Managing multiple projects at once can be confusing, and sometimes, stressful. You desire to complete the project on time to avoid earning a negative review from your client, which can in turn jeopardize your brand’s reputation.
This is why we advise using a tool that suits your business and guarantees the best result. As a blogger, using the best project management software will help you track your teamwork, manage your time and tasks adequately, and ultimately, enhance your productivity and profitability. We aware that choosing the right tool, especially for blogging, can be gruelling work.
Contextually, project management software is designed for project planning, scheduling, resource allocation, and change management. It is to help project managers and other users control costs, manage to budget, manage quality, document information, and in some cases, for administration system.
You see why you might need one as a blogger, too, right? Maybe not yet, but in this article, we will show you the best tool you can choose from the marketplace, and guide you on making the most profitable buying selection as the case may be.
Overview of Project Management and Blogging
Project management implies the application of different project methods to plan, control, and execute a given project. This is carried out by the project manager and the project team. The goal of project management is to achieve the project goals, given the project parameters.
As such, there are diverse techniques used to achieve this goal, including the deployment of resources, among other things which requires a handful of skill and knowledge of the application of project management. Therefore, as a blogger, you will agree that planning, controlling, and organizing diverse related tasks can be a lot of work.
This explains why many are resorting to the use of project management methodology and tools for the effective delivery of their services. In essence, the coordination of the mountain of activities can be managed by using the right project management software.
You may want to choose today to leverage technology and pick the right management tools that can help you organize, coordinate and manage your list of tasks in an on-time manner, and of course, with a guarantee of quality delivery. The essence of project management tools is also to help manage complex schedules and more importantly, adapt to the various uncertainties that are bound to happen in projects.
Nowadays, blogging is more than a mere way to announce your presence on the web via your writing or publishing posts. There is more to blogging now, and with this understanding, while it gives a great opportunity to make money online, it offers this feeling of fulfillment to become even more efficient at the game.
The fact that blogging as an opportunity seems attractive is not sufficient, making money online and from it is indeed a real challenge. But as project management enthusiasts and experts, we are confident that these fears and challenges can be assuaged when and if you incorporate the ideas of project management.
Your success as a blogger depends on how well you can be a sponsor, webmaster, designer, copywriter, SEO specialist, marketer, and community manager. All of these roles, however, compliment the growing interest in the vastness and suitability of project management.
Meanwhile, blogging through and with project management is proven to produce efficient results. With the awareness that to become a successful blogger, you need to master a wide range of skills and knowledge in not just a field, but many of them including search engine optimization (SEO), web design, HTML, JavaScript, e-commerce, and others. Hence you must know the in and out of blogging and its management.
Project Plan in Blog Management: Choosing the Right Tool
A project plan, which is defined as a detailed representation of tasks or activities that you need to achieve your project objectives within a given time, is key to your blog project. It is the primary document that outlines the course of action that you will need to take and the tasks, processes, and methodologies to help the team perform necessary actions to accomplish the goals.
Therefore, to plan for your new blog project, you will need to define and describe the problem you intend to solve, identify and evaluate the possible solutions to the challenges, define and estimate resources, and identify and set meaningful criteria.
These things are only achievable with project management tools/software. That is, typically, a project management approach to your blogging project would require that you are conversant with things like selecting a domain name, choosing a content management system and using it, building a website, and link building, among other aspects of blog management.
Meanwhile, all of these can be further enhanced with your knowledge and application of project management software. It makes your work easier and guarantees better results. You can create and share your project plans online with any of the following. These tools are as easy as ABC, with an intuitive user design, plus all of the prominent features of Microsoft Project at a fraction of the price.
Some of their features are built Gantt charts, plan multiple projects, use task software, monitor workload, and control expenses. For any of the project management software you intend to choose from the list, they offer you a one-month free usage, with which you can create as many project plans as you wish within the period. To continue to enjoy the rest of the premium features after 30 days, you will have to pay a fee.
Best Project Management Software for Bloggers
Perhaps you have worked with different applications and used other tools in the past, and none of them could meet your expectations, you can try your hands on any of the tools mentioned below. Experts and existing users believe they are sufficient, suitable, and can help you effectively execute your project most efficiently.
1. Wrike
Wrike is a cloud-based project collaboration and management tool. It helps users track their day-to-day operations. It is also suitable and great for helping complete projects successfully within the given time frame and at the stated cost. Users can integrate Wrike with other business tools in the course of setting up tasks.
That is, it offers incredible integration with Google Apps, Microsoft Excel, Dropbox, and others. With the Wrike app, users are also able to transform emails into tasks, and this feature enables you to create, assign, or edit documents from your email account in a bid to manage your project effectively. There are different versions for different categories of users, including fere, professional, business, marketers, and enterprise.
2. Bonsai
The digital landscape has increasing competition over the years, which is why writers need to utilize the best tools to stay on top of the game. If you are a freelance writer looking for a tool to help you manage projects, then Bonsai might be the pick for you. It has been designed so that you can track your financial health, get payments on time, and onboard more clients as you grow your writing business.
