30 Best Tools and Resources every Beginner Blogger Needs for Success
Whether you are a new blogger who want to succeed or an established one want to level up your game, this blog post will help you find the best blogging resources and tool you need to grow your blog to the next level.
In this blog post I put together all the tools and resources I use and found helpful for my blog, almost everything I suggest here was already tested and approved 😉
First things first! If you want to make money from your blog, you should take it seriously and treat it like a real business. Here’re what you must be considering when it comes to blogging seriously :
Disclaimer : this post includes affiliate links
Start with wordpress.org platform
This is the must use platform to easily build your blog, you absolutely not need to be a geek or have technical skills to build your blog, WordPress will provide everything you need!
Remember that the goal is to monetize our blog. WordPress has a free version but doesn’t allow you to make money from your blog (ads,..) and this version is very limited, you can’t add the necessary plugins you need to up you blog level. My recommendation goes directly to wordpress.org, this version allows you to create a professional blog, add as many plugins as you need, create a shop and much more options. You can get your version automatically once you get self-hosted.
Get self-hosted to easily monetize your blog
There’re many good hosting providers you can start with, but I suggest you Bluehost! They have a beginner option with only 3$/month completely adapted to start and correctly run your blog.
What I love most is their excellent customer service and their availability 24-7. Believe me, this really makes a difference.
Get more information on Bluehost HERE
Other hosting providers : Lyrica host and SiteGround.
With a self-hosted domain you can apply for Google Adsense and other ads service.
Track you performance with Google Analytics
Google analytics is the only and most reliable stat tracker you need to instal. It’s a free tool to better monitor your site traffic stats and help you understand who are your readers and where they come from, which source of traffic is working well for your blog,.. and a lot of other helpful insights. You can sign up with your google account and just copy and past into your WordPress theme a code they will provide you.
Instal the must-use WordPress plugins you need to correctly run your blog
The advantage of WordPress is that you don’t need technical skills, everything is manageable with Plugins, but having lots of plugins installed can negatively affect your blog’s performance. Here’re the must-use ones you need to instal first on your WordPress blog :
MonsterInsight is the #1 Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress very easy to use to get all the KPIs you need to track. The best thing is that MonsterInsight can help you track automatically affiliate links and ads clicks.
You know SEO is difficult to understand, but fortunately WordPress makes it so easy for us 😉 Yoast SEO will tell you what to focus on for every blog post, how to write the best Title and how to optimise your keywords for each engines.
WP Rocket plugin will help you improve site speed which is an important point for SEO ranking and user experience.
This is another must have if you want to optimise your images and up your SEO score, this plugin will help you gain space and also speed up your blog.
This plugin protect your blog and prevent from publishing malicious comments, it also track the spammers using your contact form. Every pro blogger must have this plugin
Use the best graphic tools for your blog
Including visuals in your content: blog posts and social media is very important and most of readers love this!
Here’s some suggestions for graphic design :
This’s the N°1 tool you need to create beautiful images to add to your blog, customise them with your brand colors and fonts. Canva free version is awesome to start with but if you want more options and get access to more high quality images, they have a premium version. I personally chose the paid version because this’s the only tool I use for my blog and all my social media content creation.
Get access to 15 Pinterest Templates fully customizable with Canva.
Picmonkey
If you don’t like Canva, Picmonkey is another tool you can use to create beautiful images.
Unsplash and Pixabay
Free photo stock provider, you can find high quality images for free to use for your blog and other social media platform you manage.
For more high quality and feminine images, that look more professional, you can subscribe to Stock Photo Society membership, honestly, I love X1000 the photos they have. More and more bloggers are subscribing to their membership program.
Use the appropriate Tools to build your stronger email list
Building an email list is essential for your blog growth, many beginners underestimate the power of email subscribers. Some pro bloggers make thousands of dollars from this 😉 so I highly recommend to start creating your email list as earlier as possible by offering something valuable to your audience in exchange of their email address. Invite them to join your newsletter and provide weekly blogging tips emails, or something else helpful for your niche.
Here’re some tools you can use :
Is the cheapest email provider you can start with, they have a free option to Strat with and you can upgrade to next level with just 9.99$ a month. Mailchimp allows to create mailing campaign but also opt-ins and anding pages.
is an opt-in pop up builder, very simple to create and add to your blog, if you are a beginner and don’t want to spend money for your pop ups I highly suggest to start with Hello Bar, also they allow linking your list to Mail chimp and send them automatically your freebie.
