds amazing and also scary to find out:)
Thanks for the tips!
I’m falling in love with Trello too! I wasn’t loving it- but now I’ve figured out how to have it send me notifications (duh) and it’s awesome again!
Great apps. Definitely must try them. I use color note to write down all my odeas all the time. That way I won’t forget a brilliant idea whilst shopping or whatever:)
Wow Thank you, since im new on blogging
this gonna be helpful ^_^
Awesome list! Thanks for the tips and links!
I am super glad I found this post, I just started my blog and this is exactly what I needed.