Whether you’re new to the blogging world or have been blogging for years, blog as a side-hustle, or full-time job, you know that you don’t always have time to be at your computer completing everything you need to do for your blog. From research and creating new content, promoting your blog posts on social media, and living your everyday life, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. So what do you do? I love doing blogging tasks on my phone when I can. Wondering what blogging tasks you can complete while on the move? Keep reading for 7 Must-Have Blogging Apps For Blogging On Your Phone
There are going to those times when you’ve been using your computer so long it needs to charge, or you just don’t feel like sitting in front of it anymore at the moment. It may be easier to complete some tasks in front of your computer, but you can always at the very least get started on your phone saving you time later.
Related: Introducing The Sitting Beauty Diaries
Before I get to the list, let me just say there are more than 7 Apps, but I said because some of these apps can be one or the other, you don’t have to have both blogging apps unless you want to.
7 Must-Have Blogging Apps For Blogging On Your Phone
WordPress App: If you use WordPress for your blog then you should definitely get this free app. The WordPress App enables you to write/publish posts, upload photos to the media library (which definitely comes in handy if you create graphics or your phone, more on that later), reply to comments on blog posts, and so much more. I understand if you may not want to type out an entire post on your phone, but if you have a daft written and are mostly copying it to WordPress or editing a post, this app is a huge help.
Google Docs: WordPress or whatever blogging platform you can malfunction and all the hard work you put into your latest post can disappear in the blink of an eye. It can be a paragraph of a post or the entire thing. It’s happened to me more than once and I learned to have a backup of my posts. One of my favorite ways to do this is Google docs. I love to use Google Docs because you don’t have to do anything to save your progress, it does so automatically. It’s easy to start working on a blog post on your computer and finish it on your phone if you wanted to, like I said writing a post on your phone could be a bit tedious.
Another aspect of Google Docs that I love is the Work offline feature, this allows you to edit the documents regardless of your internet connection, or so I’ve read. After I finish writing the post, it’s very easy to copy and paste it in sections to the WordPress App. There are many other note-taking apps out there, but this one is a true must-have for blogging apps, especially if you don’t want to worry about hitting save.
Evernote: I love Evernote and have been using it for a few years. Evernote is another note-taking platform that I use for blog ideas. This platform allows you to break things up into notebooks, stack the notebooks, and tag notes. It’s also very easy to share the notes in Work Chats, or through emails, contacts, or sending them a link. Evernote even has templates to help you format what you’re writing. Evernote also has offline features, but they are not available on the free plan. As much as I love the platform I do have some issues with it, but don’t dismiss it yet, because you may decide that these issues are not issues for you.
The first thing is, If you want to use Evernote on more than two devices, you must upgrade from the free plan. I did, in fact, do this for a time, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the cost especially not when compared to Google Docs. My other issue with Evernote is that it doesn’t save automatically. I have lost more than a paragraph or two when switching from device to device because I forgot to save. As I said, with Google doc, saving is done for you so all you have to worry about it getting the work done.
Canva: No blog or website is complete without images. Whether you’re using them to break up the text in your blog posts or in promotion graphics for social media, you need pictures. If taking images for your blog is not your strong suit, they have various websites where you can find suitable content for your website. Nevertheless, a picture or pictures is only part of the design especially when it comes to designing content for Pinterest, whether or not the algorithm currently prioritizes fresh content. You can use Canva to create new pins even using the templates and stock photos from the platform for some design inspiration. Canva is free but has a pro version with some great features, including additional stock photos. Although this app doesn’t work offline,
Facebook Pages: You should have a Facebook Page for your blog if you don’t already. A Facebook page gives you additional opportunities for people to find out about your blog and share the posts with their others. The app allows you to write or schedule posts for your page, view insights such as post reach & engagement and you can also set up ads for your page if you choose to. The only aspects of using the Facebook App that I would note is that you have more page insights available to you when using a computer and in order to see a preview of a post to the page, you should save it as a draft before publishing/scheduling it.
