Invest in success: My Top 2 BEST Blog Tools

I know I don’t normally do blogging posts. But a large portion of my readers are bloggers and a few of those who are not, might be considering it.

Each penny earned from blogging has gone right back into the blog. Most of my purchases have been great investments. However, there are a few blog tools that have been AWESOME. These are the investments that I believe helped turn my hobby into a business.

I know that it isn’t easy to make money from blogging so you may not want to spend a bunch of money at once. But I believe that you have to invest in your business to grow.  Luckily for you, my most recent purchase–the one that inspired me to write this post– is also the least expensive of the bunch. It’s also the one that has had the quickest, most visible, and measurable results.

This post contains affiliate links. 

Skyrocket Blog Pageviews using Google Analytics by Kelli Miller and Crystal VanTassel-Lopez

My #1 best blog tool is actually an ebook. This ebook is only $59.99 USD and shows you ways to use Google Analytics in ways I promise you have never imagined. Kelli and Crystal show you how to increase your pageviews, traffic, and target the correct readers of your blog using Google Analytics. The book was written by the ladies behind the Learn to Blog Hangouts and Forum. If you’ve never watched their videos then all I can say is–you need to. They are free and shouldn’t be because they are that good.

This easy to read e-book/taskbook is divided into 33 easy to follow action challenges. The bite sized challenges are explained in detail, with screen shots, step by step. You can work on the tasks as quickly or slowly as you want to.

The challenges are not time consuming. Kelli and Crystal don’t give you advice on how or what to write. They help you maximize the posts that are already bringing you traffic.

I purchased it last Monday and have worked through less than half of the challenges. I have been fighting a horrible cough so I haven’t spent as much time implementing the tasks as I would like, but that didn’t matter.

My traffic has gone up almost 46% since I got the book. Comparing the days that I worked on the challenges to the previous week, I increased 90%. That’s huge! I haven’t had to spend hours promoting either. The increase is due to pinpointing what works with my audience. Then I used Google Analytics to find out what readers that like specific posts also like to read on my site. After I found that out, all I had to do was make sure that the posts were easy for the new readers to find.

Want to see proof? The below screen capture is my traffic after I started working through the ebook compared to my traffic the week before the ebook released. And in case you are wondering, my traffic is still up this week and I haven’t been able to complete any new challenges.

These results are why I decided to join the affiliate program and write this post.

That’s all I have to say about that!

Updated April 5, 2016

Here are my analytics for the last three months versus the three months before. My pageviews went up 60%

Kelli and Crystal know have an SEO COURSE FOR BLOGGERS! 

Tailwind App for Scheduling Pinterest

This scheduling tool has changed how I do Pinterest. It is a bigger investment at over $100 for a year. However, Pinterest is HUGE referrer of traffic to my blog (most blogs I bet.) It can also be the biggest TIME SUCK next to Facebook of course.

I love it because it takes the thinking out of Pin scheduling. It tells me what times are best for my pins. When I repin older content it tells me exactly when and to which boards I pinned it to in the past. (My old spreadsheet tracking was haphazard at best.)

Plus Tailwind sends you an email address that you can “email pins to” from within Pinterest and dumps the pin directly into your Tailwind drafts dashboard. So when I am standing in line behind the sweetest, slowest elderly woman while the slowest cashier ever checks her out at Walmart, I am also putting pins into Tailwind. I totally neglected growing my Pinterest reach before I moved to Tailwind. I’m averaging 100 followers a week simply by scheduling pins with Tailwind. I plan to spend more time working on growing Pinterest this year.

I was able to try Tailwind out for a month before I purchased it through a friend’s referral link. If you want to try it for 3o days too simply click on Gym Craft Laundry’s Tailwind referral link. Don’t let the initial set up scare you. It seems harder than it is and if you need help, send me a message on Facebook.

Stay tuned for more tried and true best blog tools

I meant for this post to have my top five blog business purchases on it but it was way too long!

I’m wondering if this post had any value for any of you? If you want to see more behind the scenes blogging posts, can you do me a favor and drop me a comment? If anyone is interested I would love to share some of the ways my little blog started earning money last year.

I earned a decent part time income (working part time hours on the blog) when I only had 6,ooo pageviews a month. Yes–that’s right. I had under 4k unique views the first month I pulled in over $500 blogging. I am walking proof that you don’t need tons of traffic to be successful and supplement your household income by blogging.

This year I am sharing the best blog tools that have and will help me earn an income by doing what I love to do!

Read Let’s collab! for free with Kindle Unlimited or buy it for only $3.99.