Blogely
Pros
- Affordable pricing and an active LTD
- Continually updated, with passionate devs and a feature-rich roadmap
- Tons of essential blogging & business tools in one piece of software
Cons
- Small development team
- There are a handful of bugs
- Some features seem unnecessary and distract from primary functionality
Table of contents
This entire Blogely review was researched, written, and published using the Blogely platform. Enjoy!
Back in the day, blogging was easy. You’d write about whatever was on your mind, publish the post to your Blogger page, and somehow or another, it’d start ranking in Google for various search terms. Or, you’d stuff your article with a single keyword and watch it skyrocket to the top spot overnight.
Sorry to say, but those days are long gone.
Nowadays, writing a blog post can take hours, days, even weeks! And you’ll need to shell out lots of money for software if you want to remain competitive in the SERPs.
Think about it. There’s software for literally every aspect of the blogging journey — from keyword discovery and optimization, to topic research, to content editing and so much more. Your blog posts also have to look flawless across various screen sizes, and they’ve got to be lightning-fast — or Google and the other top dogs won’t showcase your site in the SERPs.
That’s enough to turn anyone off of blogging! But by leaving blogging behind, you’re sacrificing a powerful marketing tool and a rewarding form of creative expression.
So what’s the solution?
That’s where Blogely comes in. Blogely is an all-in-one research, writing, and publishing platform for your websites. It’s like the Swiss Army Knife of the content marketing world, ready to meet all your needs wherever, whenever.
That’s a massive task to take on, especially in a maturing industry with multi-million dollar companies competing for market share. Is Blogely’s one-stop-shop enough to persuade users to convert?
Eager to see for myself, I jumped into the platform to give it a whirl. This Blogely review reveals my findings.
What Is Blogely?
First up in our Blogely review… what exactly is Blogely?
According to the hero section on the home page:
[Blogely is] software that helps you create, organize, plan, SEO optimize, improve, promote, and sell your content or use it to increase your website traffic.
Quite a mouthful, eh? In simpler terms, it’s a web-based content creation tool for writers seeking to create better articles, faster. It’s also a platform for writers to host and showcase their portfolios, and there’s even a marketplace for selling your work to businesses seeking quality content.
That’s quite a lot of functionality from one piece of software! But that’s not even the craziest part. Blogely was created by a single person: Gennady Batrakov.
A serial entrepreneur, Gennady stumbled across the idea for Blogely rather by accident. After working in the online software industry for years, he discovered that getting his work in front of potential consumers was much more challenging and costlier than expected. So, he began creating articles to rank in Google, driving traffic to his online projects via SEO.
But Gennady quickly realized that this process came with its own set of challenges. Writing quality content is hard work, especially when you consider all that goes into it: topic and keyword research, detailed writing and editing, formatting and publishing, and much more.
To make matters worse, you need a bunch of different (paid) tools to handle all of these tasks efficiently.
And that’s when it clicked for Gennady. What about a content creation platform that combined all the features you need for original content creation in one intuitive app?
Thus, Blogely was born.
Blogely Review: A Look at the Entire Platform
So far in our Blogely review, we’ve introduced the platform and discussed how Blogely came to be. But what does it look like now?
Blogely is still in its infancy, but it already offers some powerful features, all accessible from the Blogely dashboard.
Features
What features does Blogely currently offer? Per the product section under the main menu, Blogely offers the following:
- Writing application
- Research docs
- SEO optimization
- Content calendar
- Plagiarism reports
- WordPress sync
- Content portfolios
That’s a lot of functionality and a lot of ground to cover. Let’s jump right into it with a look at how Blogely performs in action.
Writing Application
The first feature to mention in our Blogely review? The writing application itself.
Blogely’s writing application is designed using a block-based system. Basically, it separates your article into multiple sections, with each section receiving its own H2 heading. Think of it like laying out an essay, setting the foundation, and getting everything in place.
Once you’ve set the groundwork and have a section or two ready to go, you can begin writing. Simply navigate to the article’s table of contents, click the section you want to edit, and enter the writing app. Easy as can be.
The writing app comes in two flavors: full-screen mode and split-screen mode.