Planoly: Planoly is a free visual planner for Instagram with paid plan options if you choose to use them. You can plan your posts, view how that order would look in your feed, and schedule your Instagram posts to post to the platform automatically. This Instagram scheduling tool even allows you to create hashtag groups so that you can easily add all the relevant hashtags to your post with a simple copy and paste. Each hashtag group allows you to have 30 hashtags, which is also Instagram’s limit per post. Planoly also enables you to schedule multi-photo posts which definitely comes in handy, though they won’t auto post for you like single image posts. This is one of my favorite must-have blogging apps for blogging tasks. I love playing around with it.
Buffer: This platform is one of the many social media management platforms available. A Social media management platform helps you to plan your posts so you don’t have to spend all day on social media to promote your content. The free plan on Buffer allows you to connect accounts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. I love the dashboard especially on the phone, the only thing I really don’t like about this platform is that you can only have 10 posts scheduled at a time on the free version, I’m pretty sure that’s per social media network. For this reason, I haven’t used this platform in quite some time, mainly because this brand is active on Facebook & Instagram and I use Facebook Pages and Planoly respectively to manage the content.
Hootsuite: Hootsuite is another social media management platform and possibly the most popular one at that. This management platform allows you to manage 3 social media networks on the 3 free plan out of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram Youtube & Pinterest. The free plan allows you to have 30 posts scheduled, again I’m thinking it’s per social media platform but can’t be sure. I’m not a big fan of the mobile dashboard, but that’s more of a preference than anything else.
Bloglovin: This platform gives people the opportunity to read all of their favorite blogs in one place. You can search for the most popular blogs in a category or search for them by name. After that when follow a blog, their content shows up in your home feed. On the app, you can select which blogs you get push notifications for as well as select which push notifications you receive for your own blog. I love that you can read a blog post right in the app. As much as I love being able to read other blogs, I’m not sure how this app is going to help me as a blogger because many of the followers on the app seem to be bots and there isn’t much traffic to blog since people can read the blog post on the app.
So why would I say you should have this app?
Well, you can follow your favorite blogs, consume content and get inspiration for your own blog posts. Considering all that I’ve said about this app, you may be wondering why it’s one my list of must-have blogging apps and it’s because although some followers are fake, you can look to see what other bloggers some of your followers are paying attention to.
Must-Have WordPress Plugins For Your Blog
Although you may have your must-have blogging apps for blogging on the go, there are a few plugins you should know about. No blog is complete without great plugins to help your site run smoothly. There are definitely options that are: give or take depending on the your blog’s niche and several other factors, but here are a few WordPress plugins, that you’ll need regardless of your niche.
Yoast SEO: If you started your research on blogging then, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of this plugin. If not Yoast SEO is a plugin designed to write your blog post to rank higher in search engines. Yoast has a checklist of things for you to add such internal links, meaning other blog posts on your blog, external links, a focus keyword, and meta description to name a few. This plugin even makes it easy to add set up rich pins for Pinterest, which also helps with SEO.
Sumo Me: Sumo Me is one of my favorite plugins to have post sharing buttons on your website. You can choose from a variety of services which will be included in your sharing bar. This plugin also gives you various options as to where on the page the sharing buttons will be. You can choose, above, below the post, to the left as you can see on my posts or a few other options. There are many other capabilities with this plugin, so you explore it and figure out what works best for you and your blog.
Blogging can be fun, but running blogging is hard work and so much more goes into it than most people think. Growing your blog takes time, whether it’s a hobby or side-hustle that you want to turn into a full career. For that reason, completing some tasks while away from your computer or learning to, matters. While your blog and blogging journey are important, it shouldn’t take away all of your free time so using these blogging apps to help you accomplish your blogging tasks to save time helps you have time for other aspects of life like your family and friends.
~Kimberly
