This resource hub is a collection of my favorite blogging tools and resources for bloggers and emerging entrepreneurs to build an online business.

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosures page for more information.

I know you’re here for the freebies, so I am going to list those first.

I created a Freebies Vault to collect digital products, that I have made for you, all in one place.  Everything in the vault is something that I think could help make your blogging business just a little bit easier for you.  I plan to continually add to the collection, but for now, it consists of:

• • • A 40-page blog planner with checklists, SEO and content calendars.
    • 600 Opt-in freebie ideas that you can create to grow your own email list.
    • A 49-point blog launch checklist to start your blog off the right way.
    • 85 Blog Post Headlines that Convert
    • Fifty 5-minute blogging tasks that you can complete in small pockets of time throughout your day.

This is one of THE BEST freebies I have ever received in my life.  The Service First Framework is an ebook written by Eli Natoli.  She is a Business Marketing Strategist, and she has a GIFT of understanding your client’s needs on a deeper level.  Every piece of her content that I have consumed has been amazing.

Eli’s business is centered around providing and leading clients with SERVICE first. This book focuses on that principle but also teaches you how to develop your own signature framework around an offer to get more customers.  It details a unique 5-part sales funnel to attract and convert your exact target audience.

Read this book.  I’m telling you, you’re going to have lightbulbs to start going off in your head when you do.

The Perfect Blog Plan is a free ecourse created by Suzi Whitford of Start a Mom Blog. It is a step-by-step, 12 month plan that Suzi followed herself to scale her blogging business to making $10k a month!

The blog plan gives you an exact blueprint of the steps you need to take to grow your blog, your website traffic, your email list, and your profits.  It comes with a course workbook to aid you in creating your own profitable blogging plan.

If you are a new blogger (or even experienced), and feel confused about what steps to take next in your blogging business, this guide is for you.

That’s because there is an art and science to affiliate marketing.  And Michelle Schroeder-Gardner from Making Sense of Cents has got it figured out!

Michelle earns over $50,000 A MONTH, just from affiliate marketing!  She wrote a free 36-page ebook, Affiliate Marketing Tips for Bloggers.  In the ebook, she answers how she got started making this much money with affiliate marketing, and how bloggers can get paid using her same methods.  The ebook lists out the best affiliate marketing programs for bloggers, and includes 26 affiliate marketing tips.

Some creators use Private Label Rights (PLR) digital products in their business, to save time and increase productivity.  Suzanne and Tracy at Piggy Makes Bank, have several done-for-you PLR email script templates, blog posts, and ebooks available for free (there are premium options available as well).

>>> See this blog post for ways you can use PLR content here. <<<

Blog Traffic Bonus Guide – Free

This ebook is the prequel to another book that I mention in the next section, Traffic Transformation: 21 Strategies I used to go from 17K to 400K page views in 10 months.

Thank goodness for Lucrezia at Blogging for New Bloggers.  She is an international lawyer and a GDPR expert.  She has created several legal templates and courses for bloggers, to help them stay compliant.  The course that I am specifically referencing is ‘Legally Blogs‘.

Legally Blogs is a free course that teaches about the legal requirements of blogging, the legal pages you need to include on your blog, and it introduces you to protecting your blog content with copyrights.  It also explains what CCPA and GDPR are (because even though I mentioned it earlier, I have no idea).

This course is a good introduction to the legal documents you need to include on your blog and if you decide you pay for the legal templates, Lucrezia and Marina have you covered there too,

Elna at Twins Mommy made over $68K, just from affiliate marketing, and that was back in 2022! She created a list of 100 proven tips that she uses to make money in her own blogging business.

The next section are my most favorite cources that I have paid for.  I have taken ALOT of blogging-related courses, and these made the list because I felt like the value they provided was well worth the money.

I didn’t include the price next to this course, because at the time that this article was written, Stupid Simple Blogging was temporarily closed and the price was not listed.

Mike Futia only opens up this course a few times a year, so if you are interested in the course, you should go ahead and sign up for the waitlist here. ← ← ←

Stupid Simple Blogging will likely be the most expensive course on this list, but the information in this course is worth it.  It is a course on increasing organic website traffic and improving Google rankings through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I thought I understood the basics of SEO before I took Stupid Simple Blogging. I’m here to tell you….

I had NO idea before this course.