Full-Screen Mode
Full-screen mode features a minimalist look and feel, with only the essential formatting options you need for writing an article. This includes paragraphs, headings, bullets, links, images, even tables and iframes!
Blogely’s full-screen mode is nice when you’re in a creative flow and aren’t relying on research to write. Your intros and conclusions are an excellent place to use the full-screen option. It’s also ideal for editing, and it integrates reasonably well with tools like the Grammarly browser extension.
But what about those other times when you need your notes and research on hand?
Split-Screen Mode
To open up split-screen mode, simply click the “asset” arrow on the left-hand side of the screen, which opens up your — you guessed it — assets.
What are assets?
Assets include your research docs (we’ll get to that in a moment), notes, images and files, document versions, and AI-paraphraser (we’ll touch more on that later, as well).
Split-screen mode, with your assets on one side of the page and your writing on the other, is extremely handy when working on research-intensive topics. You can write your entire article using the automated research docs, as well as all the notes and images you’ve collected from your own manual research, without ever leaving the page.
For minimalists and productivity gurus, it doesn’t get much cleaner than this.
Research Docs
We’ve established that the writing application itself is pretty neat. That said, Blogely is a content creation platform, so it would be pretty ridiculous if the writing app wasn’t up to snuff. But what about Blogely’s research functionality?
At-a-glance research documents on the topic of your choice have seen a surge in popularity over the past year or so. Many players have entered the industry or stepped up their game over the past 12 months, including popular companies like MarketMuse, SurferSEO, and Frase.
While all of these companies’ products vary in specificities, the premise remains the same: to provide users with comprehensive documents full of research on bespoke subject matters.
The process for creating these documents is usually as simple as typing in a keyword and waiting for the software to scan the SERPs. The software then comes back with everything you need to know about the subject and what’s currently ranking in Google. This includes various excerpts, snippets, statistics, links, keyword information, and so on — all scraped from the world’s top sites.
Having all this information available to you at a moment’s notice can cut your research time in half — or more! It’s insanely useful.
Having used a variety of research doc software, I’d say that Blogely’s functionality is towards the lower end of the spectrum. It provides the essential functions you need, but it’s not as detailed or quite as relevant as competing options.
Still, it’s not bad. And considering that other companies charge a minimum of $40 per month for this single feature, it’s an unbelievable deal when you consider that research docs come bundled with all of Blogely’s monthly plans.
SEO Optimization
Search engine optimization is key for ranking in Google.
The research docs mentioned above can give you an excellent head-start in understanding what’s currently ranking. But you can take this a step further with Blogely’s built-in SEO optimization functionality.
If you’ve used Yoast SEO or RankMath, you already understand how this works. Blogely’s SEO optimization feature covers all the bases, including things like:
- Keyword optimization (density, alt-attributes, etc.)
- Title, description, and metadata
- Quality check of internal and external links
- Other essential SEO practices
Not only that, but you can insert and keep tabs on multiple keywords.
Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this functionality for general users. It requires an annoying setup process, as well as four separate plugins from various creators to get it all to work. This not only clutters up your site, but slows it down and keeps you reliant on external plugins for continued functionality. Yikes!
Moreover, Blogely doesn’t offer more intricate SEO details like schema.
For instance, this Blogely review shows a star rating in the SERPs due to the review schema I’m using. This cannot be done from within Blogely (yet, anyway) and requires that I go into the WordPress dashboard to add it.
Blogely absolutely must release its own plugin to take care of all this with less fuss and hassle.
Content Calendar
We all have great intentions when it comes to writing on a routine basis. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to procrastinate and/or get caught up in more pressing matters.
The content calendar aims to change all this. By setting up actionable goals that sync with your workflow makes, it should be much easier to see what needs to be done and when.
Take, for instance, this Blogely review. I set a date that I wanted to finish it by, set the word count to 2,000, and set its status to ‘open.’ Every time I open up Blogely to work on the Blogely review, I see it right there waiting for me.
Of course, Blogely’s not going to actually write the review for me (if only). And I can change the turn-in time to a later date at the click of a button. But it absolutely adds some accountability. And I can only imagine how nice it’d be to have my past, present, and future posts all laid out for me in one easy-to-read calendar. That alone would make me want to stay the course.
