BLOGGING RESOURCES
Here’s a list of resources that is handy for all beginner bloggers. This list contains some affiliate links which means I may get a small commission if you buy a product, at no extra cost to you. Please read my disclaimer for more information.
Wordpress Hosting
Bluehost
If you are new to blogging, I highly recommend Bluehost Worpress Hosting. Bluehost makes your life easy by installing WordPress for you, giving you a free domain name and SSL certificate and offering friendly 24/7 support. Bluehost Hosting costs $3.95 USD/mo.
Siteground
Another great web host is Siteground. You’ll have to install WordPress yourself but with their fantastic support that shouldn’t be a problem. Siteground and Bluehost’s pricing for a basic plan is similar but if you want to host more than one website Siteground is cheaper.
Wordpress Themes
Divi
Divi is a great theme for beginners. Super easy to use with its drag and drop website builder. No coding needed, just front-end bliss. It comes with more than 20 pre-made layouts, making it easy for you to create the look you want.
For $89 you get a year access to all themes and plugins on the Elegant Themes site. They offer a 30-day-money-back guarantee, so it’s risk free!
Enfold
This theme was recommended to me, and I’m still using it today. Enfold is the best rated top selling theme on Theme Forest (over 9000 users have rated this theme 4.82 stars!) It is easy-to-use and comes with 38 demo sites that you can import and replace the content of. Or you can start building from scratch with the (back-end) drag-and-drop Avia layout builder. It is a well maintained theme and they constantly improve it and add new features. The best thing about this theme is their dedicated support staff, no question is too big or small they always help you out.
You can buy Enfold for $59.
Bluchic Themes
If you are not much of a designer and you would like a gorgeous feminine design for your blog, you have to check out Bluchic Themes. They have a huge selection of beautifully designed themes that literally will allow you to just replace their content with your own.
They also have design templates for landing page, sales pages and freebie opt-in lead magnet pages.
Most Bluchic Themes are available for $79.
EMAIL MARKETING TOOLS
Mailer Lite
Turn your blog visitors into subscribers! Having an email list will allow you to promote your blog, your services and/or products and prompt your site visitors return to your blog over and over again. MailerLite is perfect for bloggers and allows you to create multiple opt-in forms and automated sequences (unlike Mailchimp). Enjoy their free plan for up to 1000 subscribers!
Convertkit
Another great email marketing platform is Convertkit. Convertkit is super easy to use and especially made for bloggers. Easily create multiple opt-in forms, automated sequences and tag your audience for personalised emails. You can even A/B test your email headline and Convertkit will use the one that gets the most clicks. Convertkit has released a free plan, so make sure to check them out.
SEO RESOURCES
Easy On Page SEO
Learn how to optimise your blog posts for search engines and get your content found in Google. This is the perfect resource for beginner bloggers that want to grow their blog traffic organically.
Easy Backlinks For SEO
On-page SEO should only be half of your SEO strategy, to increase your domain authority you need to build backlinks. Get this super insightful book by Debbie Gartner and learn lots of easy ways to build backlinks to your site.
Tools To Grow Your Blog
Tailwind
A Pinterest scheduling tool AKA ‘your secret weapon to drive loads of traffic to your blog’. Use Tailwind to schedule your pins so you don’t have to manually pin around the clock.
Social Warfare
Social Warfare makes it super easy to get more shares and grow your blog traffic with their stylish social sharing buttons. You need the premium version if you want more control over how your post looks when shared. But for just $24/year this plugin is worth every cent.
AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
Ultimate Bundles
An online shop that scours the web and curates the biggest collections of digital products (e-books, e-courses) and then sells it as bundles for a really good price.
A great affiliate program for lifestyle, health, and money niches.
LEGAL TEMPLATES
Legal Bundle
Lucrezia also offers all required legal pages in one affordable bundle, I’ve shopped around and it’s the best deal I could find. It includes a Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Affiliate Disclosure and Cookie Policy. These templates are all FTC, GDPR and CCPA compliant and come with a course that explains how to use them.
DESIGN RESOURCES
Canva
An easy-to-use free design editor. It comes with lots of templates for social media posts, Pinterest pins, logo designs and much more. A great tool to make your designs look their best.
RelayThat
A super easy design editor that practically designs your pins and other social media graphics for you. Simply enter your title and a few images, and it creates tons of graphics, that you can tweak and download. It also comes with a huge library of stock photos, icons and fonts.
Get a huge discount with my link and get access to RelayThat for life for only $59. Without my link it costs $25 per month.
PicMonkey
A similar design tool as Canva with more photo editing capabilities. PicMonkey is a great alternative to Photoshop, it’s easier to use and more affordable.
It has a free 7 day trial.
Creative Market
The ultimate market place for community-generated design assets. Fonts, design bundles, illustrations, website themes, device mock-ups, infographic templates, and anything you might need to make your blog look spectacular!
Sign up for their newsletter and you’ll get some awesome freebies straight to your inbox every Monday.
Fiverr
A market place for affordable freelance services. If you need help with logo design, web development or digital marketing, Fiverr will have a freelancer ready for the job. They even offer writing, translation and animation services.
STOCK PHOTOS
Unsplash
Beautiful stock photos completely free of charge.
Pexels
More awesome stock photos completely free of charge.
Pixi Stock
A photo library with over 4000 gorgeous feminine stock photos and social media graphics that will make your blog stand out from the crowd!
Sign up to their email list to snag their 365 Day Social Media Calendar!
She Bold Stock
A stock photo membership site with beautiful feminine stock photos that suit several blog niches. With over 3000 stock photos and 1000+ social media graphic templates you’ll always find what you’re looking for.
Sign up to their email list and receive 50 stock photos completely free.