Some of the course curriculum topics include:

• • • Keyword Research
    • Competitor Keyword Research
    • Domain Authority
    • Content formulas and strategies to get your articles to get your articles to rank on page one of Google search

This list oversimplifies the course curriculum when really Mike takes his students on a DEEP dive into these topics. You won’t find a course like this anywhere else.

Even though Michelle wrote a free ebook on affiliate marketing, I also found the paid course to be helpful in my marketing strategy.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing taught me how to frame and present my affiliate products in a way that makes my readers actually want to click on them.  It reviews the rules of affiliate marketing that you must follow, how to get accepted to affiliate programs, and long-term strategies to earn money from your affiliate links.

I recommend Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing to new or experienced bloggers, because just slapping an affiliate link on your website, ain’t it.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course: An Honest Review

Traffic Transformation $79

She got tired of her blog traffic not matching the amount of work she was putting into it.  So, she committed to learning and applying one thing that would increase her blog traffic per day.

The result was she increased her page views from 17K to 400K in 10 months!  Traffic Transformation shares 21 actionable steps that Lena took to get these results.  Her customers have repeated these steps and had similar results.  Traffic Transformation is a no-brainer.

Carly at Mommy on Purpose gets over 100K page views per month to her blog from Pinterest! In her course Pinteresting Strategies 2.0, she teaches her exact strategies for consistently bringing in this amount of traffic

She has hacked the Pinterest algorithm, and not only shares her secrets in this course, but she updates it when it changes.  Pinteresting Strategies teaches optimal pin design practices (and even gives you some Pinterest pin templates!), Pinterest SEO, and how Pinterest can improve your SEO ranking on Google.

Pinteresting Strategies is essential for beginner bloggers, because you need traffic, and Pinterest will deliver if you follow the strategies in this course.

Jenna Kutcher is one of my favorite creators, because she is just so dang real.  Her course, The Content Lab, really helped me understand how to REALLY connect to my audience through my content.  She reveals her 5-step system for creating effective content, and how to repurpose it, to extend its shelf.

Repurposing content used to feel like just one more thing on my to-do list, and one more thing I had to figure out how to do. The Content Lab gives you an exact schedule and strategy to repurpose your content, so you barely have to even think about it.

My favorite part of the course is learning how to really connect with your audience like Jenna does.

Pinterest Traffic Avalanche $197

I took both courses, and I absolutely recommend both courses for all content creators. Each Pinterest course offer unique  education about the same platform.

WordPress.org is an open-source, self-hosted platform.  This specific WordPress platform allows for full website customization and plugin installation, without hidden fees.  Wordpress.org provides the most flexibility in web design, security measures, monetization, and functionality.

This platform allows you to monetize your website any way you choose and does not force you to share the revenue with anyone.

With WordPress.org, you 100% own the content on your website. the domain name that you purchase is not shared with a subdomain, giving your brand a more professional look. With a self-hosted platform, you do have to purchase a hosting plan and domain up front, but the customization and monetization options are beyond worth it.

I specifically mention all of these features, because they are essential if you are wanting to make money from your blog, and the free hosted options, including WordPress.COM, just don’t offer these features.  And if they do, they are at a premium.

The verdict: A self-hosted WordPress.org website is the best option.  

Note: WordPress is automatically installed when you complete your hosting purchase with Bluehost, so I didn’t add a button to this resource.

With Bluehost, all WordPress plans come with a free domain for one year, 24/7 customer support, a free SSL, custom WordPress themes and one year of professional email service. 

One of my favorite features of Bluehost is that it installs WordPress for you.  I also like that WordPress has a domain registration option, so I can manage my domain and hosting under one account.  It’s not a necessity, but I find it helpful in making things easier.

For more information on How to start a WordPress Blog on Bluehost, see my blog post:

How to Start a Blog in 2024.

You can even upload free or premium templates to Elementor, with the majority of the design done for you, and then you can customize them as you wish.

As someone who has no idea about web design or CSS coding, this plugin was a lifesaver for me when I first started blogging.  With my very limited tech knowledge, I was still able to create a website that I was proud of, all by myself.

Divi is another WordPress page builder, with a visual editor.  It also features drag and drop web page building, without the use of CSS code.

The Blog Planner is currently using the Divi theme with the Divi page builder.

Between the two page builders, I prefer Elementor.  Elementor was more user-friendly and intuitive to use, especially as a beginner who had no idea what I was doing.  The only reason I switched to Divi, was because I found the Divi child theme that I currently have, and I liked the design better.  For beginners, Elementor is the clear winner in my mind.