I can also see the content calendar working very well for larger businesses taking advantage of Blogely’s team functionality.
Imagine that you have a VA or ghostwriters who can access the calendar (you can add assistants to your Blogely account for $9/month). That would help streamline the publishing process and keep everyone on the same page.
The calendar isn’t as awe-inspiring as Blogely’s other features, but it’s a nice touch that integrates well with the software’s overall flow. It’s a +1 in the win column of this Blogely review.
Plagiarism Reports
Plagiarism reports are exactly what they sound like. You can use this feature to scan your articles and check for plagiarized or duplicate content.
The image you see above is the result of running this Blogely review through the plagiarism scanner. Pretty nifty, eh?
Blogely’s plagiarism checker is built atop CopyLeaks, one of the industry’s leading businesses. You get the same level of quality and professionalism, with a pay-as-you-go pricing model that integrates with Blogely.
It’s true that plagiarism scanning is an add-on for many paid tools, such as Grammarly Premium. But the fact that Blogely lets you pay as needed is a bonus if you don’t already subscribe to such tools.
Plus, Blogely offers something these other tools don’t. Every article you run through the plagiarism checker comes with its own certificate of authenticity, demonstrating that the article is indeed original. If you ever plan to exit your website, this is excellent due diligence to offer potential buyers.
WordPress Sync
Of course, what’s the point of any of these features without that finishing touch — integration with WordPress.
WordPress sync allows users to sync their WordPress websites to Blogely in a matter of minutes. You simply download and activate one plugin, provide Blogely with admin login details, and voila! The connection is complete.
After you’re all set up, you can publish your content to the connected website(s) at any time. Assuming you’ve formatted your content using Blogely’s writing application, everything should be all polished and ready for the world to read!
For simple articles, you never need to leave Blogely — the entire research, writing, editing, and publishing process takes place right on the platform.
Unfortunately, more complicated articles (as well as articles that require lots of formatting) may still require you to log in and make some changes. But you can absolutely get 90% of the way there using Blogely.
What if WordPress isn’t your CMS (content management system) of choice? No problem! There are lots of new integrations on the horizon. And in the meantime, you can download your articles as text, PDF, and HTML files. The latter method uses one of your publishing credits per month, but makes it extremely easy to copy and paste your work over for publication.
As mentioned, the setup process is easy, but there are still things you can’t do from within Blogely. After checking over Blogely for this Blogely review, I believe that the development team should release their own plugin ASAP and continue expanding the features that sync with WordPress.
Content Portfolios (and Content Marketplace)
All of the aforementioned features integrate and work very well with one another. It’s all about strategizing and creating content for your website(s).
But Blogely also offers another feature that seems aimed at a different audience: freelance writers seeking new clients.
I’m talking about content portfolios and the content marketplace.
Content Portfolios
First up in this section of the Blogely review, let’s talk about content portfolios. How do these work?
Well, freelance writers can create and host a writing portfolio on Blogely itself. You can create your own webpage and customize it to your liking, complete with customizable titles, descriptions, even your own logo!
The idea behind this feature is clearly to get more writers using the Blogely platform. Since many writers are just that — writers — who don’t understand the technical stuff behind websites, this feature makes it easy for them to build a sleek portfolio in just a few clicks.
Throw up your best content, and wait for those dream clients to come pouring in! (If only it were that easy…)
Content Marketplace
As for the content marketplace? This is a section of the website that allows you to put your work up for sale! Other users can check out your work, and if it fits their website, purchase it. In other words, this part of Blogely lets writers sell their articles to businesses seeking fast ‘n easy content that’s already done (like Constant Content ).
Here comes the bad news… At the time of writing this Blogely review, the marketplace is entirely empty. A ghost town, with no articles for sale.
I’m not particularly surprised. While I can understand how the portfolio and marketplace fit into the platform’s overall growth strategy, it doesn’t seem entirely necessary. The rest of Blogely’s services are geared towards creating content for your websites, complete with research docs, a writing tool, and integration with your WordPress dashboards.
Now we want to throw in random freelance writers and a marketplace of pre-written content?
In my opinion, it’s a strange route to take, even considering Blogely’s Swiss Army Knife aspirations. It could work given time, but I think development work is better spent in other areas.
