The Tools That Will Save You Hours Every Week as a Blogger

You cannot throw money at blogging until you know what you’re doing.

Bar hosting and a domain name you don’t need to spend money until you make money.

Not courses, not gear, not software.

The lesson I eventually learned — slowly, as is my way — is that the tools don’t do the work.

Here’s what’s actually in my toolkit, and why.

The non-negotiable rule before we start: don’t buy anything yet

If you’re a new blogger reading this looking for permission to invest in your blog, here it is — but the investment is time, not money.

Every tool I’m about to recommend has a free tier that is more than enough to get started. The paid upgrades exist and some are worth it eventually, but none of them are necessary in year one. Anyone telling you that you need a premium SEO suite, a professional photo editing package, or an expensive scheduling tool before you’ve published your first thirty articles is either trying to sell you something or has forgotten what it’s actually like to start from scratch.

Start free. Upgrade when you have a specific problem that the free tier can’t solve.

Writing tools: just write

Just write directly in WordPress. Or Google docs and copy and paste in (this is handy if you might be looking to reformat articles into YouTube scripts.

Image and graphics tools: Canva

I know designers hate it, but I just need something easy that works.

Canva is a browser-based design tool that requires no design experience. You can use it to create featured images for your blog posts, Pinterest pins, opt-in graphics, and anything else visual your blog needs. The templates are good, the interface is intuitive, and the free tier is — for most bloggers — completely sufficient.

I use Canva Pro, which is the paid version. I purchased it purely for convenience – you do NOT need it. I like that it has a tonne of stock images and you can remove backgrounds. Both those tools can be found elsewhere on the internet but for £10.99 per month it’s just way easier. And when you’re looking for templates it’s nice to be able to choose the premium options.

Where Canva saves the most time for me specifically: featured images. I have a template for each step of this site. When I need a new featured image, I duplicate the template, update the text, and I’m done in about three minutes. That’s the kind of time-saving that actually compounds — not dramatic, just reliably fast every single time.

More on how to use Canva to make your blog look professional without hiring a designer in How to Make Your Blog Look Professional.

SEO tools: free is enough

You do not need a paid SEO tool to run a successful blog. I know that’s not what the SEO tool companies want you to believe, but it’s true.

I have never paid for a SEO tool (I have used the free trials though, and let me tell you, they will NEVER stop emailing you).

Here’s what I actually use:

RankMath (free): A WordPress plugin that handles your SEO settings — meta descriptions, title tags, schema markup, XML sitemap. The free version does everything a new blogger needs. I like the link tool thing. I ignore the SEO suggestions.

Google Search Console (free): The single most important traffic tool you have, and it costs nothing. Once your site is verified (RankMath makes this straightforward, but Hostinger made it even easier), Search Console shows you which keywords are bringing visitors, which pages are getting impressions, and where you’re ranking. In the early months there won’t be much to look at — which is exactly why you should set it up now and check it quarterly rather than daily.

Ubersuggest (free tier): Three keyword searches per day on the free tier, which is enough for most bloggers in the research phase. Check monthly search volume and keyword difficulty before writing any post.

Google itself (free): Autocomplete, People Also Ask, and related searches at the bottom of the results page are free keyword research tools that most bloggers underuse. More on this in Free Keyword Research Tools for Bloggers.

Pinterest: use it like Google. Put in your main keyword and see what autocompletes. Search a term and look at the related terms along the top.

AnswerThePublic (free tier): Shows you the questions people ask around any keyword. Useful for finding H2 ideas and FAQ content. The free tier has a daily search limit but that’s rarely a problem.

Email list tools: Kit (free tier to start)

Building an email list from day one is one of the few things I’d do differently if I started Planet Houseplant again. I didn’t start collecting emails until the site was already getting significant traffic, which meant I lost a lot of people I’ll never get back.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) has a free tier that lets you collect subscribers and send broadcasts until you hit a certain list size. That’s more than enough to get started. Set up a simple opt-in form, connect it to a lead magnet if you have one, and let it run quietly in the background while you focus on content.

