7 Essential Tools That Can Help You as a Guest Blogger

Whether you are trying to get more traffic to your blog or working on improving your reputation as a freelance writer, guest posting on other people's blogs is something that carries a lot of weight. You get credit for what you write, establish your reputation as an expert in your field, and get backlinks to your own blog. When you write for others as opposed to when you are adding content to your own blog, you have to be doubly careful. Your posts will make or break your reputation. Indeed, the quality of your posts must attain a minimum level to be accepted at most blogs. It is not enough to be a good writer: you must have proofreading skills as well. You will also need images appropriate to your posts. There are quite a few things that you will need to make the most of your time. Listed below are 7 essential tools that can help you as a Guest Blogger.

1. Language tools
WordWeb has been around for quite sometime now. It is a lightweight dictionary cum thesaurus which sits on your system tray.

Paperrater.com will check your paper for grammar, plagiarism and style and provide explanations regarding them.

Grammarly.com is the newest site for checking language usage and more. Grammarly is available as a browser extension and an MS Word integration. You can avail of the entire package if you buy a subscription. If writing good articles in flawless English is a priority for you, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try, especially since it has a 7 day trial.

2. Capture tool
When you are making a post - especially when it is some kind of tutorial, you will need to catch the action that you describe in real time and illustrate your posts. There are a number of screen capture utilities available. Some of them, like the FastStone Capture, have an image editor included. However, such elaborate software comes for a price. Use AnalogX 'Capture' instead. Capture is a very lightweight free program that takes screenshots of the desktop or the active window. It is also free.

3. Image Editing Tool
You don't need to learn Photoshop to optimize your images. Use Irfan View instead, which is lightweight but versatile. It also plays video files.

4. Image Finding Tool
Instead of going over to stock photo sites, you should head straight to Flickr. Use the ones that display a creative comments License: you can use them so long as you credit the author.

5. Video Tool
The Freemake Video Converter is a free Windows utility that converts video files and makes them web ready. You can also create videos on your own and even from images. When you have to make a post where using multimedia is an option, this software comes in handy.

6. Organizing Tool
Evernote is an MS Word (or Open Word) alternative that is much more than just a word processor. You can organize your entire portfolio, notes and images and even take screen captures with this utility. It creates a searchable database as you add documents to it. If you blog regularly you will be quite lost unless you keep track of things. The free version addresses most requirements and is a must if you are seriously into blogging or freelancing.

7. Social Networking Tool
When you are guest-blogging, you obviously want people to know about your work. However, being successful at your job usually leaves you with little time for networking. If you depend upon Tweeter to publicize your work, you would need to tweet multiple times a day to reach followers from different time zones. Ditto with Facebook where your status updates will be lost amongst numerous others unless you keep updating at set intervals.With Bufferapp you can schedule tweets and Facebook posts and streamline the entire operation. This is a web based app that costs $10 per month but has a free plan as well. The free plan is obviously limited, but there is a lot that you can do with it.

The 7 essential tools that can help you as a guest blogger have been divided into seven broad categories. This is because things change, and what is free today can very well come for a price later. If you focus on the categories, you will be able to find alternatives to almost everything that has stopped being free. Always keep your guest blogging repertoire updated and you will find writing a breeze.

Author Bio:
Jason Smith is an online manager for Right Lawyers - who are experienced divorce attorney. Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.