Blogging Equipment 101: What Tools do Bloggers Use ?

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Most people do not start blogging because they do not have the right equipment.

I totally understand this mindset because I was one of them. In my mind, I thought to start blogging you need to have everything correct.

Let me tell you a secret.

… there is no perfect equipment!

Start with what you have… where you are at.

The most important thing is to get started and get moving. To get started with blocking you actually do not need anything the only thing you need is a laptop, an Internet connection and you yourself.

Nowadays even a smartphone is enough you do not really need a laptop unless you are a custom to typing on a computer or laptop. you can even use your smartphone and install applications which will let you type up blog posts.

You can find the entire start a blog series as a guide – Start a Blog Guide. The entire series is also available as an eBook – Make Money from Blogging: How to Start a Blog working with Brands even if you are a Newbie

What do you need to get started Blogging?

A place to write your Blog posts

To get started with blogging you need a device to write on. I am using my laptop, I also use my cell phone or smartphone.

For writing the blog posts I use Google docs. Google Docs has many smart features which you can use to create a blog post.

Note : it might be better to show this topic so that you can get a better understanding of how I do it.

  • Create a new Google document
  • Outline your post topic
  • If at any point you need help regarding a particular topic highlight the word, right click. A Window will pop up. Select explore.
  • A new tab will open with different articles on that particular topic. This makes research very easy.
  • Once you are done writing the blog post in Google Docs, run the spell check.
  • Your blog post is ready now copy and paste it into your blog.

Backup device

Losing all your work can be pretty painful and nearly impossible to recover. make sure you backup your work regularly.

Here a couple of ways on how to backup your work.

  • Save a copy in Google Drive. I make a folder for documents, another folder for images and another folder for any videos I create. You can install Google Drive on your smartphone and synchronise it with your account online. As and when you are done taking pictures of writing a blog post synchronise it with your Google Drive.
  • You can also use a service called Dropbox to keep a backup of all your content. It’s a free resource.
  • Invest in an external hard drive and remember to take a backup regularly onto this hard drive. Nowadays you get hard drives with a lot of storage space. So you can potentially store a lot of data onto these external hard drives. This will clear the memory on your laptop or computer.

This is how I grew my Blog from 0 visitors to 100+ visitors ( and growing) per day.

Equipment for a Photo Blogger

If you are a food blogger, fashion blogger or a travel blogger, your blog relies heavily on pictures. If you review products on your website, whether it be clothing food fashion, you must support it with images.

I am using my smartphone for taking these images. Most smartphones today can provide high-quality images in a good resolution. Smartphones also come with image editing apps, which can help you edit your images very quickly. You do not require any expensive photo editing applications for software like Photoshop to do the same.

If you are concerned about the quality of the images and feel that the photo quality from the smartphones is not good enough, you might consider investing in a camera such as the Olympics or the Canon.

I am able to get away with images that I click from my smartphone. They are of good quality and serve my purpose very well.

Photo Editing Software

A photo editing software helps you modify the images. Usually, you had to invest in high-quality photo editing software such as Photoshop.

I do not have photo editing skills nor do I have Photoshop. So if you are looking for alternative options I have a few for you.

  • PowerPoint
  • Paint
  • Canva
  • Picmonkey
  • Ipiccy

I have used all of the above programs to create images infographics for my blogs. They are very easy to use. try any one of them for a couple of days till you get a basic understanding of how to use it. There are many free help tutorials online for each of these applications.

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Recently I started using Canva for my photo editing. It is very easy to create images for your blog posts, YouTube thumbnails, Instagram and Facebook images and Blog headers.

Lighting

If you are taking photographs make sure you have good lighting to get sound quality pictures.

I personally use natural lighting for taking my photographs. In case you do not have natural lighting or you need additional lighting, there are many lighting props you could purchase.

For a beginner, any such investment is not required.

Just use the flash feature in your smartphone. In most cases, this would be enough.

You can also pick out the best times you get natural lighting at your house. Schedule your day so that you can take photos at that time.

Equipment for a Beauty Blogger

As a Makeup, beauty blogger you might have to show picture of your face with the makeup on. Product pictures are essential for such blogs. Good lighting is very important for beauty bloggers. You need your face to to be visible with no Shadows.

