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This is Day 3 of the FREE 7 day course “How to start a profitable blog”. If you haven’t signed up for the Email course, now is your chance. Did I mention it’s completely FREE? Leave your details here!
TODAY i will share all the resources you will need as a blogger:
Whether you are a newbie blogger or don’t have a blog yet and are thinking of starting one, these resources are my go to. All these resources help us run our blog smoothly without any interruptions.
FOR STARTING A BLOG:
HOSTING:
You can not make money from a free blog and if you want to take blogging seriously you need a self hosted blog. The good news is, that it is super cheap and doesn’t cost a lot.
You can get your blog self hosted for the cost of a coffee for a month.
The two most common hosts available today are BLUEHOST and SITEGROUND. And while a lot of bloggers compare them both, in my honest opinion, both are pretty much the same.
We have used both Bluehost and Siteground on our different blogs and have never had any issues with either. Both these hosts have exceptional customer support desk service. We would never recommend a hosting that we don’t personally use and love.
Siteground and Bluehost are both priced around $3.95 per month and both offer 24×7 customer supprt, SSL certificate, practically non existent downtime.
Whenever, you buy either of these hostings, you do not need a lot of technical skills to set up your blog. Both of them are super simple to set up and don’t take a lot of time to get the hang of.
You will probably find hundreds of blogs that compare Siteground and Bluehost, but in my honest opinion, both are unparalleled. And if you are deciding on which host to go for, close your eyes and select either of these. You will not have any complaints with either, I promise.
Of course you could read blogs that compare the two, but you will still be in the same position, confused as ever. Because it is so difficult to find cons for either. It is that simple. So, stop wasting your time and go for either of two.
Click here to get a discount on BLUEHOST hosting.
And click here if you wish you go with SITEGROUND.
ELEMENTOR PRO OR GENESIS FRAMEWORK:
Next to hosting, this is probably the most important thing. Elementor pro is an amazing tool that helps you build your blog. Elementor pro allows you to add rows and columns and is totally customisable with a drag and drop builder.
Alternatively, you can go for a genesis framework. Genesis framework works with a child theme that you will need to install separately. I will discuss themes in the next segment. Genesis framework is highly recommended because it allows you to build beautiful websites super easily and you don’t need any prior experience.
This website is currently running on a combination of SiteGround + Genesis Framework with audrey theme from 17th Avenue designs.
THEME:
Coming onto theme. You do not need to pay for a premium theme when you are just starting out. However, if you want to make your blog look more professional and are considering selling courses on your blog and need to make beautiful landing pages that convert, 17th avenue themes is our top choice. They have so many themes that are so chic, feminine and modern at the same time. And a lot of these themes offer beautiful landing pages. Some of them even offer instagram landing pages that you can use instead of using linktree etc to add multiple links in your Instagram bio.
Checkout 17th avenue designs here.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & AUTOMATION:
Okay so you have a pretty looking blog, thanks to the chic themes from 17th avenue designs, but what good is a blog without any traffic?
And traffic won’t come without the right marketing.
Social media marketing and search engine optimisation are two of the most important aspects when you are trying to build up your digital business.
And because the majority of our blog traffic comes from Pinterest, which is possible only through Tailwind, making TAILWIND our first recommendation.
TAILWIND:
Tailwind for Pinterest is one of the most valauble thing we invested in and it was the smartest choice we ever made. Tailwind makes it easy to grow your traffic through pinterest because it allows you to pin while you sleep. Tailwind allows you to pin at times when your audience is most active and there are so many niche specific tribes that make tailwind a must have resource for your business.
In fact, the only reason we grew our blog to a full time job was possible because of tailwind and we swear by it.
Click here to try a month of tailwind for free.
BUFFER:
Buffer is a great automation tool if you want to automate your content on facebook, instagram, twitter or linkedin.
EMAIL MARKETING:
Emaill amrketing is one of the most overlooked aspects for most bloggers and it is one of the biggest mistakes they ever make.
Email marketing is the best tool you could invest in for your business because you have complete control over your mailing list. Even if instagram or even your blog crashes, you can always build yourself up with your mailing list. These are the people who want to hear more from you and who are your biggest supporters.
The most common tool that bloggers recommend is convertkit because it is super easy to use. Integrations are easy to do and you can make beautiful landing pages in convertkit. However, convertkit is $29/month and when you are just starting out, all these costs can be overwhelming. All these costs add up pretty quickly as well.