What’s on the Blogely Roadmap?
Are you overwhelmed by all of Blogely’s features? Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there’s so much you can do using the platform. The bad news? Well, early adopters will need to prepare for even more overwhelm.
That’s because Blogely is still in its infancy, having only just launched at the beginning of 2020. And according to the official roadmap, there’s much more in store.
No joke — there are dozens of new features on the horizon, including expanded functionality, improved SEO metrics, and integrations galore. These integrations include popular platforms like Zapier, Sendfox, and other CMS platforms.
One-on-One with the Developer
Just before publishing this Blogely review, I had the pleasure of speaking with the creator, Gennady Batrakov, for about an hour over Zoom. He walked me through some of the features that he and his team are working on, as well as his ultimate plans for the platform. There are a ton of exciting things on the horizon, including an expansion of teams, a potential plugin (yes!), and so much more.
Gennady speaks about Blogely with so much passion and sincerity that you can’t help but get swept away by the enthusiasm. He clearly feels very deeply about growing the software, so you can rest assured that he’s all-in on continual development.
That said, Blogely is a small-team operation spearheaded by one man. Still, new features have already been rolling out at lightning speed, meaning he genuinely understands the “move fast and break things” startup mentality.
If Blogely grows large enough, he may very well need to bring other folks on board. The good news? As Blogely’s based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s no shortage of local talent.
Blogely Review: Price Points
Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty financial details.
Blogely offers three different monthly plans with straightforward pricing:
The Basic plan is more of a demo than a full-fledged product. Sure, you can create a portfolio, but that’s one of Blogely’s less-attractive features (in my opinion, anyway). You can also create articles, but you don’t have access to optimization features, and you can’t publish your content to WordPress or export via HTML.
The Solo plan is a much more attractive option. You get unlimited articles, SEO optimization, access to the content calendar, and oodles of research documents. You can also connect three websites and publish 16 articles per month. Not bad.
The final tier, Growth, is the creme de la creme. You get everything from the Solo plan, except the limits are raised substantially. And that’s not even the best part! As new features get released, this plan gains full access to all of them without additional charges. This holds true for all updates, with the exception of credit-based features.
What are credit-based features? Blogely sells credits from within the dashboard for $10 per 100. These credits can be used to access:
- Plagiarism reports
- AI paraphraser
We’ve talked extensively about plagiarism reports, but we’ve only briefly mentioned the AI paraphraser.
The AI paraphraser is a multi-pronged feature that can rewrite sentences and summarize entire chunks of text via Blogely’s outsourced algorithm (check out the end of this article to see it in action).
Since both of these features rely on external API calls, it makes a lot of sense to include them separately.
You can also purchase seats on your plan for $9 a pop. Want to bring your VA on board? No problem — pay the small fee, and they gain access to your posts and calendar within Blogely.
Is Blogely’s Pricing Fair?
Considering all the functionality Blogely offers, it seems well-priced at $49 for entry-level access.
Think about it. Any one of Blogely’s features will cost you a hefty monthly fee on its own. Take the research docs, for instance. Frase sells a plan offering 30 research documents per month for $40! For roughly the same price, you get 50 research documents from Blogely, as well as all the other functionality! And the quality is relatively comparable (although Frase does perform a bit better).
Blogely also takes the place of various WordPress optimization plugins, such as keyword and image optimization — many of which cost a substantial yearly fee. And, you get these features for multiple sites (not just one) included in the Blogely bundle.
To be sure, Blogely can help you reduce your reliance on countless other software, bringing your entire workflow into one convenient platform and saving you lots of money.
The Deal of a Lifetime
The best part? Blogely is currently running an LTD or lifetime deal. For $79, you can buy the Professional plan, which offers all of Blogely’s core functionality. The only real limit is that you can only connect to one website.
Not enough for your business? For another $79 code, you can bump those limits higher still. And if you’re ready to go all the way with Blogely, you can purchase another $79 code, gaining access to the $99/month growth plan — yours forever!
It’s an unbelievable deal, but it won’t last long. You can buy these lifetime deals from the Blogely website or AppSumo. I recommend purchasing from AppSumo, as they offer a 60-day no-questions-asked refund policy that’s as convenient as can be.
