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Starting a blog can be daunting. What can be even more terrifying is the hundred of resources for bloggers, and products to buy that tell you that you need them to succeed.
I have spent very little money in comparison to other bloggers, but I also do not have a lot of money anyway. So a little feels like a lot. That is why I make the most out of the free resources for bloggers that are available.
I managed to grow my blog spending very little money and would like to show you the exact resources I use. This is to prove that you do not need to spend a small fortune when setting up your blog. Blogging can also be done for absolute free…..but self-hosted is better. For a free step-by-step guide on how to set up your own self-hosted blog, click the image below. It’s free, easy and simple.
Essential Resources for Bloggers
Blogging platform
The blogging platform that you choose is somewhat down to personal preference and what you are used to. I chose WordPress because it is what I have always used. Some people choose blogger, but I have heard that it doesn’t offer as many options as a WordPress site. I have never used blogger, so I can’t be sure if that is completely true and being a WordPress fan, I think I am a little bias anyway on this point.
Bluehost
Once you have chosen your platform, you need to choose your hosting site. This allows you to own your own land in the world of web. I personally LOVE Bluehost. Bluehost is unbelievably easy to use and navigate, and when I first started Eclectically Ema, I knew nothing techy AT ALL! yet, it was still simple.
Bluehost has also been very reliable. No downtime. No site crashes. Nothing and the prices were very attractive too! Paying for your hosting is an essential cost, there is no way around it I’m afraid.
Using my link will get you an amazing deal on hosting with Bluehost.
Tailwind
OMG, Tailwind has been an incredible tool. I started off by pinning manually. Don’t get me wrong, pinning manually works for some people. For me, however, I had a toddler, I was pregnant, and I was moving house…all at the same time! so pinning manually just wasn’t an option for me.
I also saw a HUGE spike in my Pinterest traffic while I was using my Free 100 pins from Tailwind.
You can grab your free 1 month of Tailwind for FREE here.
Using Tailwind meant that I could automate my pinning and make sure that I was pinning consistently every day. I could schedule my pins to post whenever I wanted them to, and just helped me streamline my working process, in general, to be honest. The biggest bonus for me was that it saved me a TON of time. Which as a mum, is precious.
Pinterest Business Account
This one is COMPLETELY free. If you haven’t done it, go and do it. Right now. before you carry on reading. This allows you to see your Pinterest account analytics. As far as resources for bloggers go. This one is one of the most important when it comes to growing your blog. How are you going to know if your pins are being seen, or how many Pinterest users are engaging with your profile if you don’t have Pinterest analytics? that’s right, you’re not. You can even see what your followers are most interested in, a big help when writing content.
Google Analytics
Another completely free resources for bloggers. See how your blog is gaining traffic, how your readers are interacting with your blog and what your most popular pages are. This is a must-have if you are serious about blogging. The UI looks like this.
It doesn’t take too much figuring out and the app is, even more, user-friendly. This is free to use and an amazing resource for bloggers that want to see what pins drive the most traffic to their blogs as well as the most popular time of day for their blog.
Google Search Console
This shows you if your keywords are being searched for in google. It also shows you where in the list you rank, which is, of course, every blogger’s dream if your ranking on the first page of google!
As with Google Analytics, Google search console is free and you can sync it with your google analytics to get access to all the information in one place. I personally found google search console slightly more confusing to set up, but once it’s done it is the easiest thing ever!
Canva
Some people use pic monkey, some use Lightroom or Photoshop. Canva is by far the simplest and user-friendly (i. my opinion) and it’s free! I use Canva to create all of my images, and even some of my opt-ins for my email list. Canva does have a premium version where you can pay for some extra added features, but in all honesty, you don’t really need to. It can save you time with features like their resize, but to start with the free version is fine.
Finding Good Stock Photos is One of the Best Resources for Bloggers Who Want to Stand Out.
Stock Photos
No, you cannot just google image search and use those photographs that come up. I would say that 99% of those images have a copyright attached to them. That means using them on your blog is a MASSIVE no-no. Instead, there is a much simpler way to get some FREE stock photos. You can, of course, take your own, but if you’re not up for that, take a look at these great places.
Sign up for her email list and you’ll get 10 free stock photos to use on your blog, I’m pretty sure that you get more emailed to with her newsletter sometimes as well. Elle has a the Styled Stock Society membership which gives you premium stock photos to use on your blog.
Tilly has 15 free stock photos waiting for you when you first sign up to her newsletter, as well as 3 new photos each month, pretty awesome really and I end up using them every month.
She also has the Oh Tilly Styled Stock Catalogue which is Tilly’s membership. She offers three different payment option for every budget.
