My Favorite Blogging Tools and Resources

Note: Affiliate links may be used in this post. When you buy through my affiliate links I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Full disclosure here.

Blogging Tools and Resources

I often receive questions about the blogging tools and resources that I have used, so I decided to put my recommendations all in one place for easy reference!

These are all tools and resources that I have personally used and loved. As a full-time blogger, these are the things that keep my blog business running!

I only recommend products that I can vouch for 100% and that I think will help you too. If you decide to make a purchase using one of the links below, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

If you haven’t started a blog yet, be sure to sign up for my free Blogging Bootcamp email course to get your blog started ASAP.

Web Hosting

The first step to starting your blog is getting web hosting. This is basically where your blog will “live” on the Internet. It’s important to go with a self-hosted web hosting company instead of a free platform if you want to monetize your blog.

Bluehost

This is the web hosting company I use to host all my blogs. I’ve used Bluehost for many years now and have had a great experience. They offer fast, reliable, affordable web hosting and are the perfect choice for new bloggers.

Best of all, they have the lowest prices out of any web hosting company. It’s just $1.99 per month, and you get your domain name for free.

Click here to read my step-by-step guide for setting up your blog with Bluehost.

WordPress Themes

Once you have started your blog, you’ll need a WordPress theme. While there are plenty of free themes out there, I prefer premium themes because they have better design, customization options and, functionality.

I have worked with all of the following themes over the years and can highly recommend purchasing a theme from any of the following theme designers:

All of these themes come with great set-up documentation and customer support. This is crucial if you’re a new blogger and need some extra help!

Stock Photos

Beautify your blog with stock photos! This is a great way to save time and not have to worry about taking your own photos for your blog.

I use and recommend Haute Stock.

You can sign up for a quarterly or annual stock photo subscription. You can also sign up for the Haute Stock email list and receive FREE monthly photos!

Blogging Education

I highly recommend investing in blogging education such as online courses and ebooks to help you reach success faster as a blogger.

30 Days to Blogging Success

I have to mention my own online course here! 30 Days to Blogging Success is a complete step-by-step roadmap to help you start and grow a profitable blog.

Legally Blogs

Want to make sure your blog is legal? Starting a blog is starting a business, and Legally Blogs is a great FREE online course created by a lawyer that will teach you everything you need to know about protecting your blog legally.

Pinteresting Strategies

Pinterest can be an AMAZING way to get traffic to your blog, if you know how to use it right. I took Pinteresting Strategies (created by Carly, a successful blogger who gets 200k+ pageviews per month from Pinterest) as a new blogger and it skyrocketed my traffic within a few weeks. You can get an additional $5 off the price of the course when you use the discount code PINNING5.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of my main sources of income as a blogger, and I learned basically everything I know about it from this awesome course! Created by Michelle, a blogger who earns over $50,000 a month from affiliate marketing on her personal finance blog Making Sense of Cents, this course is a great, in-depth guide to making money from affiliate marketing as a blogger.

Software

There are a few programs that I use on a regular basis to run my blogging business. Some of these I pay monthly for, while other tools I use are free.

Kit

Kit is the email marketing platform I use. Thanks to Kit, I have grown my email list to over 10,000 subscribers. You can sign up for their free plan here. (It’s 100% free for sending emails up to 10,000 subscribers, which is awesome!)

Canva

I use Canva for designing all my Pinterest pins and any other graphics I need for blog. Best of all, it’s totally free and extremely easy to use!

SendOwl

The absolute EASIEST way to sell your digital products is with SendOwl. I use them to sell my ebooks. It’s literally the easiest platform to use and so quick to set up. Plans start at $18/month, but you can get two months for $2 here.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is extremely important for coming up with blog post ideas that can actually rank in the Google search results and bring you traffic. These are the tools that I personally use and recommend for keyword research for bloggers.

RankIQ

This is the number one keyword research tool I recommend because it was created specifically for bloggers! It’s normally $99/month, but you can get it for just $49/month using the link above. You don’t have to pay for this tool every month either. I usually get it a few times a year to do keyword research in bulk!

Semrush

Semrush is an expensive tool, but luckily they have a free trial which I highly recommend taking advantage of! You can get unlimited access to the tool for free for 7 days, and after that, you can still get 10 free searches per day.

Helpful Blog Posts

Finally, I have lots of free content on my blog to help new bloggers! My main mission is to provide helpful, actionable content to help you succeed at blogging.

Not sure where to start?

Here are my recommendations for where to start learning:

About the author: Dale is the founder of Blogging Her Way and the creator of several other successful blogs. She's here to help you start and grow a money-making blog and profit from your passions.