You can focus on the creative process while Bonsai will do the rest to save you effort and time. For example, the contracts feature will help you draft and send contracts to your clients for signing. On the other hand, you can use the forms feature to collect information on leads.
As a freelance writer, you may not be available all the time for your clients. This is where the scheduling feature comes in handy so that you can sync the calendar and let your clients’ book slots depending on your availability. You can always manage your schedule, depending on the workload you have at any given time.
Finally, the invoicing feature will also enable automatic reminders for payments to your clients. This means that the clients will know they have to pay you, which will increase your likelihood of getting paid on time and avoiding delays. So, if you are tired of managing the administrative aspect of freelance writing, then you can hand over this task to Bonsai.
3. Trello
Trello is a popular name in the project management industry. It is designed for personal and enterprise use as a management tool in free and paid versions. Trello features unlimited personal boards, cards, and list creations, plus 10MB per file attachment (in the free version). To use more features like priority support, and to enable your team on board, you have to select the premium version for a little buck.
With Trello, you can create a visual representation of your project updates, as you would like to have them on your tasks. It also helps you create checklists and assigning tasks to your team members. Trello offers a plethora of advantages to share projects and attach your documents to the user per time. It also has a unique voting feature and is available for Android and iOS users.
4. Asana
Asana is one of the free and collaborative project management tools that you can use for resource management as a blogger. Asana was developed by Facebook experts, and at the time of starting Facebook, Asana was used to manage diverse office projects and tasks.
Consequently, it is being used as an open-project tool where users can assign tasks to their teams- developers, writers, and partners. Asana has numerous advanced features and is available as apps for mobile users- whether iOS or Android. The free version is available for users with unlimited projects and a maximum of 15 members.
5. GanttProject
GanttProject is another versatile and free project scheduling and management desktop app for OSX, Linux, and Windows users. It is ideal for programming and managing project activities, with significant similarity to Microsoft Project. GanttProject includes Gantt charts where users can assign people to their projects. One interesting feature of this tool is that it can generate a PERT diagram by itself (automatically) and show the assignment of people to activities.
GanttProject, however, is limited in its functionality and is not the best for handling complex projects since the charts are not always very clear and it does not display the dependence of tasks enough. But to conduct basic management functions excluding cost accounting, messaging service, or document control, GanttProject is an ideal tool for your blogging project.
6. Jira
Jira is another great project management software. A cloud-based tool that is established on the methodologies of Scrum, Jira has immense flexibility and offers a magnitude of customizability to set and follow predefined user work. Thus, it is very useful for managing the quality of the different project tasks you might have.
Unfortunately, Jira cannot change the requirements of the stated iteration as is, and this is why it is not advised for users with projects that have a high probability of changes. It, however, serves adequately despite its limitation of a less friendly and intuitive user interface.
7. Workfront
Workfront is a user-friendly tool that bloggers can adopt. It offers and features customizable project dashboards, real-time reporting, and clear visibility of the tasks and activities going on per time. Also, it offers capacity planning and project prioritization tools, while the users are notified of the progress of the task as customized. It can be integrated with systems such as Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, and Adobe Creative Cloud.
8. Todoist
Bloggers are fond of this project management tool, which has the capability of maintaining a to-do list for their respective blogging tasks. It creates and maintains a unique list for all users that register on the platform and it helps to monitor certain activities including users who are logged in and displaying to-do-list for them. With Todoist, you can as well keep track of the various tasks and information you use about your blogging project.
9. mGTD
This is otherwise known as MonkeyGTD. Users who choose mGTD do so because they consider it to be a robust and incredible management tool that can help them deliver their blog projects effectively. You can store this tool on your webserver to access your files at any point in time.
10. Tom’s Planner
Tom’s Planner is an intuitive Gantt chart tool for individuals, and it is mostly recommended for bloggers. It has the capability of offering mouse-based tweaking within the workspace, and users can have a glance at the product online which is available to be downloaded for free.
11. Things
Things are mainly used by Mac users. It is one of the most versatile tools that can help maintain, organize and link information and data. Choose Things for your next blogging project, especially if your project is not too complex.
12. Evernote
Evernote is available for windows users, and it is one of the best project management tools out there. Evernote is capable of reminding you about important things, especially the ones slated for the future. You can save your ideas in Evernote, and you can easily find or locate your stored information in your account.
Conclusion
These days, it is not strange to see that any kind of job is tagged as a “project”, and there are some incredibly great tools that can help manage and get such jobs done. These tools can help us manage the projects and meet the respective demands. They also help complete the tasks in time to achieve project cost viability and effectiveness in the long run.
Thus, a blogger can use any of the aforementioned tools to streamline tasks, allocate time to tasks, and achieve the deliverable on time. Any of these tools can also help determine the time that suits the project requirement. For a blogger with many team members, any of these tools can also help them break the different tasks down including designing, content development, promotion, marketing, among other things that contribute to the eventual delivery of a successful project.
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