Okay, so I start a blog, but then what? What do I do and use to build my blog and grow? How do I make it look professional? How do I comply with the law? And what do I use for security? Oh, and how do I monetize it? With this article I’m planning to answer these questions and help you, a beginner blogger, figure out what you need in this journey. So if you’re starting a blog and don’t know what you should do/use next, this is for you! Below, you’ll find some blogging tips, tools, and resources that will guide you through the first stages of creating a blog.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.
This page is meant to help you find useful resources you may need in your blogging journey, as well as what other bloggers use for their websites.
Blogging Tips And Resources To Get Started
Below are the main resources you need to and when you start a blog.
#1 SiteGround
When you want to start a blog and earn money from it, you have to think about self-hosting. For this, you need a web hosting company.
Not that long ago, I was doing my own research about which hosting company to go with. After hours of reading and reading, I decided SiteGround was the best solution for me, a beginner blogger who plans on being serious about this.
I pair SiteGround with WordPress.org. (WITH WORPRESS.COM, YOU CANNOT SELF-HOST YOUR BLOG).
Why do I recommend this hosting company?
- 24/7 professional online support
- Affordable prices for what they offer:
- Free Email Address for your domain (which I recommend you create for your blog/website to appear more professional)
- Plugins for whatever you wish to have on your blog
- Free SSL Certificate (you need it for security and credibility reasons)
- Free automatic daily backups
- You can monetize your blog with affiliate links and ads
- Fast loading speed
- Easy to install WordPress.org
#2 Studio Mommy Blog Theme
After you install WordPress.org, you will need a theme for your blog. If you don’t know exactly what you want, that’s okay. You can always change the first theme you select. But should you get a free theme or a paid one?
When I started my blog, I read somewhere that a high-quality paid theme is better for SEO and you basically need one after a while. But honestly, I don’t think it’s completely true in all cases. What’s important is that your theme is optimized for phone visualization, allows you to customize your website, and has good customer support (which yes, many free themes don’t have).
I bought my theme from Studio Mommy shortly after installing WordPress, but it’s okay if you don’t want to invest in a paid theme right from the beginning. However, if you do, check out Studio Mommy’s Every Morning WordPress theme.
What I like about their design:
- They have feminine, classy, elegant, and professional-looking premade templates
- Customer service
- Mobile responsive
- “Back-to-Top” Button
- Category Page
- Subscribe Page
- It is easy to navigate through
- SEO friendly
- You’ve got four beautiful blog themes you can choose from for a very reasonable price (it’s definitely worth it if you’re a beginner like me)
- They offer you tutorials to install the theme and make it look like the demo.
- If you don’t want to spend time figuring out the installation process, you can pay for their theme installation service (it’s what I did because, honestly, you’ve got so many other things that need your attention).
I have the Kylee More theme (now Every Morning), and I am absolutely IN LOVE with it!
#3 Amira’s Legal Bundle
You should know that it is required by law that your blog has certain legal pages. It’s also in your best interest since I’m assuming you want to avoid lawsuits that could cost you tons of money, or content theft and violations.
I have the Starter Legal Bundle which includes the three legal pages you HAVE to have on your blog in order to comply with the law:
- Privacy Policy
- Disclaimer
- Terms And Conditions
Be careful though with the free templates for these pages! The thing is, with these kinds of services, you get exactly what you pay for. What professional do you think works hard to create something like this and then gives it for free? Can you imagine how much time and knowledge it takes to create legal content that protects your online business?
A free template might not entirely cover your website legally or it may come with hidden fees! Also, copy-pasting someone else’s pages IS NOT okay. You need a license to use this content. It is someone’s intellectual property!
Some of the reasons I chose Amira’s Legal Bundles are:
- They are PROFESSIONALLY written.
- Amira is an experienced and successful lawyer and blogger who knows what she’s doing.
- They are super easy to customize in accordance with your niche!
- You can get them at a very reasonable price, considering what it would cost if you’d hire a lawyer.
- You save A LOT of time and can focus on writing and growing your business.
- She updates the content when new laws apply.
#4 ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an email marketing platform primarily designed for creators, bloggers, and small businesses to manage their email marketing campaigns effectively. It provides tools for building email lists, creating and sending email newsletters, automating email sequences, and analyzing the performance of email campaigns.
Here’s how a tool like this can help you in this blogging business:
- Building and Engaging with an Audience: Email marketing allows bloggers to build a loyal audience by capturing email addresses of their readers. By regularly sending valuable content directly to subscribers’ inboxes, bloggers can engage with their audience on a more personal level.