Blogely Review: Verdict
It’s genuinely mind-boggling how many features Blogely has crammed into one affordable piece of software.
I’ve logged countless hours exploring the platform, and I’m convinced that there are still features I’ve yet to uncover. Every single function allows you to fine-tune things to such a precise degree, it’s quite impressive.
Unfortunately, I also encountered a few bugs along the journey. I don’t believe it had anything to do with my writing hardware, meaning most of it came from the software side of things. Aside from an issue getting this article published (there was a conflict with one of my pre-existing plugins), it was mostly small glitches like the writing application stumbling to keep up with my typing or error screens as I swapped between features. Nothing a quick refresh couldn’t fix.
Honestly, with everything Blogely can do, I’m surprised there weren’t more!
Existential Questions
Now, let’s move onto the question that’s been on everyone’s mind during this Blogely review: is Blogely a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none? Or does it do everything it sets out to, and then some?
Honestly, I’d say the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Blogely’s core features, like the writing application and research docs, are useful and powerful. Moreover, the way Blogely integrates with your WordPress sites at the click of a button is pretty cool.
If it were me creating Blogely, this is the path I would stay on. Continue expanding upon WordPress integration and build a standalone plugin ASAP. Moreover, continue rolling out new features like the plagiarism-checker and AI paraphraser while squashing lingering bugs. Combined, these serve to extend Blogely’s core functionality and allow you to reduce your reliance on other software.
The other side of Blogely is where things get trickier.
The portfolio-hosting and marketplace platforms don’t make much sense to me. I mean, I understand the idea behind them, but I don’t think they mesh well with Blogely’s other features. I think they only serve to confuse potential adopters and clunk up the dashboard.
That said, I may be missing the larger vision at play here. But it’s hard to see Blogely becoming the one-stop-shop for literally everybody and everything. That’s a considerable task with such ferocious competition out there.
But hey, I’d love to be proven wrong. Blogely is a unique platform with loads of potential. We’ll just have to see what happens.
Should you get it for your blog or business? I highly recommend it, especially while the LTD is still going on. This is particularly true for those who primarily write informational-style articles. Under those circumstances, you wouldn’t ever need to go into your WordPress dashboard, save for updates or replying to comments.
Heck, I’d even go so far as to say that the LTD is worth it just for the research documents.
Do keep in mind that there is a learning curve involved, considering all of Blogely’s functionality. But it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it.
And remember that this software is a work in progress. It’s not perfect yet, even if it does show an insane amount of polish already. By adopting the software early, you’re supporting a dedicated developer and getting your hands on a tool that’s going to cost much, much more in just a few short years.
Wrap-Up, Courtesy of Blogely’s AI Paraphraser
To finish off this article, I figured I’d leave you with a taste of one of Blogely’s newest features — the AI paraphraser.
To highlight its abilities, I purchased credits and ran this entire Blogely review through the process. Here’s what Blogely’s AI algorithm has to say about itself:
Blogely is an all-in-one research, writing, and publishing platform for your websites. It’s like the Swiss Army Knife of the content marketing world, ready to meet all your needs wherever, whenever. Is Blogeley’s one-stop-shop enough to persuade users to convert?
Blogely’s writing application is designed using a block-based system. It separates your article into multiple sections, with each section receiving its own H2 heading. You can write your entire article using the automated research docs, as well as all the notes and images you’ve collected. Blogely’s built-in search engine optimization is key for ranking in Google. It requires an annoying setup process, as well as four separate plugins. The content calendar aims to change all this.
Plagiarism reports are exactly what they sound like. You can use this feature to scan your articles and check for plagiarized or duplicate content. The calendar isn’t as awe-inspiring as Blogely’s other features, but it’s a nice touch. The Blogely platform is designed to help you create content for your website. The platform also offers content portfolios and a content marketplace. The marketplace lets writers sell their articles to businesses.
Blogely is a small-team operation spearheaded by one man. Gennady Batrakov, appears to be all-in on creating the platform. The company sells credits from within the dashboard for $10 per 100. Blogely is currently running an LTD or lifetime deal. For $79, you can buy the Professional plan. The only real limit is that you can only connect to one website. The developer offers unrivaled customer support.