{"id":137,"date":"2005-04-15T19:28:00","date_gmt":"2005-04-15T13:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/15\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T14:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:45:18","slug":"free-essential-tools-for-blogger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Essential Blogger Tools for Your Blog (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blogger is still a free, simple way to run a blog, and a few extra tools make it far more powerful. Our first list of free <strong>Blogger tools<\/strong> in 2005 included hit counters, Blogexplosion traffic swaps, Pingomatic and early AdSense. Most of those are gone or unnecessary now. Here are the free tools every Blogger blog should use in 2026.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-64590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/free-blogger-tools-1024x538.webp\" alt=\"Free essential Blogger tools\" width=\"1024\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/free-blogger-tools-1024x538.webp 1024w, https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/free-blogger-tools-300x158.webp 300w, https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/free-blogger-tools-150x79.webp 150w, https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/free-blogger-tools-768x403.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/free-blogger-tools.webp 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick answer:<\/strong> The essential free Blogger tools are Google Search Console (get indexed and see search traffic), Google Analytics (visitor stats), a custom domain (looks professional and portable), AdSense (built into Blogger&#8217;s Earnings tab), an email subscription service like follow.it or MailerLite (FeedBurner email ended in 2021), Canva for images, and Creative Commons licences for your content.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_89 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6af5d8975d1ce\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"ez-toc-cssicon\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #1a202c;color:#1a202c\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #1a202c;color:#1a202c\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6af5d8975d1ce\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Free_Blogger_tools_for_2026\" >Free Blogger tools for 2026<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Traffic_and_search\" >Traffic and search<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Earning\" >Earning<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Readers_and_subscribers\" >Readers and subscribers<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Design_and_content\" >Design and content<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Blogger_tips\" >Blogger tips<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#What_happened_to_the_2005_tools\" >What happened to the 2005 tools<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#FAQ\" >FAQ<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Is_Blogger_still_free\" >Is Blogger still free?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-10\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#How_do_I_get_my_Blogger_blog_on_Google\" >How do I get my Blogger blog on Google?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-11\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/free-essential-tools-for-blogger\/#Can_I_add_email_subscriptions_to_Blogger\" >Can I add email subscriptions to Blogger?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Free_Blogger_tools_for_2026\"><\/span>Free Blogger tools for 2026<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Traffic_and_search\"><\/span>Traffic and search<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Google Search Console<\/strong>: verify your blog, submit your sitemap (yourblog.blogspot.com\/sitemap.xml) and see which searches bring visitors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google Analytics<\/strong>: add your GA4 measurement ID in Blogger Settings to track visitors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Custom domain<\/strong>: connect your own domain in Settings &gt; Publishing; see our post on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2007\/01\/blogger-blogspot-blogs-can-switch-to-custom-domain-names\/\">custom domains for Blogger<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Earning\"><\/span>Earning<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>AdSense<\/strong>: Blogger&#8217;s Earnings tab connects your blog to AdSense directly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Affiliate links<\/strong>: add product links with proper disclosure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Readers_and_subscribers\"><\/span>Readers and subscribers<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Email subscriptions<\/strong>: FeedBurner email and Blogger&#8217;s FollowByEmail widget stopped in 2021. Use follow.it or a newsletter tool like MailerLite or Mailchimp with an embed form.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Feeds<\/strong>: your blog&#8217;s feed (\/feeds\/posts\/default) still works for RSS readers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Social sharing<\/strong>: Blogger themes include share buttons; turn them on in Layout.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Design_and_content\"><\/span>Design and content<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Canva<\/strong> for featured images and graphics.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Blogger&#8217;s built-in themes<\/strong> (Contempo, Soho, Emporio, Notable) are mobile-friendly; customise them in Theme.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Creative Commons<\/strong> licences to tell others how they may reuse your posts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Blogger_tips\"><\/span>Blogger tips<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Know <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2006\/02\/posting-storage-limits-of-blogger-blogs\/\">Blogger&#8217;s limits<\/a> on pages, labels and page size.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2006\/02\/how-to-hide-remove-blogger-navbar\/\">Hide the Blogger navbar<\/a> on older themes for a cleaner look.<\/li>\n<li>Back up your blog regularly from Settings &gt; Manage blog.<\/li>\n<li>Write labels consistently so readers can browse topics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_happened_to_the_2005_tools\"><\/span>What happened to the 2005 tools<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Traffic exchanges like Blogexplosion are gone and never brought real readers. Manual pinging with Pingomatic isn&#8217;t needed: Blogger and search engines discover new posts through sitemaps. Third-party hit counters were replaced by Google Analytics and Blogger&#8217;s built-in Stats.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"FAQ\"><\/span>FAQ<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Is_Blogger_still_free\"><\/span>Is Blogger still free?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Yes, Blogger is free, including hosting on blogspot.com. You only pay if you buy a custom domain.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_do_I_get_my_Blogger_blog_on_Google\"><\/span>How do I get my Blogger blog on Google?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Add it to Google Search Console, submit the sitemap and publish useful posts regularly.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Can_I_add_email_subscriptions_to_Blogger\"><\/span>Can I add email subscriptions to Blogger?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Yes, embed a sign-up form from follow.it, MailerLite or Mailchimp in a Layout gadget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blogger is still a free, simple way to run a blog, and a few extra tools make it far more&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":64590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64591,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/64591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}