Is the most popular and powerful tool, that’s what I use for my email marketing strategy, it free until 1000 subscribers, then you pay 29$/month for more. You can automate all your funnel and schedule emails based on what category of people you want to target for your campaign. Convert kit provides also a whole dashboard to track campaigns performance. That’s what I recommend if you want to take seriously your email marketing strategy.
An easy way to start building your email list is WP Form, a free WordPress plugin you can instal and create your forms to add directly to your posts!
Tools to increase your productivity and time management
As blogger, you have to wear multiple hats to run all your daily tasks by yourself, fortunately their are good apps and tools to help you stay organized, focus on what matters most, be more productive and get more things done everyday.
It’s a free tool to organise your projects and daily tasks, including personal things you have to do during your day. I personally use it to organise my ideas and plan different steps for my future projects.
Like Trello, Asana is a project and time management tool, not easy to get started with, but once you understand how it works I’m sure you will love it! I use it daily to write everything related to my blog : blog posts ideas, Twitter posts, Instagram topics, affiliate marketing links to post,…
Asana is also adapted for teams, if you have a team or freelancers you work with, you can share your tasks and projects with them. All in one 😉
Google Calendar
If you have a Google account, you can use Google Calendar for free on your Laptop and phone, I’m still using this in additional to Trello and Asana. What I love is the possibility to synchronise my calendar with my phone so I can check my daily tasks and meetings easily.
Take notes anywhere, with your laptop or your phone at anytime! It’s free to sign up and very easy to use and share with others.
For my to do list, my daily planner is my best friend 😉 I write every thing down, like this I know exactly what I have to do everyday and every hour.
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- 2 Free Months With Tailwind ($30 worth)
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This +170 pages of tips and strategies will teach you how to get tons of traffic everyday from Pinterest and grow your blog. Here’s all what you will get from this course :
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Automatize your social media to save time
Most of pro bloggers are using Tailwind to schedule their Pinterest content including me! This tool is the best one to save time, I use it Once a week to schedule all my pins, my fresh pins and re pin others content (queue), it’s free to use but with limited options, if you want to get access to full version you have to pay but for me it completely worth it because it also helped me grow my Pinterest views and impressions using the tribes system.
To schedule Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at the same time Buffer is the best tool! It cost 15$ per month to manage up to 8 social media accounts.
Note : You can schedule your tweets directly using Twitter desktop, it’s free and works very well 😉
Schedule your blog content and social media in one calendar, Coschedule is very popular and many big companies are recommending this tool. You can sign up and get 14 days free trial. Pais options start from 12$ a month.
This social media management app is also very popular, they have a good Free option to start managing 4 social media accounts : Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin.
Work on your SEO
It’s not a secret, SEO is very important if you want to drive free organic traffic to your blog, but I know, it’s not easy to understand and implement. I’m currently learning about it and hope be able to share with you my experience and feeling soon. Anyway, blogging seriously requires to pay attention to your keywords and SEO, here’re some tools and resources to get started:
If I have ONE SEO resource to recommend if would be this one. Neil Patel offer many free resources, videos and courses on SEO for beginner and advanced bloggers. I started my course two weeks ago and believe me I learned a lot and the results are already visible, driving more and more traffic from search engine (mainly Google)
Go follow them on YouTube and start learning!
It’s a browser add-on for keyword research very helpful to find the best keyword to rank for. To install on Chrome or FireFox and will give you : the monthly search volume, a cost per click if you want to run a google paid campaign and the Adwords competition for this specific keyword.
I hope these suggestions will help you your daily blogging mission. Let me know which one you are currently using and if you have other suggestions, please share with us in comment 😉
87 Comments
Baby Boomer Super Saver
Everything I read about blogging tools helps me to understand a little bit more. Thanks for all of these blogging resources! My goal is to install Google Analytics this week!
It was a little confusing to me about your recommendation to also install the MonsterInsight WordPress plugin. Is that needed for Google Analytics? Or does it just provide more information (such as more info on affiliate link and ad clicks you mentioned)? Also, what is KPI? I still have so much to learn, lol.
Kat T
This is a great resource for bloggers.
Thank you
Lynn Mejia
This was super helpful! Thanks for the suggestions on stock photos. I currently just use Canva with a paid membership. It actually hasn’t occurred to me to look beyond Canva as it’s just easier.
http://www.lynnmumbingmejia.com
Karalee Shotola
These are great resources! I regularly use Canva & Unsplash/Pixabay. I’ll definitely have to look into your recommendations for time management tools!
Denelia
This is such a great post for beginners! You outline everything they need to get started.
Rosie Ireland
I am OBSESSED with this post! So many amazing, helpful and easy tips and tricks for bloggers of all ages and sizes! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Rosie
Sumedha
So many good resources! Thanks for sharing. I also found Notion recently and I’m switching from Trello to Notion because it allows a lot of flexibility.