Kayla from Ivory Mix has probably the biggest library of stock photos. By signing up you instantly gain access to her resource library with over 300 stock images on there for you to use! what more could you ask for? Kayla also has a membership for her premium stock photos, which offers specially designed and sized social media graphics as well.
I know that you may think you do not need to pay for stock photos, but when you see 10 other pins using the same image you are, you have to realise that it’s going to harm your brand in the end. You want your pins to stand out. That’s why I picked three awesome blogs that offer free and paid stock photos, just in case you aren’t quite ready to pay for premium photos.
Ready Set Blog for Traffic!
Although this is not essential, it will prove extremely helpful, rewarding and valuable if you are trying to master Pinterest. Elna from Twins mommy has developed a course that will drive traffic to your blog called ‘Ready Set Blog for Traffic‘ with an enormous section on conquering Pinterest. The course covers all bases and I have found it so so helpful already, even though I haven’t actually made my way through all of it. There is that much content in this course and offers so many extra resources for bloggers.
19 Essential Resources you need for a professional blog Click To Tweet
MailChimp
MailChimp is the perfect email list provider for a beginner. MailChimp’s Forever Free plan gives you access to the majority of Mailchimp’s features but caps your subscriber limit to 2000 subscribers. For a new blogger, this is more than enough! MailChimp has become an even more perfect resource for bloggers since they made their automation feature free, which was a godsend!!
Grammarly
I use this resource on a daily basis, whenever I’m writing in fact. This nifty little tool will show corrects for your grammar, spelling and if it thinks you have used the wrong word in the free version. If your spelling and grammar are just a little iffy, then the free version of Grammarly is perfect and it means you dot have to keep writing content in a word document and then copy and paste it into your blog’s editor.
Instagram and its Users are Resources for Bloggers. It’s a Great Way to Grow and Engage with Your Audience.
Hashtag manager
This is a great resource for bloggers who are also wanting to grow their Instagram following. This app allows you to save your most used hashtags into the categories you want. The app also has a handy counter, which tells you how many hashtags you have, so you don’t go over the limit of 30 per post. Then you can copy them to your clipboard and paste them into the comments of your post on Instagram. It saves having to either remember everyone or having them saved in a note somewhere.
Awin
Awin is an affiliate network. You can read more about it here, This is a great resource for bloggers who are looking to monetise their site with affiliate marketing. Awin is great for new bloggers and has loads of household names such as Etsy, M&S, Dorothy Perkins and ASOS.
Take a look at this awesome affiliate network here.
Editorial calendar plugin
While I was writing my 30 Day Christmas countdown series, this was so helpful because I could view my month at a glance and see what was being posted when. I could also drag and drop my posts to different days if I wanted to. I am unsure if you can get this plugin on blogger, but I’m sure you can get something very similar on every blogging platform that allows plugins.
Google suite
This is a must, especially if you don’t have Microsoft. The benefit of google suite over Microsoft is that it’s accessible from any device that has an internet connection. I have used google suite for writing notes, drafting blog posts and even creating opt-ins. You do have to create a Gmail account to be able to log in, but it’s definitely worth it.
Epic Blog One Year Editorial Planner by Regina Anaejionu
I looked for ages for a decent planner or diary to have my editorial calendar in. None of them quite hit the mark. Then I saw a YouTube video for ‘Epic Blog One-Year Editorial Planner‘ by Regina Anaejionu. This planner is written by a blogger, for bloggers. So Regina knows exactly what we are looking for in a planner and what resources for bloggers are needed. Take a peek at the planner here.
How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling your Soul By Ruth Soukup
How to blog for profit: without selling your soul got bought for me for Christmas. I have started to read it and think that Ruth goes into each chapter in quite some detail. Ruth also writes in a way that is really easy to relate to. The book takes you through the steps you need to do before you can start monetising your site and give resources for bloggers to improve their blog. It’s a very interesting read so far. I would recommend taking a look at this awesome book here.
Neil Patel’s keyword finder
if you want to rank in google with the killer SEO that you have been using, you need to make sure that people are actually searching for whatever your keyword is. I know right, I was shocked by this as well?! I just assumed everybody searched for everything…..what a dum dum I am.
Go to google and type in Ubersuggest. This is Neil’s keyword finder, and you can use it for free, as many times as you like. This has become a permanent and essential step in m writing process now, to make sure I find the perfect keyword, that isn’t impossible to rank for, but not so much that no one ever searches for those words. Neil also shows you when that keyword is the most searched in a handy graph like this one below, it’s showing for the keyword ‘resources for bloggers.’
Strong coffee
This is the most important!….for me anyway HAHA! Coffee keeps my brain functioning and in work mode, while I have two children at home, luckily I have this coffee machine that makes pretty good coffee in seconds. Perfect when the time is short! I recommend these pods if you like an Americano.
What resources do you use that you couldn’t live without?