Blogging is more than SEO.
At the core of blogging is the desire to share via words or images, and mobility shouldn’t be a hindrance to us.
It should, in fact, allow us to create more quality content where we’re inspired, when we’re inspired.
Here are 10 apps beyond SEO and Analytics to help you on that inspired path.
Image Editing
Skitch is free for all platforms and lets you take any picture (or select from file) and draw any number of arrows, annotations, and the like before uploading it with a single poke. It’s especially useful on tablets, which gives you more screen room to, essentially, finger paint. For more stylistic rather than instructive editing, Snapseed ($4.00 for Android and iPad) has made a name for itself in providing basic tasks like adjusting contrast, saturation and cropping, but it also has a sizable selection of effects (grunge, vintage, black & white) and frames. Unlike other editing tools, Snapseed lets you customize the strength of the effect by sliding your finger across the screen. To boot, uploading to social media is a, well, snap.
Video Editing
For those of us wishing there were a video version of Instagram, there is. It’s called 8mm, and it allows you to add retro filters to videos for $1.99 on iTunes. Viddy has a similar concept, but provides more advanced features like focus, white balance, audio metering, exposure, music, and lots of free effects like solarise, vintage, and 3D. As of yet, Viddy is only available on iOS, but you can get notified when it becomes available for Android.
Magisto, however, is finally available for Android (for free!), and lets you stitch together clips with cool transitions and your own audio track. Movie Aid is also free, and has a professional interface to let you import and splice together video and images, complete with transition effects, text, effects, speed control, and the like.
Research & Crafting Content
(photo via iTunes)
Writers have to research before putting pen to paper (or fingers to pad, whatever). Apps like Pocket let you save documents and content web-wide right onto your device via bookmarklet or browser extension—for free on iTunes and GooglePlay. Easily distracted writers, however, can depend on Plain Text for easy syncing to Dropbox of nothing but bare bones edited text. PaperHelper is the best of both worlds. For $1.99 via iTunes, it splits your screen right down the middle between your text and a browser for research. While only available on iTunes (for $9.99), Pages is a beautiful app that lets you design fetching letters, flyers, and reports on your iPad or iPhone. They’re stored on iCloud and automatically sync across all devices.
Carmen Brettel is a writer and manager for Studentgrants.org, where she has recently been researching bachelor’s degree in accounting. In her spare time, Carmen enjoys gardening and volunteering at animal shelters.
"You’re such a smart boy!" were his first accolades heard. So, it’s no wonder that this phrase became the title of his business, Smart Boy Designs.