You don’t need to do anything elaborate with your email list in the first six months. The goal is just to have the infrastructure in place so that when the traffic does arrive, you’re capturing it. More on this in How to Start an Email List.

Planning and organisation tools: Notion

I use Notion to run this site, by which I mean it holds my content plan.

The free tier is extremely generous and almost certainly all you need. A simple content database with your article titles, keywords, and status tracking is enough to keep you organised without losing track of what’s in progress. I don’t know what the paid tier does. I’ll let you know if I ever take the plunge.

The specific workflow that saves me the most time: I capture ideas, notes, and half-formed thoughts directly in Notion on my phone whenever they occur to me — on the sofa, immediately after a shower, whenever. When I sit down to write, those notes are already there. The thinking has been done in small increments over time. The writing session is just the assembly.

If Notion feels like too much of a learning curve to start, a spreadsheet does the same job. The point is having somewhere to track what you’re writing, what stage it’s at, and what you’re writing next. Anything that does that works.

I avoided Notion for years because it was too confusing. I avoided AI because I hate AI slop. Turns out I can use Claude to make my Notion dashboard.

AI tools: Claude

I use Claude, and it saves me a meaningful amount of time every week.

If I was making robot assistants, they would be dusting my house and cooking my meals. Alas, I’m not. Instead, I use it for doing stuff I either don’t do, can’t do, or hate doing.

What I don’t use it for: writing my articles. The voice on this site is mine, and AI-generated prose sounds like AI-generated prose. Anyone who’s read enough of it knows the difference. I also don’t use it for images, because I hate Ai generated pictures and whilst Claude and Canva can be connected, you get very, very, strange and frustrating results if you don’t tell it exactly what to do. It’s quicker for me to just do it myself.

What I do use it for:

• Notion. It’s so overwhelming so I just told Claude to export my spreadsheet into Notion.
• Getting started each session: get Claude to reference your spreadsheet/Notion template and tell you what to do next.
• Data analytics: is it good? No idea. But it seems to know more about them I do (which is not hard).
• Code: I’m no vibe coder, but if I want something silly doing (like the clickable navigation thing at the top of every article) get Claude to do it
• Meta descriptions: there’s a lot of debate about whether there’s any point to doing meta descriptions. I just get Claude to read my article, and then I copy in whatever it generates. Either Claude’s doing it, or there won’t be one. See also Pinterest descriptions. I just hate doing them so much.
• Mocking up graphics: I’m not good enough with AI to get it to produce anything worthwhile. Instead, i get it to mock something up and i then make it in Canva. Yes, I know that Claude can use Canva, but I’m not a skilled enough prompter to get it to make anything any quicker than I could do it myself.

The free tier of Claude at claude.ai is worth trying. If you find yourself using it regularly, the paid tier unlocks longer conversations and more capable models. But start free and see if it fits your workflow before spending anything.

One caveat: using AI is incredibly annoying if you don’t prompt it properly. It is SO FRUSTRATING.

Your working environment: whatever actually works for you

One tool that doesn’t get mentioned enough: the space you work in.

There is no correct answer here and it will evolve over time.

I make Notion notes on the sofa, but I only ever open WordPress at my desk (what can I say? I’m a millennial). Someone else does their best writing in a coffee shop. Someone else needs complete silence and a clean desk. Someone else writes in bed with the laptop balanced on their knees.

It doesn’t matter, just get something done.

The complete free blogger toolkit

Here’s everything above in one place:

What NOT to buy yet

Since this is also an article about things I wasted money on, here’s the explicit list of things that are not worth buying in year one:

A premium SEO suite. If I ever feel the need to purchase these, I’ll let you know

An expensive camera. Your phone camera is almost certainly good enough. Natural light and a simple editing app will take you further than a DSLR you don’t know how to use.

A scheduling tool. I’ve tried all the Pinterest ones. Maybe I’ll try another in the future. But don’t buy them until you have strategy sorted.

A premium email marketing tool. Kit’s free tier covers everything you need until your list is large enough to justify an upgrade — and by then you’ll have the traffic income to cover it.

Courses about traffic and social media. Put that money toward your hosting bill instead. Traffic comes from content. Build the content bank first.

Frequently asked questions