WP Rocket for Site Speed Optimization

Site speed is an important factor in SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  If your page speed is slow, people will quickly leave your website, making your bounce rate high.  SEO doesn’t like that.

I wish I would have thought to take a “before” picture, before I started using WP Rocket.  My site speed was a C before, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it manually.  Thankfully for WP Rocket, I don’t have to anymore.  Another win for those that aren’t tech savvy.

Imagify integrates with WP Rocket to improve web performance.   When I upload a new image, this plugin immediately begins compressing and resizing it for optimal performance.  It does so without sacrificing image quality, so I can still use images on my website as much as I want.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an app and a browser extension that checks your content for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence clarity. I literally use Grammarly every day, in all facets of my life.

1.”Digital Marketing Strategy: Profitable Sales Funnel Mastery” by Maggie Stara

2. “Copywriting for Beginners: How to Write Web Copy that Sells without being Cheesy” by Jesse Forrest

3. “Email Marketing for Beginners- Growing your List and Biggest Mistakes Copywriters Make” by Jun Wu

4. “Marketing Psychology and Consumer Behavior” by Best Courses

5. “Customer Service Mastery: Delight Every Customer” by Chris Croft

So what’s in it for you to use ConvertKit? High email deliverability rates are essential for an email marketing platform to have in the blogging business because sending emails is how you nurture your list (and eventually turn them into leads, hopefully).

One of my favorite features of ConvertKit, is the ability to set up my email copy, sales funnels, and automations ahead of time, and then I can just forget about it.  This means your audience is nurtured, but you don’t have to worry about sending emails in the middle of the day when you’re busy, and you don’t have to question if it’s going to be delivered or not. What a relief.

ConvertKit is the most user friendly for setting up the automations, which can be a little more complex.  I also linked ConvertKit to both my Divi page builder, and WooCommerce, so that that means you can gather both subscribers and customers to nurture.

>>> Alternative: If I wasn’t using Convertkit, my next choice for email marketing platforms would be Flodesk. Like Convertkit, Flodesk also features workflows for automation that you can set up one time and rely on it to deliver your emails when you are busy.

However, Flodesk stands out among other platforms in the market, because they do not charge you more as your email list grows, like most other email platforms.  The subscription fee for Flodesk remains the same.

Flodesk also has beautifully designed templates for full creative freedom.  The only reason I haven’t made the switch is, Flodesk doesn’t integrate with Divi or WooCommerce.

Actionable steps: check the integration capabilities of whichever email platform you decide on, to make sure it fits your needs.

Queue in Tailwind.  It is an app that I can use schedule my Pinterest pins to be pinned, and then I can go on about my day.  Tailwind takes care of knowing when the best times to post are, for my pin’s optimal performance.

Tailwind is also an official partner of Pinterest, so you can rest easy using it, knowing the algorithm won’t punish you for using the app.

Canva is the most user-friendly graphic design program that I have found.  It comes with a free or paid version, but the free will be adequate if you are just starting out.  My favorite part is the over 250,000 that you can use to make your design so much faster and quicker.

Simplifying DIY Design has a free mini course, Canva 2.0, to teach you how to navigate Canva if you have never used it before.

I find Google Drive to be really helpful in allowing me to still work when I am not at my desk.  I really like Google Sheets for keeping information organized, like keeping all of my affiliate links in one place.

I also like writing my blog posts in Google Docs, so that I will have a backup of my posts somewhere else besides my website.

I like storing freebies and digital products that I get from other creators in Google Drive, so they are all in one place. I download the Google Drive apps onto my iPhone and iPad, and then I just access these platforms from my browser on my MacBook.  Since my documents are stored in a cloud, I can access them across all of my devices.

The best news? All of the programs in Google Drive are free.

You can even design Notion templates, and sell them for an additional source of income. Notion for the win.

Creative Market for Online Marketplace

Yes, sometimes I make my own digital products, but I will buy from here if I am short on time, or have an idea in my head that I just can’t make look the way I want it to.

I actually purchased the templates for the Pinterest pin graphics in this post, from Creative Market.

In this blog post, I listed out my favorite resources for bloggers, because they have helped me to become the blogger I am today.  Have you tried any of these resources yourself?  If so, I want to hear about it in the comments. ⇓

If you found this list helpful to you, share it on Pinterest, will ya?