If you believe it or not: I’ve been blogging on and off since 2012. That is an insanely long time to learn new things and test services and products. Throughout the years I slowly figured out what worked and what didn’t. Not only for blogging, but also for developing myself and my creativity. Now I can share all of that with you right here, so let’s start!
PSSST, don’t forget that there is an entire freebie library full of blogging, self care and personal development tips waiting for you, if you’re a member of my newsletter squad. Not part of the newsletter squad yet? Join HERE.
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First I would suggest to check out my blog post about How to start a blog as a beginner to see a bit more in-depth why I use these tools.
Website Hosting
Bluehost
This is the web hosting service I use for this blog. It’s really easy to set up and use and I didn’t have any problems with it in my 4 years of using it. I would recommend it to everyone that wants to set up a blog easy, quick and cheap. They also have 24/7 support and there are tons of guides available online for how to use their services! It’s probably the most well-known hosting service and they have a domain/URL automatically included in their basic plan. I’m actually working on a webinar to clear up and confusions you might have with Bluehost.
Theme/Design
Hello You Designs
For the designs on this page you’ll need the Genesis Framework, but it’s absolutely worth it. Their designs are fully customizable and beautiful for any feminine and minimally branded business. They are perfect for every blogger that is trying to build a mailing list and still wants to look futuristic. The designs would work great for bloggers in niches with women as their target audience and especially bloggers that plan to coach as a side income. Some of their designs are also shop compatible in case you want to start up a shop with your blog.
Creative Market
Fonts, decorative graphics, stock photos, social media templates,… This site has it all and that’s why I love it. I use Creative Market almost weekly and just love how many different things you can get there. If you are still in your blog planning phase you should totally take them into consideration on your branding mood board. My favorite blog designs on there are: Blush, Blog Boss & Akay. You can also sign up for a Creative Market Pro Membership which is perfect for business owners and longtime bloggers.
WordPress Plugins
Yoast SEO
If you follow me a bit longer you will know how much I always mention in my blogging related posts that SEO is important. But even I can suck at it sometimes and this plugin makes it so much easier to just put in some keywords and a meta description into a post. This plugin is the reason why I’m being found on Google (alongside other things, but this is the main key). It also checks how well your posts are written and will tell you if it needs changes.
jQuery Pin It Button for Images
If you are a blogger you wanna be pinnable to get more traffic from Pinterest. Pinterest is one of the main traffic sources for pretty much every blogger. This is the plugin for you because it automatically puts a pin button on your blog post pictures if the reader hovers over it with their mouse. Make it easier for people to share your content!
Contact form 7
You want to be easy to reach by your readers and potential sponsors? This plugin is one of the most downloaded ones for a reason. Easy, minimal and does what it needs to do. It can be a little complicated to understand in the beginning but after a bit of trying it’s actually really fun to use if you need a questionnaire somewhere on your blog (definitely great for freelancers to ask questions before taking on a project!)
Smush Image Compression
Your website shouldn’t load for ten seconds after pressing enter or clicking a pin. Big pictures make your website slower and this tool compresses them into smaller files without losing quality. They also recently added the function to make your content load only when it’s on the screen. This makes loading time of your website slower and keeps people on your page for longer. Time is money and this plugin saves a lot of time in the long run.
Jetpack
Safety is important and this plugin is the best at doing that. The Premium plan of Jetpack will give you the best safety for the beginning in my opinion. I’m definitely not the first one you should ask about perfect website security but this tool makes me feel safer. This is a topic I will dive into deeper in the future blog posts to give you an entire security section on this recommendation page.
Mailmunch
If you want to build an email list with any of the big providers but their sign-up forms don’t look good, you should definitely use MailMunch. Their sign-up forms look so much better and with the paid plans they are super customizable. More on email services and other helpful tools further down the page.
Editing
Canva
This is a free online tool to create graphics. I personally use it for my mini ebooks and other freebies from time to time. If you want some really nice Instagram Stories or Quote pictures on Twitter, use this. Once you log into it you will see the variety the service has. For the start it’s definitely all you need for your social media and freebies. After that you might want to get into Adobe and their programs for actual digital products (InDesign is great!).
Lightroom
I edit almost all of my pictures with this. This is the best $100 investment I’ve ever made and I still learn new things about Lightroom. It’s easy to learn with a lot of videos on Youtube and I might make some Presets (Filters) for you in the future. Keep a look out for that. It takes a few videos to get into the program but then you won’t want to leave it again. I open that on my desktop and you don’t see me for at least 1-2 hours.
Photoshop
You probably think “This is too expensive” and I understand the thought. But if you pay for the Photoshop and Lightroom Bundle, you definitely don’t pay as much as you might think when you hear Photoshop. I personally have the Adobe Creative Cloud with all the programs from Adobe in it and while I mostly only use Photoshop & InDesign, it’s still so much more helpful than other tools. I also wanna learn to use Illustrator and further my skills in InDesign. It’s just nice and convenient that everything is compatible between the programs. TIP: If you’re in any way affiliated to the educational system (student, teacher, etc) you can get a discounted price.
Cameras
Canon G7x Mark II
This camera is small, fits in every bag and makes great pictures. I personally use it not only for my blog but also for my social media pictures. It’s a good allrounder camera and worth its price…although I personally have some problems with the filming mode. It’s a good one to start with and maybe grow out of if your goal is to also film with it. If you only need a camera for pictures this one is perfect and I use it for my Instagram pictures ALL the time. The WiFi function also sends pictures straight to your phone.