- Driving Traffic to Blog Posts: With email marketing, bloggers can promote their latest blog posts, articles, or other content directly to subscribers, driving traffic back to their website. This helps increase visibility and engagement with their content.
- Monetization Opportunities: Email marketing enables bloggers to promote affiliate products, sponsored content, digital products (such as ebooks or online courses), or their own services directly to their audience, potentially increasing revenue streams.
- Building Authority and Trust: Consistently delivering high-quality content via email can help bloggers establish themselves as authorities in their niche and build trust with their audience. This trust can lead to increased reader loyalty and engagement over time.
- Personalized Communication: Email marketing platforms like ConvertKit allow bloggers to segment their audience based on interests, behaviors, or other criteria. This enables them to send targeted and personalized content to different subscriber segments, increasing relevance and engagement.
- Automation and Efficiency: By setting up automated email sequences, bloggers can nurture relationships with their audience without needing to manually send each email. This saves time and ensures that subscribers receive a consistent flow of content.
Here you can read how to set up your ConvertKit.
#5 Create Branding Elements (Logo, Tagline, Favicon)
You want your blog to look beautiful and professional, don’t you? Then you’ll need a logo, favicon, and tagline.
A favicon, short for “favorite icon,” is a small icon associated with a website or web page. It appears in the browser tab or address bar, as well as in bookmarks or favorites lists.
A website’s tagline is a short, memorable phrase or slogan that succinctly communicates the purpose, value proposition, or essence of the website or brand. It’s typically displayed prominently on the homepage or header of the website and serves as a quick way to convey what the website is about to visitors.
The most common and user-friendly tool to use to create these elements is Canva.
#6 Create Your WordPress Gravatar
What’s a Gravatar? It stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. It’s that round, small picture next to your name.
To be honest, it’s not essential to do it right from the beginning, but it will make you feel like you’re one step further once you set it up. It helps your image and credibility.
Essential Plugins To Install On Your WordPress
I try to use only the plugins that are essential for my blog and being at the beginning of this journey, there aren’t that many. This is because the more plugins you use, the more they slow down your website. Readers don’t like that. Neither does Google. Thus, it will affect your SEO.
#7 All In One SEO
This is the plugin I use to optimize my content. You can either use All In One SEO or Yoast SEO or Rank Math.
Optimized content leads to more traffic to your website.
AIOSEO makes suggestions so that you can write a proper title, meta description, headings, and subheadings, as well as other aspects that improve your overall on-page SEO.
All of its functions may seem intimidating at first, but you’ll discover it’s actually easy to find your way around it.
Like most plugins, AIOSEO has a free and a pro version.
If you need help installing it, here’s a video tutorial on how to set up All In One SEO correctly.
#8 MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is a Google Analytics plugin. How does it work?
Once you install it and activate it on your WordPress, you can then connect your website with Google Analytics.
All the relevant statistics (such as page views, country, referral links, bounce rate etc.) can be seen right in your WordPress dashboard. Just click on “Insights”.
As usual, they offer a free version, as well as a premium one.
Here’s how to install Google Analytics on WordPress.
#9 Wordfence and Change WP-Admin Login
I recommend these two for security reasons. Wordfence protects your site from hackers by blocking malicious IP addresses and alerting you of any potential security issues (for example, a login from a different IP address, or plugins that need to be updated). It also sends you security reports, and from the “Tools” menu you can see if someone tried to log into your WordPress.
Change WP-Admin Login also makes it harder for someone to hack into your account. Most hackers know that the login URL for a website is “the website/wp-admin”. This plugin, however, allows you to change the login URL to something else.
#10 A cookie plugin
The privacy policy and a cookie plugin are enough to ensure your compliance with the law when it comes to your viewers’ personal data. But it’s important to install the cookie plugin because the legal pages aren’t enough to cover the cookie policy.
I use CookieYes | GDPR Cookie Consent to show that my website complies with the EU cookie laws, but there are other plugins that go with WordPress. Just go to Plugins- Ad new and search cookie plugin.
Blogging Resources And Tools I Use To Write
#11 KeySearch
KeySearch is a comprehensive SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool designed to help website owners, marketers, and businesses improve their online visibility and drive organic traffic to their websites. It offers a range of features and functionalities aimed at optimizing various aspects of your website’s performance in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Some of the advantages of using KeySearch are:
- Keyword Research: KeySearch allows you to discover relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition. By targeting the right keywords, you can increase your chances of ranking higher in search results and attracting more organic traffic to your website. Keep in mind, however, that you don’t have to go after high-volume keywords when you are just starting. You can get traffic and build an audience with low-volume keywords as well.
