A lot of people ask me about what products and what are my blogging resources are, so this page is dedicated to them.
Blogging is one my favorite hobbies and side hustles.
I love it and plan on creating more blogs in the future (once I get the hang of having one), but blogging has changed my life forever.
Here are my favorite tools and recommendations for blogging.
Blogging Basics:
SiteGround
SiteGround is one of the BEST hosting sites that I have used. But SiteGround has been one of the most helpful hosting companies I’ve encountered yet.
I love SiteGround, and I recommend them to any new blogger because you aren’t tied into a year or two of hosting.
This is helpful, especially if you don’t know if you will truly like blogging.
Siteground is honest and helpful and comes with tons of free benefits such as plugin advice, malware scanning, and quick support.
WordPress
WordPress is the only place I blog on. WordPress is a content management program that hosts around 25% of the internet. It’s where you write blog posts, edit your theme, etc.
WordPress is where you need to host your blog.
Sure, you can use other content management systems (e.g. Blogger, Winx, etc.) but WordPress will give you the best results, especially if you want to get into SEO (which I’ll discuss later).
17th Avenue Theme Designs
My theme: 17th Avenue’s Vivienne’s theme √ .
When I started my blog, I was lowballing and being cheap with my website themes for the longest time.
Which only ended up costing me a lot in my first few months of blogging.
One day, I clicked the wrong thing and my whole entire homepage’s posts disappeared and from there, I knew that I should have gotten a 17th Avenue theme from the beginning to save the hassle.
17th Avenue provides so much information about each theme and they have great support if you ever need help.
They also provide services to install your theme and even customizations.
Check out some of their WordPress Themes here.
Legal Pages
Yes, you ABSOLUTELY NEED TO make sure that your blog is legal.
Don’t worry. Amira at Self Guru has the solution for you. She offers legal pages that made the process simple.
I personally got her Legal Bundle and recommend every blogger get it. It will protect your blog and you and save you TONS of money.
Instead of booking with a lawyer and spending hours and days planning for it, you can get what you need for only $197.
You can find her Starter Legal Bundle right here.
Canva
I can not stop talking about Canva.
Canva is one of my most used websites even outside of blogging. I use to it make every single pin I have AND even my resume for internships.
Canva is seriously underrated yet so powerful.
You can use Canva for FREE but Canva Pro is so worth it.
Why? Because Canva Pro offers you TONS OF FREE photos that you can use to stand out on Pinterest AND have more features that make designing your pins easier.
Simple, I use Canva Pro to get all my stock photos for my pins and content on my blog.
Canva also gives you the need to design ANYTHING with over 250k templates.
Even if you aren’t blogging, then you need Canva. (Have you seen how great their presentation and Instagram post ideas are?)
When you opt-in for Canva for a year, then you’ll save about $30 instead of pay monthly.
Follow this link to get the Canva subscription perfect for you!
Blogging Courses:
Blogging courses have easily changed my blogging strategy forever.
HerPaperRoute has a training course for everything your blog needs to succeed.
Blogging & Affiliate Marketing Course
Are you ready to finally align with your blogging goals and figure out how to run your blog in an effective way?
1. Enter: The Blog Monetization Course by HerPaperRoute!
In this course, Chelsea breaks down the most complicated steps for affiliate marketing, SEO, planning content branding and more.
This course is my first recommendation for any new blogger. Trust me, it will save you time and all the frustration of doing it on your own.
This course is truly worth every penny!
2. Next up, HerPaperRoute’s free SEO course.
SEO is so important for bloggers, especially when they first start out. It’s a little complicated at first, but Chelsea does a great job of explaining it.
You will learn so much about SEO and you may even have a few blog posts rank higher after a week of taking this class.
One of my top recommendations for new bloggers.
Also, a lot of bloggers recommend more expensive SEO courses, but HerPaperRoute’s free SEO course covers the same stuff for $0!
Plus you get 7 modules packed with so much information and bonus content!
She even includes a dictionary/glossary in the course so you can understand what some of the technical terms mean.
3. The Pinterest Marketing Course
As you can tell, I was serious about learning everything I could about Pinterest.
But what you have probably also realized is that Pinterest’s algorithm changes often, and a lot of the free articles about Pinterest marketing are outdated.
Pinterest Marketing Course is a course that is constantly updated with new material.
It teaches a lot about Pinterest SEO and the monetization side of Pinterest.
This course dives into Pinterest analytics, optimizing your Pinterest account, and strategies that will make you stand out on Pinterest (which is one of my biggest takeaways from the course).
Finally, with the new algorithms and updates from Pinterest, you may have hit a wall with your strategy.
So, I recommend you enroll in the Pinterest Marketing Course!
The program also includes done-for-you Canva Pinterest templates, to help you get back on track with your Pinterest Strategy.
Chelsea is always updating her courses to stay on top of Pinterest’s algorithm changes.
She researches and really goes into depth with her courses about Pinterest. She gives the best information on how to schedule your pins for growth, how the algorithm works, and advanced Pinterest tips.
I recommend this blogging resource for anyone who is new and does not know where to begin with writing pin descriptions that Pinterest SEO loves.
You will learn so much about how to avoid getting hit by a Pinterest spam filter AND how to schedule your pins without making a million pins.
Extra Blogging Course Tips:
- One thing I learned is that most bloggers give discounts to their other courses when you buy one of them. If you are on a tight budget, then I recommend moving up with courses. I never spent more than $200 on any course. BUT I always signed up for a blogger’s newsletter so when their courses went on sale, I was there! I got Perfecting Blogging + Perfecting Pinterest by Sophia Lee for $99.
- It will take a few months to see if a blogger’s recommendations actually work for you. Trust me, it took me a while to see the benefits.
- In the beginning, I wish I took more blogging courses before dipping my toes into blogging. I know, especially from a broke college student’s perspective, $99 for ANOTHER class is a lot. But blogging has FINALLY given me some profit. It also saves me the frustration of teaching myself.
Want to learn more about my blogging journey? Read some of my previous posts about blogging:
