Tools & Resources for Bloggers
A curated list of tools and resources for bloggers I personally use and recommend to start a blog or website.
Website Hosting
Siteground: Whether you’re a business owner who needs a professional website or someone that wants to start a blog and make money online, you’ll be a reliable hosting provider.
This is where Siteground comes in. I’ve used Siteground to host my blog and also my client’s websites for years. For as little as £2.99 / month you can get a WordPress website set up in minutes.
They have fantastic 24/7 customer support and offer an array of features.
WordPress Themes
Kadence WP: Without question my favourite WordPress theme I’ve ever used, and trust me I have tried and tested many. I use this very theme on my own website as it’s super-fast, responsive and highly customisable.
It comes with loads of fantastic features and starter templates that can all be customised to your liking. Kadence currently offers three different pricing plans, and my recommendation is to buy the full bundle package which is just $199 for the year.
If you’re serious about making money online through your website, you can’t go wrong with Kadence.
- Studiopress: I have bought and tested all kinds of different WordPress themes from many different companies and without a doubt, Studiopress is one of the best. The main reason I recommend them so much is due to the Genesis Framework. It’s hard to explain why it’s so good without going into detail, but think of it like this: WordPress is the engine of your car, Genesis as the frame and body and Studiopress themes are the paint job. Once you’ve purchased the Genesis Framework you can decide which WordPress theme you want. Studiopress has over 80 professional themes to choose from that can be customized to meet your needs. Although I’ve made the switch to Kadence, I still recommend Studiopress if you’re after an alternative.
- Elementor: If you’re a complete newbie when it comes to web design, you might want to consider Elementor, the number one free WordPress website builder. It has tons of cool features and is incredibly easy to design professional looking websites.
Email Marketing & Conversions
Hello Bar: Created by Neil Patel, Hello Bar is a conversion tool that comes with an array of features that will help you capture leads for your blog or business.
Neil himself uses it on his site and as he actually created the tool, it’s guaranteed to be amazing. They even have a free trial.
- Mailchimp: Reliable and easy to use if you’re looking for a free email marketing platform to start building your email list and convert your readers to subscribers. Mailchimp is completely free upto 2,000 subscribers.
- ConvertKit: The number one email marketing platform for professional bloggers. If you’ve already had some experience with blogging and need something a little more fine tuned, then ConvertKit is your best option. Completely free upto 1,000 subscribers.
Social Media
- Social Warfare: With plenty of social platforms to choose from, you can display sharing icons within your blog posts and pages to increase reader engagement and grow your audience.
- Buffer: Buffer is a Social Media Management Platform that allows you to plan and schedule your social media posts, saving you heaps of time. You can use this extra time to focus on the most important things in your business.
SEO
- Rank Math: Rank Math is a Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress that makes it easy for anyone to optimise their website. If their was only one tool I could recommend it would be this. Rank Math is very powerful and comes with many essential features that will help your website get ahead of your competition. You can install it for free from the WordPress dashboard but I highly recommend the pro plan as it’s just so much more powerful.
- Semrush: The best, all-in-one marketing toolkit for anyone serious about outranking their competitors and growing their business. I’ve used Semrush for many years to help improve my search engine rankings. There are tons of helpful features such as keyword research, competitor research, domain analysis and much more.
- Google Analytics: Anyone with a website should have a Google Analytics account setup that is correctly linked to their site. Google Analytics provide invaluable data that gives you insight into how your website is performing, such as the number of visitors you are getting, time on site, the demographic of your audience, goal tracking and much more. The best thing is that it’s completely free.
Graphic Design
- Canva: A free graphic design platform used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and much more. I’ve used Canva for a number of years and can’t recommend it highly enough. If you’re after something affordable or you’re not skilled in photoshop Canva is the next best thing. If you sign up for their pro plan for just £12.99/month you can also get hundreds of professional stock images to use on your blog or website.
- Storyblocks: The best place for royalty-free stock images, videos and audio. I use Storyblocks for their stunning footage and images that help ensure my Youtube videos are professional and my blog stands out.
Outsource Your Work
- Fiverr: Running a business is never simple. You’re always going to have a few hiccups along the way. Fortunately, there is always someone more skilled than you and I to lend a helping hand. That’s why I use Fiverr to outsource the work I can’t or don’t want to do. For as little as $5 you can find professionals to help you. It’s great to learn a new skill and do things yourself, but sometimes it’s just better to free up your time and pay someone else.
Writing
- Evernote: This is by far one of my favourite tools. Evernote has been described as the number one note-taking, organising, task management and archiving app. I use Evernote to plan and create all my blog posts, Youtube videos, podcasts, social media posts and a heck of a lot more.
- Grammarly: Another app I simply can’t do without. Grammarly is a free online grammar and spelling checker. I’ve used this for a number of years to ensure my blog posts and other various pieces of content are grammatically sound.
- Headline Analyzer From CoSchedule: With so much competition online it’s essential you find a way to make your blog posts stand out. The CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is a fantastic free tool that analyses your headlines and offers guidance on how to write headlines that drive more traffic.
Website Optimisation
- WP Rocket: If you want to increase your search traffic, get more visitors to your website and convert your audience to customers, you better make sure your site is optimised for speed and performance. To do this, I highly recommend investing in a caching plugin. The best caching plugin ever to optimize the speed and performance of your WordPress blog or website is WP Rocket. It has been recommended as the most powerful caching plugin by WordPress experts for many years.
- GTmetrix: If you want an insight into how optimised your website is in regards to speed and performance, then you should definitely be using GTmetrix. Considering it’s free, GTmetrix will show you the areas within your site that need optimizing. It’s a tool I’ve used for years and it’s continually helped me decrease the loading times for every site I’ve created.
Recommended Reading
Three books I recommend for learning about building an audience, productivity, outsourcing your life, and escaping the dreaded 9-5 rat race.
The 4-Hour Work Week
Tim shows us how it’s possible to outsource your life, earn more money whilst reducing your working hours, and escape the 9-5 rat race. This book is packed full of actionable tips
The One Thing
The best productivity book I’ve read so far. The one thing that will teach you how to get results in any area of your life, is just focusing on the most important task at hand. What’s your one thing?
Superfans
Pat teaches us how to build a dedicated audience and community and then turn them into superfans. A must-read for bloggers, influencers, or anyone who wants to build an online business.