- Competitor Analysis: With KeySearch, you can analyze your competitors’ websites to uncover their top-performing keywords, backlink profiles, and overall SEO strategies. This insight can help you identify opportunities to improve your own website’s SEO and stay ahead of the competition.
- Rank Tracking: KeySearch allows you to track your website’s rankings for specific keywords across various search engines and geographic locations. By monitoring your rankings, you can assess the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and make adjustments as needed to improve your visibility in SERPs.
- Content Optimization: KeySearch offers tools for optimizing your website’s content for search engines, such as what words to include on your post, based on top 10 results in SERP.
- Affordability: Compared to some other SEO tools on the market, KeySearch offers a cost-effective solution without compromising on features and functionality.
#12 Grammarly
You might have heard of Grammarly. It’s an advanced tool designed to enhance your writing by providing real-time feedback on grammar, punctuation, style, and clarity. Whether you’re crafting an email, composing a report, or writing creatively, Grammarly offers suggestions and corrections to help you communicate more effectively.
If you have a paid subscription, such as the Premium one, you can benefit from many more features, such as tone suggestion, full-sentence rewrites, and generating and proofreading citations.
What’s more, if you have a Premium or Business account, you can detect plagiarism. Basically, Grammarly verifies your work by checking it against 16 billion web pages.
If you want to learn more about the advantages of using Grammarly, just take two minutes to watch the video below.
Blogging Tips and Tools for For The Images
#13 Haute Stock
Haute Stock is a premium marketing membership created for women entrepreneurs. Your membership grants you access to high-quality stock photos, customizable templates, designer branding elements, and monthly marketing guides. However, the subscription costs more than $100 per 3 months, so if you can’t afford this, don’t worry! There are other AMAZING resources that are affordable. See Canva below!
Why did I choose Haute Stock?
- Feminine, beautiful, high-quality stock photos
- You have the option to filter the results by brand colors
- If you want, they can assign someone to select your photos for you
- Literally everything that they have to offer. For instance, photos, templates, marketing guides, instaquotes, etc.)
- You can use their products on your blog, website, or social media (including Pinterest)
- PLUS, It helps with the SEO (paid stock photos are considered high-quality and not everyone has them, which is what Google likes about them)
For example, here is a comparison between the quality of an Haute Stock image and that of an Unsplash image (free stock photos)
Haute Stock photo
Unsplash image (the text was added by me to use it as a featured photo)
Quick update: although I love Haute Stock, I decided to take a break from their subscription and use the money for courses. Even so, I get to keep using the photos and other resources I’ve already used or saved to my computer.
#14 Image Compressing Tools
The main reasons to use an image compressing tool when starting a blog are:
- to improve page load speed (uncompressed images can slow down your site)
- because they consume less bandwidth when visitors access your website (This is particularly important if you have a limited hosting plan or if you’re aiming to accommodate users with slower internet connections or mobile devices.)
- to optimize for SEO- Search engines like Google consider page load speed as a factor in determining search rankings. Faster-loading pages, facilitated by compressed images, can contribute to better SEO performance.
Some popular and easy-to-use tools are Tinypng and Website Planet’s Image Compressor.
Both work with a drag-and-drop system. You can use both for free, with a daily limit of images you can upload and a limited file size.
Another option is to install a plugin and set it up to automatically compress your existing and future images. Such plugins are Smush, ShortPixel, or EWWW Image Optimizer.
#15 Canva
Canva is a designer’s heaven! In case you haven’t heard of Canva, it is a graphic design platform that you can use for free or with a paid subscription. Either way, you can create social media graphics, templates, presentations, posters, videos, and SO MUCH MORE.
What’s more, they offer a wide variety of templates, stock photos, elements, fonts, colors, and videos. You can also use different effects, though keep in mind some of them need you to have a paid subscription.
You can even edit images and make a few adjustments, such as cropping and resizing.
As you can see, the things you can do with Canva are limitless.
Another great feature is that they have the sizing for lots and lots of templates and posts. For example, Instagram posts or stories, Pinterest pins, logos, Facebook covers or stories, videos, resumes, infographics, and so much more.
Or there’s the option to create a custom size for your design.
Finally, you can sign up with a free account and take advantage of their free trial for the premium subscription.
Try CANVA for FREE here.
Of course, if you have any questions, you can contact me here.
Have a productive blogging day!:)
