Blogging and Online Marketers Toolbox

The Blogger’s Toolbox details all of my most recommended products and services – products that I personally use everyday in my blogging and online marketing business.   These are tools that I recommend to anyone who is looking to take their business to the next level.  Note: some of these links are affiliate links.

 

Building Your Blog

Designing Your Blog

Email Marketing

Selling Online

Blogging Income

Social Media

Marketing Your Blog

WordPress Plugins For Bloggers

Blogging Productivity

 

Building Your Blog

• Picking a niche for your blog
• Domain Research:  domai.nr
• Domain Registration: Godaddy.com
• Web Hosting:  Liquidweb (high traffic) or Siteground (entry, mid level and up)
• Blog Platform:  WordPress – the ONLY way to go (make sure it is the WordPress.org version, not wordpress.com)

 Designing Your Blog

• WordPress Themes:   ElegantThemes (check out the Divi theme – its amazing!)
• Stock images: Dollar Photo Club
• Custom Logos/Graphics: 99Designs.com
• Design your own logos/graphics:  Canva.com or Picmonkey.com
• Remove backgrounds from photos in seconds (its free!) – Background Burner

 Email Marketing

• Email Marketing:   GetResponse
• Website Optin Bar:OptinMonster
• Lead Capture Forms:  OptinMonster
• Landing Pages & Squeeze pages:  Optimizepress2.0

 Selling Online

• Sourcing Drop Ship Products:  Worldwide Brands
• Membership Script Software:  Digital Access Pass
• eCommerce:  Woocommerce or Shopify
• SSL Certificates to secure your website for online shopping:  Digicert
• Automated Affiliate Store:  Prosperent

 Blogging Income

• Affiliate Marketing Programs:  Shareasale
• Automated Affiliate Marketing:  Prosperent
• Sell Your Own Banner Ads:  OIO Publisher
• Selling branded goods:  Teespring or Zazzle

 Social Media

• Scheduling, sharing and recycling content on social media:  Shareist
• Automate Your Pinning:  BoardBooster
• Scheduling content:  Coschedule
• Social sharing plugin:  Bloom

 Marketing Your Blog

• Live Webinar Platform:  GoToWebinar
• Automate Your Pinning:  ViralTag
• Automate Your Affiliate Marketing:  Prosperent
• Sell Your Own Banner Ads:  OIO Publisher
• Video Creation & Editing:  Easy Video Suite
• Screen Recordings:   Camtasia for PC or Camtasia for Mac or Screenflow
• Professional Microphone for Video/Webinars:  Blue Yeti

WordPress Plugins For Bloggers

These are all free unless otherwise specified, search for them by name in your site’s admin Plugin Marketplace.

• Akismet – prevents comment spam
• WordPress SEO – By Yoast – optimizes your site for SEO
• Resize images before upload – natively resizes your images as they are being uploaded, so you can prevent HUGE images from bogging down your site.
• Bloom Plugin – Social sharing plugin
• BackupBuddy – backup software offering local and remote backups (this is essential for your business!!)
• Auto Terms of Service and Privacy Policy – creates Terms and Privacy pages – a must have for every blog
• Redirection – automatically redirects any broken pages that exist now, or may come up in the future, back to your homepage.
• Permalink Finder – helps redirect pages if you change permalinks for any reason.
• Simple Link Cloaker – used to track links and mask affiliate links
• ALT for images – Automatically fills the alt tag on your images, if you forgot to populate it  (important for SEO)
• Comment Reply Notification – allows users to opt in and be notified when someone responds to a comment left on your site
• Easy Watermark – Automatically or manual watermarking of images after they are uploaded, for better branding
• Hello Bar (Official) – opt in bar for the top of your site
• Insert Post Ads – automatic insertion of adsense or other ad based code within the content of your posts.
• jQuery Pin It Button For Images – customizeable pin it button for images
• Prosperent Suite(free sign up required) – Makes monetization through affiliate marketing SUPER easy through automatic insertion/integration of affiliate links
• Related Posts by Zemanta – great way to display posts that are similar to the one being read
• Remove Posts in Category From Homepage – allows you to publish posts that you can directly link to, but that will not show up in your main blog feed
• Simple Social Icons – social sharing icons for your blog
• WP Content Copy Protection – protects your blog from content being stolen

 

Blogging Productivity

• Project Management:  Teamwork
• File Sharing:  Dropbox
• Note Taking (Stores online and shares across all platforms):   Evernote
• Task Manager for Mac:  HitList