Are you thinking of starting a blog? You totally should – and then tell me all about it so I can follow you. I know that starting a blog and getting organized can be a little overwhelming. I’m definitely not an expert, but I thought I’d share some of my favourite resources & tools that I use in case they can help you too. I use or have used ALL of the products listed below and I LOVE them.
This post contains affiliate links, you can find my full disclosure statement here.
Web Hosting
I recently switched my web hosting to Bluehost and man, am I ever glad I did. I was having so much trouble with my old hosting company – my site was going down at least once a day!
Everyone at Bluehost has been super helpful I definitely recommend them to everyone!
I’ve set up my blog with WordPress which is easy to use and install (details here). There are a lot of options for WordPress themes, but my favourite sources are:
Stock Photos & Design Elements
- Logos and other resources from Creative Market
- Free stock photos from Unsplash
- If I ever need to buy a photo (which isn’t very often) I love Fotolia
- Fun combos of design files, fonts and more from DesignCuts
Online Courses
Pintastic Profit Plan
Pinterest has been a huge source of traffic for me but a lot of people overlook it as a marketing tool for their blogs. Summer Tannhauser from Lady Boss League created this amazing course which has really helped me up my Pinterest game. Visit Pintastic Profit Plan
CreativeLive
CreativeLive has a ton of great online courses from crafts to business to photography. Almost anything you want to learn, you can find on this site. Visit CreativeLive
Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers
I bought Tasha’s book Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers last year and I loved it. Now she’s turned it into a course and it’s really helpful if you want to monetize your blog using affiliate links.Visit Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers
Tools
CoSchedule
CoSchedule is my latest obsession. I signed up for a 30 day trial and I’ve found it amazing. It snycs with WordPress and and your social media accounts so you can draft and schedule everything in one place. I’ll let you in on a secret, I’ve cancelled my Ipsy bag just so I can easily afford the $15 month service. Visit CoSchedule
Tailwind
Tailwind is a scheduling tool for Pinterest. Because Pinterest is my number one source for traffic I want to make sure I’m constantly sharing. I pin 30-40 images a day and use Tailwind to make sure i’m posting at the best possible times and re-pinning my most popular pins. Their reporting features also let me see which of my pins are most popular so I can make sure I’m sharing the best possible content. Try Tailwind for one month free!
Feedly
Feedly is my RSS reader of choice. I follow a lot of blogs (A LOT) so to make sure I never miss a post I keep track of them all in Feedly. I have everything organized into custom buckets and I love that I can create custom tags for posts I want to read later or share on social media. Visit Feedly
Buffer
Buffer is a social media scheduling tool, sort of like CoSchedule, but not really. I use Buffer to schedule all the posts I share on social media that are not related to one of my blog posts. Mostly sharing posts written by other bloggers that I know my followers will love also. Buffer lets you add one profile for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ for free! Visit Buffer
So there you have it! All the tools and resources I use to keep myself organized and run this blog! I hope you find it helpful and if you have any questions let me know!
This is awesome – thank you for the post – I bookmarked it!
Thank you for the information. I was looking at Buffer last week and wasn’t sure about trying it. I will now, especially for twitter.