I’ve shared about the bare essentials you need to get started. But after you get things going, there are some resources that can really help you make good use of your time and grow your blog business to the next level. I am only sharing the tools I have personally used, so I’ll add to this list as I grow my own business and try new things!
This page contains affiliate links – they sure help to pay off those student loans! For more information, please see my disclosure page.
More about the business:
Images and Videos
Great photos on Pinterest can really help you grow your blog business! Here are some tools I use to make my images.
Canva (FREE version; there is an upgrade but I still use the free one)
Use with Lesley Clavijo’s templates from the Fast Freebies course and save yourself loads of time creating blog post images.
Your Photos on a Diet. Reduce image size by up to 80%, without compromising quality. Helps keep your site running fast and light by downsizing your images before you add them to WordPress. Free trial with a limited number of photos, then one-time purchase of $29.99. I have been on the free trial for months and still haven’t used them all yet.
My Ecover Maker (free or paid)
Make cool covers like these. Several choices are free, or you can pay 1 time for images or for a subscription.
Creative Market: Every week you get free fonts, templates, stock images, etc.
Powered by Creative Market
Unsplash: My go-to for free stock photos.
Ecamm Live: Add cool stuff to your Facebook lives, schedule them in advance with a countdown timer, add someone with you, screen share, and more.
Social Scheduling
(I currently use a combination of Coschedule, Tailwind, and Dlvr.it)
Coschedule: All your social scheduling in one place…even within WordPress. $49/month, or get half off for writing a review of their service on your blog, and then more options to reduce your price with referrals. Here’s my review of how I use CoSchedule.
SmarterQueue: $20/month social scheduling
Tailwind ($15/month or 4 months free if you pay annually): Pinterest Scheduling made super easy. Get a $15 credit with this link.
Dlvr.it: Automatically share content from sources you trust. I currently use the free version.
Plugins
WP Smush: Make your image files even smaller to keep them from slowing down your site. Free version is all you need.
Pretty Links: Create custom links that match your brand, or use for redirects. The free version is all you need.
Yoast SEO: Tools to make your posts and pages search engine friendly. Use the free version.
Coschedule: Bring your social scheduling inside WordPress, so that when you schedule a blog post all the associated social promotions are scheduled with it. The plugin is free, but you have to have a Coschedule account (See above).
Miscellaneous Tools to Grow Your Blog Business
Coschedule Headline Analyzer (FREE)
AnswerthePublic (FREE): Keyword Research Tool
Online HTML Editor (FREE): For those times when a pesky HTML issue keeps messing with your formatting. Don’t waste time fooling with formatting that you could use to grow your blog business.