Canon 750d
This is the new equivalent to the Canon 600d (that I had as my first DSLR camera) and it is obviously better and compatible with lenses that came out more recently. If you want a camera that you can use for years and years and you can’t invest a lot at the moment you should go with this one. It still has a big price tag but it’s by far not as big as most cameras used by big bloggers.
Canon 70d
If you can invest in a camera you should absolutely buy the Canon 70d (or 80d). I use my 80d for all indoor pictures, filming my occasional videos for youtube & for a lot of my more professional looking pictures. The 70d is equally as good and a little bit cheaper, that’s why I recommend this one to you. It works great with lenses that came out in the last years and I can’t wait to try more lenses out with it.
50mm 1.8 lens
If you only buy one lens apart from the kit lens, buy the Nifty Fifty. It’s a cheap, easy and light lens that takes bright pictures with wonderful blurry backgrounds. It is good for product and portrait photography. A blogger must have. You’ll see the giant difference this lens makes compared to your standard lense. I’m having the updated version (linked above) on my wishlist for a while now and can’t wait to try it out with the better automatic focus.
More Blogging Resources
Grammarly
This tool saves my a** multiple times a day. English isn’t my native language, so this tool helps me to correct common mistakes or whole sentences that don’t sound good. The paid version gives you an even better insight on the way you write things wrong. You can choose how you wanted your text to sound to a reader and Grammarly will tell you if you wrote it well or need to change it. It also has a function that checks for plagiarism in case this is something you plan on using for your academic career.
Tailwind
Pinterest is the number one spot for bloggers and this is the best tool to grow on there and also grow your website traffic. You schedule your pins on there, join groups that fit your niche and share content of others that works well with your own. You can loop your pins to let them be shared to board in an interval AND you can check all your Pinterest analytics right on their dashboard. I’m just in love with the concept of having everything in one place. I wrote an honest review on it after one year of using it and also shed lights on things that can still be improved about the platform. You can check it out HERE.
Trello
Trello can do a lot of small things. I haven’t even tried out all of them yet. I personally use it to plan out all of my blog posts and newsletters over the months and add little goals to every month. Planning my content calendar is really easy with this, since it isn’t as overwhelming for the eyes. This can also be used if you have a team or business partner or for planning out your personal life tasks.
Convertkit
If you are a beginner and want to test the waters you should use MailChimp’s free option for a while, but as soon as you have over 1-2k people on your mailing list you should change to ConvertKit in my opinion. It’s one of the most widely used email tools in the blogger community and I can see why. It’s easy to use and great for mid-sized audiences. Their email designs are easy to use, their service comes with landing pages and pretty sign up forms and the service os compatible with pretty much any plugin for WordPress.
The Contract Shop
Paperwork, a word that makes you shudder, right? This shop helps you with contracts that you might need for selling products, services or collaborations. They also have good workbooks for the newbies in this big online world. This is definitely a go to store if your website is for your business (i.e. Freelancer, Coach, Podcaster, etc.) or if your blog has reached a size where you need to get better workflows going (contract templates are definitely a part of that). They also have templates for sponsorships that I’d suggest to every blogger and a bundle for all the common legal pages for a website/shop.
Other resources I love
Ultimate Bundles
This is a service I really love and hold near and dear to my heart. They curate digital products (ebooks, courses, workbooks, etc.) on different topics carefully and put them into bundles, so you can buy them for a much cheaper price. Some of their bundles literally have the product value of over a thousand dollars and cost less than 60 bucks. They don’t only have bundles around the topics of blogging and productivity, but also about money management, food and photography. Check out what they currently have on sale!
Redbubble
This is not really related to blogging or personal development, but to self care and creativity. I love rewarding myself with cool little things and Redbubble is a great way to do that. The sell shirts, stickers (get 50% off 6 stickers HERE), home decor and stationery (get 15% off 2 notebooks HERE). I even have my OWN shop on there with positivity and pop music designs. I’ll definitely upload more on there as time goes on. Highly recommend the shirts, the notebooks and the stickers. Don’t forget to use the coupon codes I linked to save some money!
Courses & ebooks
How to get your life together workbook guide
We all need our reset in life every now and then. What better time to get into goal setting today and figure out what you want to change in your life. This workbook guide goes through everything you could ever think about when it comes to getting rid of your old life and welcoming a new you.
Mind, Body & Soul eBook
Self care can be difficult terrain to get into when you’re a workaholic or an absolute couch potato. That’s why I wrote an entire eBook about anything self care. It’s a great resource for everyone that is new to building a self care habit or anyone that wants to get deeper into the topic.
Blogging Bossbabe course
I made a whole course on how to start a successful blog and monetize it quickly. It’s called Blogging Bossbabe and is constantly updated with new content. It currently has 7 video modules, even more written course modules, tons of free resources like ebooks, workbooks and templates & it’s priced affordably for beginners. Check out all the topics I teach in there and decide if you want to jumpstart your blog.
Unsure about trying it? You can get a free start into the course by signing up for my free “Blogger Starter Kit” email course filled with almost all the tools on this page being put into practice. You can join for free here:
