10 Useful Links & Apps for Bloggers

There are some websites / apps / links that make all the difference when it comes to creating and maintaining a blog. Whether it's improving my organisation (I have a full time job as well as writing the blog, so organisation is key!) or  the quality of my work, or even just keeping track or my analytics, these sites are ones which I use on a daily basis, and would highly recommend to all other bloggers.

1. IFTTT - I first mentioned this app on my Instagram Tips post, and so many of you commented or tweeted me saying how useful you found this app in particular. You know how Twitter just shows a link when you share your Instagram pictures? Well, this app posts your instagram picture  and its caption to twitter, automatically. By creating 'recipes' on the app, you can not only turn your instagrams into tweets, but also set up 'rules' such as 'When I post a new post to Blogger, create a post on Facebook showing the first image, and title of the post.'

2. Iconosquare - This website is really interesting if you want to find out stats about your Instagram account. I've recently become quite hooked on checking my followers, unfollowers, and seeing which posts create the most engagement.

3. Onlypult - I spent so long trying to find a website that lets you schedule Instagram posts with absolutely no luck, gave up my search, then stumbled upon Onlypult recently. I'm still only on my 7 day free trial but so far am loving it! It's going to be so useful when I'm on holiday and won't have wifi access all day, I can just schedule a few Instagrams to go out throughout the day. SO handy!

4. Pinterest - I devoted a whole post to Pinterest and how you can use it to drive traffic to your blog here, and seriously, use it. It really works, it's so great at reaching out to a whole new audience. Ideally you should spend a few minutes every day pinning, so I have the app and spend most of my commute browsing through pretty pictures!

5. Unroll.me - I used this a couple of weeks ago to unsubscribe from a whole chunk of those annoying subscription emails that somehow I'm still receiving (including ones from a university dance society that I stopped being a member of about 5 years ago!).

6. Afterlight - also mentioned in my Instagram Tips post, Afterlight is one of my essentials when it comes to editing pictures ready to post online. It brightens, sharpens and adds clarity to your images, making even dull photos look bright and sparkly ready for you to share!

7. The NET SET - OK I'm kind of biased because I the company that I work for provided the software that powers the cool part of the NET SET app, but basically it's incredible because you can upload any picture you like, and then the app uses Visual Search from Cortexica to find the most similar fashion items on Net-a-Porter. So say I see Rosie Huntingdon Whiteley wearing a gorgeous floral jacket, I can upload a picture to the app, then shop the most similar products on the site!

8. Bitly - Especially for if you want to create links in the description box of your YouTube videos, this website is really useful at turning long, complicated links into ones which are only about 12 characters.

9. Buffer - If you're out and about all day, have a day job, or generally forget to tweet regularly, then you NEED Buffer. You can schedule up to 10 tweets, including links and images to go out at your chosen times throughout the day. I absolutely rely on buffer for keeping my Twitter up to date while I'm at work, and it's also really useful for analytics too as you can see which of your tweets got the most engagement.

10. Dropbox - If you are halfway through some work, or just want to have a back up place for storing your files, then you can use Dropbox to store everything in the online cloud. It's great if you work remotely, or want to share images or documents with anyone else.

Do you use any of these links or apps? Let me know if you can recommend any others!