The 10 Best Blogging Resources

I have learned so much about blogging since starting this journey back in April of 2017. I continue to do research as a blogger since there are endless resources out there on the world wide web to help me move my blog forward. Here is a list of the 10 best blogging resources I have found to work.

Of course, there are many more than 10 blogging resources out there. I get overwhelmed myself with all the information there is online, and don’t want to overwhelm you either! Ten sounded like a great number of resources to start with.

I may add to this later, or make an updated list with even more resources! You can even give me suggestions on what to add to this list in the comments below!

WordPress

I started using the free version of WordPress when I first started blogging. I knew I eventually wanted to make money with this gardening blog, so I soon switched to the paid version of WordPress and I’m so glad I did!

There is so much more you can do when you own your blog. You can have paid ads up, affiliate links, certain plugins, and more when you take ownership of your blog in the paid form.

Switching over to the paid version of WordPress is easy. You also have to be on a self-hosted platform to use the paid version of WordPress. This is where having Bluehost comes in handy.

Bluehost

There are plenty of self-hosted platforms out there. Many bloggers argue about which one is better to use. I have been using Bluehost since I switched to self-hosted and love it! When I get frustrated over technical difficulties, the on-call staff have been great about helping me solve technical problems on the spot.

Interested in trying out Bluehost to see all they have to offer you and your blog? Check out my How to Start a Blog post to learn more about how to become self-hosted through them.

Pin Practical

There are a ton of courses out there that promise to get you more followers with Pinterest. It can be overwhelming to decide which ones are the real deal. Pin Practical is one of those courses.

I actually won this course through bloggers who ran a giveaway on Facebook. I was already using Pinterest for my blog, but thought since I won the course, might as well try it out!

Pin Practical definitely does not disappoint! Monica Froese of Redefining Mom is the creator of this awesome Pinterest tutorial. She definitely knows her stuff!

Tailwind

If you work full time like me, trying to plan out and pin on Pinterest can be time-consuming. Tailwind offers a great solution to this.

For as low as $10 a month, Tailwind can pin for you on their scheduler. All you need to do is spend some time setting up pins in their schedule and Tailwind does the rest for you!

I love making pins for my blog posts, but manually pinning can be time consuming, at least for me. There are bloggers that claim that manually pinning works great for them.

I personally love Tailwind since I can schedule out the pins I want to pin on the scheduler, then Tailwind does the rest for me. Easy peasy!

I recently added Tailwind for Instagram onto my account. Based on settings and my audience, Tailwind lets me know when is the best time for me to post on Instagram. It also gives me suggestions on great hashtags to use for each image I upload into the scheduler!

Once I schedule an Instagram post, I let Tailwind do the rest! Do you want to try out Tailwind for free? Get a month of Tailwind free right here!

Google Analytics

It can be difficult figuring out your audience and follower trends on your blog at the beginning. Google Analytics takes all the guesswork out of this and is a great way to get information about your blog’s following. Plus, it’s free!

I explain how to get started with Google Analytics in this post, but I’ll mention some things here as well, since its such a great blogging resource. There are many perks to using Google Analytics, as explained a little below.

Over time, you will want to know what your most popular blog posts are, since these are the ones that will bring you the most traffic. You can find this out on Google Analytics.

You can check out follower trends from the last week, month, several months, year, and more!

I utilize Google Analytics when researching blog post ideas and when I want to create new pins for posts that are popular. I’ll look at traffic from the past months, all the way to the past year, when I changed my domain name.

All in all, I highly recommend using Google Analytics as one of your blogging resources!

Mailchimp

Once you have your blog up and running on a self hosted platform, you want to start an email list as soon as possible. Why? Your email subscribers are your most faithful followers.

Even if you build a following on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and any other social network out there, those sites can go down at any time. If they do, what happens to those followers you worked so hard to have on those sites?

You don’t have to worry about this when you have email subscribers. They are subscribing to you because they love your blog and are interested in what you have to say.

There are several websites that can help you build an email list. One of these is Mailchimp. Not only can you build an email list of subscribers on Mailchimp. You can also build landing pages, links, newsletters and more.

Its also FREE to use for your first 2,000 subscribers! So, start an email list if you haven’t already.

Ultimate Bundles

There are many blogging resources out there, free and paid. It can be hard to figure out which ones are the best to look into and spend money on.

To say the least, I am very picky when it comes to spending money on my blog. So, when I do spend money on courses, they have to be amazing!

Ultimate Bundles offers bundles of blogging courses throughout the year. These are categorized by theme, such as Photography Bundle, DIY Bundle, Women’s Health Bundle, Money Bundle, Essential Oils Bundle, and The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit.

I bought The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit this year for the first time. It was advertised for $97, but loaded with $7,000 worth of courses.

I have heard about the bundle for bloggers since I started blogging, and had some extra money from getting an article published in a nationally circulated magazine. The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit sounded like a pretty good deal, so I thought, why not?

I skimmed through some of the courses for a few days after buying the kit, and WOW, its loaded with so much great information and resources for bloggers! If you are just starting out or have been blogging for some time and want some great info on just about anything blogging you can use on hand, I highly recommend buying this kit when it comes out once a year!

Speaking of a year, it will probably take me most of the year to go through all the material! This bundle has courses on affiliate marketing, branding, starting a blog, branding your blog, how to use popular social media platforms, vlogging, SEO, making money blogging, the legal side of blogging, and more.

If you are looking for a bunch of blogging classes to have on hand at an incredible price, check out The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit when it comes out through Ultimate Bundles.

Amazon Associates

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn passive income with your blog. There are many businesses and websites where you can join as an affiliate and make a percentage per sell.

You can become an affiliate, no matter what your niche. Being an affiliate through Amazon is a great place to start, since they sell just about anything through any niche.

You have the freedom to choose what and where to place products on your site. I have affiliate links on the side bar, links within my blog posts, and suggestions on what to buy at the bottom of many of my posts.

Amazon gives you a 3 month period to make at least 3 sales to stay on as an affiliate. Based on your traffic, this may be easy or hard for you.

Do you use affiliate marketing on your blog? What sites or programs are you a member of? Let me know in the comments below!

Social Bluebook

Once you have your blog up and going, you want to start pitching to brands or may even get emails from companies that want you to write about their product on a blog post or promote it on one of your social media platforms.

Knowing your worth can be hard when starting out. Social Bluebook is a great resource to use. It will suggest rates for you to charge based on your blog’s traffic, followers, and how many followers you have on each of your social media platforms!

Did I mention it’s free? Check it out if you haven’t already.

Pixabay

I love taking pictures with my Galaxy 10e cell phone, but it can get difficult to find certain plants for posts during particular times of the year. This is where using free stock photos come in handy.

There are plenty of sites that offer free stock photos. I love Pixabay. They claim to have one million high quality stock images, as well as videos. All I do is type in what type of picture I need in the search area, and I usually get a ton of results!

Most of the images on this post are all from Pixabay. Do you use photos from your phone or a website that provides stock images? Let me know in the comments section below!

Best Blogging Resources

I hope you got something out of this small list of the best blogging resources you can use to up your blogging game. What resources would you add to this list that you use to blog with? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!