Recommended Blogging Resources and Tools

Bluehost

Bluehost is the best blog hosting provider out there for beginner bloggers.

If you thought starting a blog is difficult and too technical, you haven’t heard of Bluehost yet!

When you host your blog with them, you don’t have to spend hours figuring out how to setup your WordPress blog properly. I mean, you have better things to do with your time.

Bluehost has an insanely easy and quick signup process, and it only takes 10 minutes.

Here are just a few reasons why I host my blogs on Bluehost:

• It’s super easy to set up: when you signup for hosting, Bluehost takes care of everything for you.
• It’s fast: you only need 10 minutes to set everything up the RIGHT way.
• It’s very affordable: their hosting plans start at just $2.95 per month, and…
• You get a FREE domain for your blog for the 1st year!
• Their friendly and fast helpdesk will answer all of your questions – 24/7 of course.
• They give you a FREE SSL Certificate to protect your blog and your visitors.

Bluehost is just about as good as it can get!

To start your blog the RIGHT way from the beginning, head over to my step-by-step tutorial on how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost in just 10 minutes. See you there!

Check your blog domain name availability here:

Divi

Divi Theme is an incredibly user-friendly and intuitive but still extremely powerful theme by Elegant Themes.

Divi has been my #1 recommendation for quite a while now and I use it for all my WordPress projects.

Divi lets you easily customize the design of your pages and post, even as a complete beginner. Elegant Themes has a solid customer service in place for any questions you may have.

Also, Divi comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. So, there is no risk whatsoever in trying it!

Avada

Avada Theme was my first theme when I started to use WordPress for my websites and blogs. Back then, it was already an excellent theme for blogging, but it’s grown in popularity and is now more powerful than ever.

When you purchase Avada, you get endless customization options for your blog’s design. So, if you want to have 100% control over the details of how your blog looks, Avada is the perfect WordPress theme for you!

X Theme

X Theme is a powerful theme with even more detailed customization features than Divi, but it has a slightly steeper learning curve.

X Theme is a highly customizable WordPress theme, but it takes a while to discover all the features you will need.

Themeforest

To find the best WordPress theme for blogging, Themeforest has the biggest selection of premium themes in the world!

It’s easy to find the best WordPress themes on for blogs on Themeforest by using their filtering options. Choose your industry, see which themes are the most popular, read reviews from others who have purchased a specific theme, and just purchase a licence right away!

Tailwind

Tailwind is the ultimate traffic tool for your blog.

I use Tailwind to automate my generate MASSIVE TRAFFIC to my blogs from Pinterest and Instagram.

It’s an all-in-one Pinterest automation tool that helps me save heaps of time compared to manual pinning. Tailwind plays a huge role in my Pinterest traffic strategy.

Tailwind automatically finds the best time slots to pin and post your content on Pinterest and Instagram. All you need to do is select what you wish to post and Tailwind will take care of the rest.

Schedule your first FREE 100 pins here

Social Warfare Plugins

Time to pull out the big guns! Social Warfare is THE plugin to make your blog posts easily shareable.

Social Warface allows you to add beautiful and easy-to-use social sharing buttons to your posts and pages. I’ve tried a handful of social sharing plugins in the past few years – this is the best you can get.

You can start with the free version, but I’d recommend upgrading to the premium version right away. If you’re serious about growing your blog through social media (which we both know you are!), investing a few bucks in a solid sharing plugin will pay itself back in no time. I mean, it’s like $2.42 per month.

Start with the FREE version here

MailerLite

MailerLite is my #1 email marketing tool I use for my blogs and websites.

It’s a solid all-in-one solution for making money from your blog by building a massive list of subscribers the EASY and QUICK way.

What makes MailerLite better than its competitors are their more advanced features for automation that are really easy and intuitive to setup.

You’re looking for a free email marketing tool to get started? Great! MailerLite offers a 100% free plan with helpful features such as automation, tagging, and segmentation. Use it to start building your email list from scratch when you start your blog. As your list grows, you have the option to upgrade to a paid plan.

Set up MailerLite for 100% FREE today

Mailchimp

MailChimp is the perfect tool to start growing your blog with email marketing.

Just remember to start building your email list from day 1 and build a relationship with your subscribers! MailChimp will take care of the rest.

You can start with MailChimp’s free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers first. Once your list grows bigger, just upgrade to a paid plan (and unlock even more, powerful tools!)

Price: FREE (for up to 2,000 subscribers)

Adobe Express (Ad Creator)

The Ad Creator in Adobe Express is a free tool for creating your own, individual ad designs quckly and easily.

If you are planning to start your own advertising campaign and want to create stunning ads that appeal to your target audience, Adobe Express is the best tool to get started.

Using professional, pre-made templates, you can easily create graphics, collages, flyers, videos, and animations with access to millions of images, icons, and effects.

The best part: you can get started with Adobe Express for free with thousands of templates, Adobe Stock photos, Adobe Fonts, design assets, quick actions, and nifty features. It’s more than enough to create beautiful ads, but you can always upgrade to a paid Premium plan to unlock all content and premium features.

Price: FREE (with upgrade to Premium plan available)

Grammarly

Grammarly is the #1 tool for checking your spelling and grammar quickly and easily. The free version is super helpful for a final proofreading round to check that your articles are easy to read and your spelling is on point.

I use Grammarly for pretty much anything I write nowadays: blog posts, project propositions for my clients, and much more. I know you’ll love it just as much as I do, trust me. Give it a shot, it’s free!

Dropbox

Dropbox lets you store and backup your files easily. Trust me, that day will come when your laptop just doesn’t want to cooperate anymore.

If you’re not using Dropbox, listen up, because you’re missing out! Firstly, Dropbox is 100% FREE to use. Second, it will save you heaps of time, money, and grey hair. What’s even better is that you can access your files anywhere, anytime.

Coggle.it

Coggle is by far the best mind mapping tool available. It’s free, easy to use, and sooooo powerful! Use it to gather your ideas, plan your content, and structure your posts quickly.

If you are a visual person, you will LOVE Coggle! Try it right away!

Trello

I use Trello about 24 hours a day. It’s an all-in-one project manager, to-do tracker, and so much more. When a mind map doesn’t do the job, you can use to gather your thoughts into lists and tables.

Add comments, track your progress with your to-dos, give them a timestamp and see how everything just falls into place.

If you’re just starting out with your blog, you can easily build lists with ideas for new posts, for example. Label your lists “Ideas”, “Drafts”, “Ready for review”, and “Scheduled”, for example.

EverNote

EverNote is just about the best tool for managing your notes and entire projects (with all your devices, that is).

Tip: If you want to save time and write a blog post extremely fast, use Evernote to dictate your post. The app will turn your speech into text, which you can import into WordPress. Then, all you need to do is proofread and format your post. I’ve written several 2,000-word posts in 30 minutes like this!