A blog can be one of your most powerful marketing tools.  If you are looking to establish yourself as an expert in your industry, create awareness for your brand, or spread across the digital land through social media -- a blog is just what you need.

A blog helps you create a relationship with your customers and potential customers. With the promotion of popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, blogging is becoming even more essential in order to be seen by search engines such as Google and Bing.

With all these options for putting information on the web, bloggers are still using blogs the most. More than 80% of all websites today are blogs.

These 10 blogging tools can help you establish your online presence more effectively and promote your product or service:

1. SEMRush:

This is an excellent tool for finding the best keywords and phrases to target on Google, Bing and Yahoo Search engines so that you increase your chances of being noticed.

How to use SEMRush:

· Enter the subject you are blogging about, and SEMrush will give you a list of keywords to focus on.

· Click on "See Full Report" and choose PPC Competition and Search Volume.   You can also check historical data and view related keywords for better reference.

2. Google Alerts:

This is a free tool from Google that will send you an email as soon as there is a new news story or blog post about your subject.

How to use it:

· Enter the subject you want to follow and choose how often you want alerts to come to your inbox.

3. PostRank Analytics:

This tool delivers analytics for you to measure the success of your blog.

How to use it: After signing up with PostRank, you can add a bookmarklet from their website so that as soon as you visit a blog post, the analytics will show up on your browser.

· You can track how many people have shared or linked to the blog post.  This will give you insight into the popularity of your subject and how to increase it.

· You can also track who shared and linked to your blog and see what social networks they come from so that you can determine which ones perform better than others.

4. Feedly:

This is a content curator that will help you grab the latest stories and content from blogs and news websites.

How to use it:

· Enter keywords you want to follow on Feedly's dashboard.  You can also connect your Google Reader account so that anything you have subscribed to or marked as read will automatically show up on your dashboard.

· You can also follow certain categories and topics that you want to monitor.

· There are apps available on the Android Market or Apple Store for your mobile device.  This will let you view your Feedly account no matter where you are!

5. Twitter:

Create a Twitter account for your blog using the same name as your blog.  This will let you search for any tweets that mention your blog's name or subject. You can also use hashtags that are relevant to your business so that the people who use the same hashtags will get a notification of your tweet and visit your profile page.

6. Google Analytics:

This free tool from Google will give you detailed statistics about your blog, such as where most of your visitors are coming from, which pages they visit most often and what keywords they used to find your blog.

How to use it: There is a code you have to place on your website that will allow Google to track which pages are being visited and other information.  Just choose "Admin" from the main page once you sign up for a Google account, then go to "Tracking Code" and copy/paste the code for your website.

7. HubSpot:

This is a powerful blogging tool that will help you grow your blog and online business.

How to use it:  You can create landing pages, forms and convert visitors into leads or customers with this tool!  Hubspot also has a free analytics tool that you can use to view how many visitors your blog gets and what they click on.

Expert Tips:

After you have chosen your tools, the next step is to:

· Write content that will help your readers with their questions.  Create blog posts that are informational and engaging!  For example, if you own a how-to blog about solving computer problems, then create step-by-step instructions for fixing common computer problems, or if you own a women's fashion blog, then create lists of the top 10 celebrities who are currently wearing summer fashion trends, etc.

· Optimize your posts with keywords that people will be searching for in order to get more traffic to your website.

· Grow your email list by having readers subscribe to receive updates.  This will help you stay in touch with your readers and keep them informed about new blog posts!

· Make sure your blog is mobile-friendly so people can read it no matter where they are or what device they use.

· Use social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to share your blog posts and get more people to visit your website.

Conclusion

Blogging is a great way to establish your presence as an expert in your field, connect with other professionals and share expertise that can help people work smarter, not harder.  In order to have success as a blogger, you need to have patience, write helpful and engaging posts, use tools that will track traffic generated from your blog and have a passion for your subject matter.