Resources & Tools that I use for my Blog

Every wondered which Resources & Tools you should use in your Blog?

If you are struggling to figure out which ones to use have a look at what I use to give you more of an idea of what might be useful for you.

I am currently using the Resources & tools below.

I hope you find this list useful

Please note at no extra cost to yourself for some of the links listed below I can earn a small commission when you click on the link at no extra cost to yourself. For recommendations that are not free please do not spend the money on these items if you feel you do not need them or they will not help you reach your goals.

Blogging

Courses I have Taken & Can Recommend

I have joined Dare to conquer

again I will have another post coming out which will go in depth as to why I decided on this course. I have to say it’s not cheap but not as expensive as Elite Blog Academy it comes in around £180 or $280 if you go through his tripwire sequence which he tells you about. I love the fact he is totally honest about blogging and how to make money. If you want to use Pinterest as your primary social media his course is also extremely informative. Scrivs 12 day boot camp will give you a taste of his writing style and information sign up here.

Momsmakecents Pinterest Primer and Affiliate marketing for Pinterest

– both these courses have helped me to get a really good understanding of Pinterest and I will go into a more in-depth article in a new post soon on these courses and why I recommend them over other ones I have tried.

Don’t want to take a full on course?

What about tips for your blog going forward into 2019 – I love all these short sharp tips and have bought this Ebook last year as well which you can buy as a bundle with the new 2019 version.

What Works Now in 2019 from PotPieGirl

For a full review of lots of great courses I recommend this post

11 AWESOME Blogging Courses for Beginners (2019)

SITE HOSTING

I hummed and hawed about which

web hosting company to use and in the end went with Siteground

at the time they did have a really good offer for a years web hosting and after reading a few bloggers thoughts on using them as opposed to Bluehost

I haven’t as yet had any issues with Siteground and accessing everything in the cpanel has been very straightforward. I have my domain name registered somewhere else so didn’t take advantage of the domain registration along with the hosting which was a shame because that would have saved me even more money as my domain registration was far more expensive!

Themes

I use a WordPress free theme called Total. Its available on the WordPress platform if you choose to use it for your blog. I highly recommend that you sign up for a self-hosted platform like WordPress if you intend to run a business.

If you decide you want to use a free theme then I highly recommend signing up for Pat Flynn’s free course Build your own Brand

I recommend taking your time and going through the entire course it has been a great resource for me and helped immensely when setting up my blog. He does go through paid themes as well but my current theme is so nice now that I am not sure at the moment I want to pay for a theme.

Plugin’s for Word press

There are tonnes of plugins you could have for your website but just make sure that you only add ones that you will truly need as they can slow down your site these are ones that I use for my WordPress blog and I can highly recommend them.

PRETTY LINKS

Pretty links plugin will allow you to insert your long website link,

affiliate links and make them look pretty and short see my affiliate link for pretty links.

Social Warfare

If you need to add Social Sharing buttons then this is the BEST plugin that I could not live without so if you need more info click on the picture or click this link.

Amazon Link Builder

Amazon link builder – ok this took me ages to work out how to use it see my blog post on installation and how to use it once you get the hang of it it is very easy not all the templates work and to be honest I haven’t fully figured it out yet give it a shot as Amazon will no longer let you use the widget link builder on the affiliates page so its better to get it up and running now so you can add in affiliate links and once you have it set up it is very easy to use

Smush WP

Smush WP – this reduces the size of any images you upload to your media library and then onto your website so it avoids again slowing things dowYoast SEO – another clever plugin that will help track your SEO for your blog posts Plugin for google analytics who has time to figure out how to install analytics life is too short – I tried on my own and then gave up – the best thing to do is download this nifty plugin again recommended by Pat Flynn from his build your own brand course ( did I mention it’s free )

For more information on Plugins see my post here

Site security

Password management for all your websites I have started using Dashlane to save all my passwords for my websites securely its free to use and I recommend considering it if you want the extra level of security.

I also use Sucuri plugin available on your WordPress plugin list for security for the site.

Email Provider

Convertkit seems to be the go-to provider several bloggers have recommended them – come back and see what I think once I start collecting email addresses.

At the moment I am going with Mailerlite they are Free up to 1000 subscribers

Social Media tools

Tailwind is another repinning tool which I will use and the yearly subscription will work out much cheaper

It’s great for scheduling your pins and now has a new feature called Smartloop I couldn’t live without it!

Designs for Pinterest Pins and Images

I use Canva for my Pin designs as recommended by Momsmakecents it seems very straightforward and easy to use plus its free!

I have also tried Picmonkey but this one needs to be paid for they are both great for different reasons give them each a try and see for yourself.

Looking for images try these if you sign up for free some of them periodically send you free photos and stuff every month I do use other sites but at the moment these are my favourites.

Affiliate programs to sign up to as a Newbie

Awin – this is great because you can sign up with Etsy through this.

Shareasale

VigLink is very easy once you get past the installation and you have access to a wide variety of merchants without having to apply to each one.
Shopstyle collective
Amazon associate
Ultimate bundles

Most of the links above will take you to the UK sites as I am based in the UK so you will need to change region when you apply normally this will be requested anyway when you sign up.