That’s why we also recommend Mailerlite. It is just $10/month for your first 1000 subscribers. And you can make all the landing pages and integrations using mailer lite as well. It is just a little time consuming to learn in the beginning, but totally worth it. It is what we started with as well.
And our recommendation is, that you start with Mailerlite, and then switch over to convertkit when you are ready to invest more in your blog. It is super easy to transfer your mailing list from one to another.
Click here for a $20 discount on Mailerlite.
DESIGN ELEMENTS:
CANVA & PICMONKEY:
I just mentioned how important Pinterest and tailwind is for our business. The next resources is obviously all about making pins for Pinterest. We use Canva for making all our pins. You could use picmonkey as well.
There are both free and paid versions for Canva and we still use the free version. It has everything that we need to make pins and we haven’t yet felt the need to switch to the premium version.
Of course you will need high quality royalty free images for your pins and for your blog in general. Check out this post to see from where we get these high quality stock photos for free.
WORDPRESS BLOG PLUGINS:
Here is a list of the best plug-ins for a WordPress blog, most of which we use on our blog as well:
Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO helps you optimise keywords to rank better in search engines. We highly recommend using this plug-in because it tells you your reasability and SEO score at the bottom of each post that you are writing. And also gives you actionable points to improve your SEO score.
WP-Rocket: It is a must if you want your website to be fast in loading. it offers caching and optimises your blog for speed.
Google AD inserter: Google ad inserter plug-in allows you to add Google ad codes where ever you want on your website. Agin, you do not need any coding knowledge to be able to do this and it is super simple to set up.
SOCIAL WARFARE: Social warfare is one of our favourite plug-ins. It makes it easy for your readers to share your post across various social media. Social warfare makes customisable share icons at the end of each blogpost, which are super important for any blogpost.
Pretty LINKS: Pretty links is a great plugin of you want to make your affiliate links look prettier and less spammy. It allows you to shorten your links and is super easy to use.
Akismet Anti-spam: As you grow your blog, you will realise that protecting it against SPAM is super important. And this plug-in is the one we highly recommend. it blocks so many spam comments on our blogposts everyday.
ADVANCED GUTENBERG BLOCKS: these blocks make it easier to customise the look of entire blogpost. They are also super easy to work with if you are making a landing page by yourself.
Jetpack by wordpress: Jetpack by wordpress is your basic stats plug-in and we highly recommend this to check your blog stats everyday. Of course for detailed and advanced data it is always better to use google analytics, but jetpack allows you to take a quick look into your blog traffic.
These are the resources that you absolutely need in order to have a profitable and smooth running blog. Of course there are so many more. And it all depends on the kind of blog you want. Most of the plug-ins that you need for your blog are generally FREE and a quick google search will tell you the best plug-in for a specific thing.
Whenever in doubt, look for plug-ins. Plug-ins make it super easy to add elements to your blog and make it look super professional really quickly.
Thanks for sticking around! As always, if you have any questions, leave them down below or reply to one of our mails. We will be happy to answer your queries.
Stay tuned for Day 4! It is going to be all about writing good quality content.
And if you have chanced upon this post and haven’t signed up for the blogging course, you can do so over here. My 7 day FREE blogging course will cover:
- DAY 1: How to set up your blog right:
- Everything about hosting, plans, domain names and niches
- DAY 2: How to make your blog look professional:
- Setting it up the right way, themes and plug-ins you will need
- DAY 3: All the tools and resources you will need as a blogger.
- All the tools that have helped us grow our blog and monetise it. All the essential plug-ins and everything we need to make pins for our blog.
- DAY 4: How to write quality content:
- Everything from structuring the blogposts, to finding content ideas, and optimising your posts for Search engines
- DAY 5: How to monetise your blog & ways to monetise:
- How bloggers monetise their blogs and selecting which one is best for you
- Our list of the best affiliate networks to join.
- DAY 6: How to market your content and drive traffic from social media:
- How to set up your Pinterest the right way
- How to get rich pins
- How to use keywords to increase your reach on Pinterest
- Everything you need to know to drive traffic while you sleep: Pinterest Marketing strategy
- DAY 7: How to stay motivated as a content creator and my top tips and tricks to stay productive and on top of your game as a blogger
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