Products I love!
Blogging can be very fulfilling and there are so many products and tools to help you get your blog up and running efficiently. These are some of the products I have tried, use, and LOVE!
{Disclaimer time: This page contains affiliate links. What this means for you is if you click on one of my affiliate links and make a purchase, I will earn a commission from your purchase at NO additional cost to you. You, however, will be helping this mama’s small business with each click through my affiliate link to purchase. See full disclosure here.}
Tailwind
Tailwind is a social media scheduler for Pinterest and Instagram. Schedule your content to post when your audience is most engaged. Schedule a weeks worth of pins in a flash. Streamline Instagram posting with auto post. Use Smartloop to reschedule pins and Tailwinds Tribes to gain exposure on Pinterest and increase blog traffic. Their analytics are easy to understand so you can see what is working and what’s not. There is so much you can do with this scheduler. Get a free 30 day trial here.
ConvertKit
Convertkit is a Free or paid email marketing manager. It allows users to build their email lists and makes managing those lists and autoresponders user-friendly.
I recommend going for a free account with Convertkit. Try it out to see what you think. There will of course be some limitations to to the free service vs. the paid service but once you are ready you can upgrade to the paid plan.
For me personally, Convertkit is my slowly becoming my jam. I didn’t know where to start with figuring out how to build an email list from zero. Convertkit made it easier. I was quickly able to set up my first two landing pages and get them on Pinterest. This was a big deal. They have free webinars you can sign up for and a well-built help section to answer questions and help you set up your systems. Give them a try.
Legal Bundle for Protecting Your Blog
This legal bundle is very reasonably priced and provides you with templates for the important legal pages your blog needs. The creator, Amira is an attorney. This paid legal bundle provides you with a privacy policy template, disclaimer template, and terms and conditions template for your blog. The templates are a customizable time saver and totally worth the investment.
Suzi – Start a Mom Blog Courses
First, I will start by saying the sheer volume of content available for free on Suzi’s blog is nothing short of amazing. She is my #1 go-to for answers when I have blogging questions. With that said, it is, for this reason, I quickly found the value in her knowledge and invested immediately in her VIP course package mainly because I wanted the Blog by Numbers course but all of her courses are awesome. No questions asked no buyer’s remorse. Since then, anytime she releases something new, I buy it. Most recently the Blog Growth Cookbook. Another must-have. Do yourself a favor and go check out her blog and her courses. You will not be disappointed.
Yasdsia-Online Planner Templates
On my other blog, It’s Simply Because, I create and sell digital planners and blog about journaling and health-related issues. Making digital planners and journals is a lot of work, even when you know what you are doing. Yadsia’s Canva planner templates make life easier. Do yourself a favor and check them out.
Pinterest Popular Course
Pinterest Popular is a comprehensive course, taught by Nadalie Bardo, that will help you learn to master Pinterest and maximize traffic to your site for free. You will learn to design click worthy pins easily. Pin SEO will also become a breeze. All this while gaining new followers and growing your email list. It’s totally worth the investment.
RelayThat
RelayThat is a design automation app for making marketing images fast. It is the answer to your time management issues if you are spending a ton of time making Pins for Pinterest. If you are a blogger, like me, you can make 10-15 pins for one post in a fraction of the time it took you before. It is fully customizable with your brand logo and colors. Pricing directly through their site can get pricey and it’s a monthy subscription fee. If you go through my link and AppSumo, you can get the same level of membership for a one time fee. Check it out! Also, see my blog post and demo video for how it works. It’s the missing link to making fresh pins for your content, fast.
Canva
Recently, Canva has become my go to for making unique pins for Pinterest and images for Instagram. The volume of templates they provide is awesome. I have used the free version, but found the value in the Pro features well worth the subscription. Ultimately, you can use their free plan to do everything you need with design for blogging, Pinterest, or Instagram, but you will want to upgrade. They offer monthly and annual plans when you are ready.
Plug-ins I love!
These are some of the products I have tried, use, and LOVE!
Social Warfare
Social Warfare is a social network WordPress sharing plug-in that helps you increase you blog shares. You can choose where and how you want your social network buttons to show up on your blog. They offer a free version so you can test drive the capabilities of the plug-in BUT they have a premium version that is worth investing in. It cost $29 annually but you get some awesome additional features.
You get access to additional social media networks share options. The image hover pin button for every image on your blog. You can also disable it for images you would like excluded. The best feature though is the rich pin capabilities for Pinterest. This plug-in enables you to be rich pin ready so your pins pop!
Thirsty Affiliates
Thirsty Affiliates is a WordPress plug-in that cloaks affiliate links. Cloaking your affiliate links makes them look prettier and protects them from theft. They offer a free option and a premium option. The premium option is $49 annually but offers a lot more features such as keyword linking, advanced statistics reports and URL shortening to name a few.
Other tools I love!
These are some of the other tools I have tried, use, and LOVE!
AppSumo
AppSumo is a website that offers discounts for entrepreneurs on software, apps and other tools to help you grow your business. For example, if you are looking for stock photos you can catch deals for sites like StockUnlimited for $49 for 3 years of unlimited downloads. Totally worth it.
Ibotta
Ibotta is a phone app that allows users to earn cash money for online and in store purchases with receipt or purchase verification. It’s totally free to set up and you can start earning right away. Most of the time there is an enrollment bonus you can earn for signing up and completing a few offers too. When you are ready to cash out, you can cash out for various store or restaurant gift cards, Paypal or Venmo. I do all of my online shopping via Ibotta and earn cash back on anything that qualifies.
These are all resources I find invaluable to my blog and my life. It’s also helpful to find respected blogging experts to follow and learn from. Read more about that here.
