I love saving money or finding a treasure at one of my usual “haunts” but getting something for free is the best. Below is a list of “free” tools that I use for this site. Add these to your “blogging” toolbox and you won’t be sorry. They’re all free and very useful. And, as I told a friend recently, who was lamenting her third (and youngest) starting school and contemplating getting a dog…
“Why get a dog when you can get a blog?!”
Tools for Your Blog or Website
- WordPress.com get a hosted site for free. WordPress.org getting blogging software/CMS software for free, you pay for hosting.
- Google Product: Google Analytics
- Google Product: Feedburner/RSS feed manager
- Mozilla Firefox (browser) with Firebug extension. Preview changes to how your site looks (CSS) before you actually make them. This tool will help you gain confidence in making changes to your site.
- Promote your site with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Connect all of your “updates” so you only need to be creative/clever once. These are all free services but you invest your time, which is valuable.
- Link to other sites. Never underestimate the power of linking or being linked to. Find sites that are similar to yours, follow them through RSS, social media, and become involved in the on-line community.
- Add a signature to your e-mail and link to your site and all social sites. This is easy and under settings in your e-mail options.
- Organize a group of people who have sites/blogs and network, share tips, strategize, and brainstorm. Working in a group with actual humans and not just on your computer can be very refreshing.
- Gravatar: a picture of yourself or your logo that links to your site. Allows you to give a brief description of what others will find at your domain.
- Favicon: small icon that is in your browser line. Brand that web browser!
- Don’t forget your local library! The library is an excellent free resource (well, technically I suppose we all pay for it and so it’s not free…) for books about web design, social media, marketing, WordPress, etc. Every book I’ve read on these topics for this site has come from the library.
Did I leave any treasures off of this list? What would you add?
Go Gingham related links:
WordPress resource books – you can find these at your library
Create your own website (or blog!) Go Gingham style
The launch of my professional site is here and my speaking schedule is here
Free tools for your blog or website – really, free!
Go Gingham 
Ooh, this is good stuff. And I so enjoyed meeting new bloggy friends, thanks to you! Can we have meetings more than once a month?! Demanding, I know : )
LikeLike
PS Just so you know, Paul and I have been thrifting for our new digs…so much more creative than shopping for new stuff. Thought you would be proud : )
LikeLike
I am so proud of you! I may have some chairs for your place…I seem to like to bring home stray chairs. Thanks for the comments, Valynne! I’ll look forward to our next meeting.
LikeLike
Great list – I use a lot of these myself, but you gave me a few ideas (feedburner is one I’ll follow up on).
I prefer Google Chrome’s web development tool over Firefox Firebug – I’ve used both extensively, but Chrome wins.
LikeLike
Great tip! I’m going to check out Google Chrome. I should add that I’ve also added Aardvark to my Firebug and it helps although when I went to download it, it said it wasn’t compatible with my version of Firebug and then it worked. Weird. Thanks for the comment.
LikeLike
Cool, Sara! We continue to make our new rental house a home and Paul is going to Cape Cod in a week or so to pick up what is left of our earthly possessions (they have been sitting in a 10×10 storage unit for the past year). Can’t wait to have my books, photos, & ephemera back. See you soon, V
LikeLike