As soon as you start to run your blog as a business, you start incurring additional expenses to keep it going.  There are so many places to put your money to help you streamline your publishing so today I am breaking down my 5 favourites!

Yes, these cost money, BUT they also provide a high ROI either in the form of pageviews or saved time, both of which are invaluable.  So, check out what I think are the best platforms for bloggers to invest in!

Tailwind

If you have a pinterest account (which you should) you must try Tailwind.  It is a platform built specifically to help you schedule pins and monitor analytics.  Pinterest still has HUGE value as a referral site and building your influence on this platform can be a big win for your site.  With Tailwind you can schedule unlimited pins to post at the best times throughout the day, and the value of the pin increases since it is posted based on analytics.  It costs $110 a year, so less than 10$ a month and it will give you your love back for pinterest and build the value of your account.

PicMonkey

If you aren’t a professional photog, and don’t have access to high end photo editing, pic monkey will be just the thing to help you add the shine and polish to your pics. You can get a free account, but if you want to splurge and upgrade, the 33$ a year it will cost you is totally worth it JUST to access the airbrushing feature (seriously people, I AM 41!)  Now, I know Canva is great too, but it doesn’t work for EDITING the pic, only in working with already pretty pictures, so I use both, together, to make image magic happen.

Rafflecopter

Yes, there are LOTS of free versions of giveaway platforms, and Rafflecopters free version isn’t too bad, but if you upgrade you get access to more features, include a share-with-a-friend option.  There is no limit to the number of giveaways you can do, so I recommend going in with a few friends on a rafflecopter account.  The regular upgrade has no personal branding, so it can be used on multiple different sites, with no confusion.   Yes, it is $800 a year (i know, OMG OUCH) but if you share with 9 other influencers, it is only 80$ a year!  And worth it!

Facebook Manager

I know what you are going to say, “I can’t afford a community manager” and I get it, I really do, but trust me, it is worth it.  Getting someone to run my facebook page changed my life, no exaggeration here friends.  She was able to be me a millions times better than I can.  She saw my “whole picture” and was able to plan ahead to schedule content.  I always felt like I was repeating myself by posting to my fb page and my personal page. Now she takes control of the fan page, and I share from there.  Not only has it grown my account, but it has improved my reach and click through!

If you have money to invest, AND your fb page causes you stress, look at hiring someone to manage it for you. On average it will cost you a few hundred bucks a month, but the savings in time and the increase in ROI is worth it.

Plugins

I created a general category here to make it easy! There are a few plugins that are WORTH the investment since they protect your website from the bad guys!  If you are unlucky enough to be hit with spam or hacked, these babies will more than pull their weight!

Askimet- while this is considered “free” they do ask you nicely to contribute to the upkeep. It is an amazing plugin for keeping those spam comments out, and by donating a few bucks towards it’s upkeep you can help them improve!
WordFence-  A security tool for your website. It will scan your site, protect against hacks and maintain site speed even if you are being blasted by cyberbullies. Its about $39 bucks a year, a million times less than trying to fix your site AFTER a successful attack (please note, a million IS a gross exaggeration)
Sitelock is another good one, and protects you against malware and software related attacks (while word fence is more hack attempts)   It is a bit more at $80-ish a year.

Eventually investing in some platforms and upgrades can help alleviate stress, and better use time in your day!  There are a bundle more out there that I love, including hash tracking, buffer, canva for business. It is important to find the right ones for you, and then continue to monitor your investment to ensure you are getting a return from it!