For such kind of blogging, you might have to invest in something called a ring light. Now ring lights will light your face. This is very good for makeup tutorial and videos.

If you are making a whole video of your beauty products and you are showing a beauty subscription box then you need additional lighting. You can then invest in something which is called as a box light.

Box lights provide good lighting on your products and you can get high quality images.

Memory cards

Memory cards are very useful to save extra images, documents. As your blog grows you will realise that your phone is out of memory. I have purchased a 32GB memory card and that is fulfilling my purpose. Most smartphones come with a lot of internal memory.

I save any product pictures on to the additional memory cards ( the 32GB SD card ). This is one investment I would suggest you would make initially to save you a lot of trouble later on.

Memory cards are pretty inexpensive right now. Just figure out what is the maximum memory which your smartphone will support and buy a card and insert it into the smartphone. Move all your phone applications on do this SD card. Save any product pictures on to the SD card as well.

Tripod

This again is not an essential requirement for blogging . I find it very helpful to use a tripod for filming and for taking photographs. It helps the image stay focused, and I can take pictures more efficiently.

This was one of my most cherished Investments. Again you need not invest in a tripod. Be creative make your own tripod. You could use a stack of books to place your smartphone on. You could also place your smartphone on higher shelf or cupboard to get the required height.

Audio Recording device

I use the inbuilt microphone in my computer and smartphone to record any audio if required. If you want to, you could invest in a good microphone. Some microphones in the market come with noise cancellation software and provide high quality recording.

I have not yet invested in a microphone because I can use the microphone which is inbuilt in my smartphone. The inbuilt microphones in the laptop and my smartphone are also used when I dictate my blog posts. As a blogger you might not require any microphone at all or simply get away with the microphone in your smartphone.

If you are a vlogger ( you make videos) then you might think of investing in a good microphone. There are wireless microphones, small invisible microphones which can be clipped on to your clothing.

People also like to listen to blog posts or specifically like to listen to new ideas. You could take the same information you are providing in your blog post and convert it into a podcast series. This is literally an audio version of your blog post. you will be reaching out to a different audience getting a lot of traffic to your blog and also making your blog highly visible.

So if you are going to venture into audio blogging or what it is traditionally known as is podcasting, you should invest in a good microphone. This will ensure that the audio quality is good, also it will remove any external noise.

Equipment for a Video Blogger or a Vlogger

I started out as a blogger, then I moved into creating YouTube videos. now I vlog on my blog. I create videos to support the blog posts and I embed these videos on my blog posts.

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If you are comfortable creating videos, I encourage users to create videos for your blog posts.

This has a dual advantage.

#1 One you can repurpose the content, or reuse your content.

The same content which you had written you can now reach a different audience. Some people like reading where are the others prefer watching a video.

Creating a video version of your blog post help reach out to a new audience and will help grow your blog.

#2 Second you get a backlink from a very authoritative website such as YouTube on Vimeo which are the common platforms where we share videos.

If you upload your video on YouTube platform and link to your blog post you are sending some really powerful talking to your blog. This will increase your visibility, which will also rank your blog post very high and most important help your blog post get indexed very fast.

Food Blogging Equipment

A food blogger has to rely a lot on high quality images. It is essential that your blog post include pictures of the ingredients the finished curry or baked goods.

Food blogging is all about pictures. You cannot get away with food blogging without having high quality pictures on your blog. If you are a food blogger you should be investing in a good camera or a high end smartphone or an iPhone.

You also have to learn how to use Photo editing applications. if you can support your blog posts with videos then you will notice that your blog will get extremely high visibility. the blog will start ranking very high in the search engines.

You would also need to take pictures more often and you might find it easier to own a tripod.

I used to have a magnetic tripod which would cling on to Magnetic surfaces. It also had bendable legs so you could wrap it around shelves and overhead cupboards.

This makes it easier to take pictures of the food while it’s cooking or baking.

To take overhead videos on pictures you can over time invest in something called as a boom stand tripod. This tripod will help you take overhead pictures so your readers and yours can watch over your shoulder as you prepare the food.

In this series of #startaBlog I will be showing you how to start a Blog and Make Money with it.