Thebusyshelf
TBH, automizing everything is the way to go. Not only it saves you time but it can also be a way to make sure you didn’t forget some social media channel or something.
Great post!
Britt K
I have just started using Trello to organize my blogging activities recently and I’m shocked by how much it has helped to keep me on track and improved my productivity! I set up a few lists with my daily activities – High priority, Medium priority, Low priority and Done. It has forced me to assess what activities are most worthy of my time, tackling them first and saving the lower priority activities for IF I happen to have time to tackle them later.
Amanda
Thank you. Very useful ideas. I have bookmarked the post to come back and get some of the ebooks.
Musa Creativa Magazine
These are great options! I personally have been using Mailchimp and Hootsuite since 2012 for my photography business and I wouldn’t change them for the world! Although I did give Tailwind a try, and I loved it, I guess I’m just used to Hootsuite. I do want to try Trello, though!
Jen
This is such great information, thank you for sharing it!
Johnny
This is such a great hub for bloggers like myself to turn to if they want to find things that will help them along their blog journey! There’s a few resources on here specifically SEO and mailing that Im gonna give a chance because I feel those are my weak points when it comes to blogging 🙂
Johnny | Johnny’s Traventures
https://johnnystraventures.com
Vicky @mortgagefreebythesea
This is such a useful post. After committing to my blog just a couple of months a go, I’m pleased to see that I already have a few of these things in place. There’s a few I still need to add so I’ll be working through you suggestions during August.
Angell
I wish I would’ve had a list like this when I started! It was sheer torture switching from Weebly to WordPress.org! Lol
Johana
This is a great resource for all bloggers. I really love your design resources and your focus on Pinterest because it really is one of the best sources of blog traffic.
Corinne
So many good resources on this list and many of them are free! I’m currently learning how to use Trello 🙂
Uma Pisharody
Canva and Trello are my current favorites here. They are easy and convenient. If you are confused, go for these. It will save you a lot of time. Thank you for this comprehensive list. Great post!
Shirsha
For email marketing, I’ve been using Flodesk for the last couple of months, and I am in love with it! It makes designing pretty newsletters a breeze and I just find it so much more intuitive, unlike my experience with Mailchimp in the past!
I also use Adobe programs for my design business, but for nearly all my blogging purposes, I’ve found that Canva does the job really well!
Recreational Hobbyist
Bookmarking this! These are great suggestions, not just for new bloggers, but those that start on free platforms & move to self hosted like I did. Excellent post!!
Queenie
As a beginner, I really appreciate this kind of post! You make life easier for us 😀 Thank you!
Kelly Diane
This is such a helpful post with so many useful tools. Since first reading this, I made a few changes and now use Yoast. I’ve seen such a huge improvement on my blog.
Sarah Long
Great list of ideas there thank you. You have given me some inspiration x
Shikha
Really informative post. It’s good to share such kind information because when I started blogging, I was searching for it. Thanks for sharing.
Johana
These are great tools. My favorite to use right now are MailChimp and Canva.
Lisa | Mind and Body Intertwined
Love these tips, actually still got some great plugins from it to try out, so thank you! 😁
Annelize
This is one of the most useful posts I’ve read in a very long time! I already have a few of these in place, but I haven’t made full use of the features – I’m definitely looking into it. Thank you for giving me food for thought!
Laura
This is such a resourceful list! I use many of these tools and they have definitely helped boost my productivity and success!
Yaya
This really is everything you could possibly want to get started! Thanks for sharing all these tips, there are a couple of services I hadn’t heard of so I’ll check them out 🙂
Sara
Such a great posts for anyone starting out! I had to learn a lot along the way so this would’ve definitely helped me and still can!
Eddie
Some great tips, I’ve been considering tailwind especially to save time with Pinterest. Thank you for sharing.
Brigit Pettit
Love this! I’ll be bookmarking this to read again later. So much good advice! I’ve just added Google Analytics.
Linda McIntyre Purcell
Do you think Convertkit or Mailchimp are better? Any suggestions to speed up sites?
Dawn
I absolutely LOVE using Evernote for organizing blog posts, post ideas, blog and social media info and so much more! It’s just the best program to use when it comes to blogging and it can be used for just about anything. Thank you so much for this post, very helpful. Pinned it and now following your blog <3
simplymyperspective
This list was so helpful that I had to bookmark it! Thank you so much for the tips.
SMP – https://simplymyperspectiv.blogspot.com/
Megan
Great info! I pinned and subscribed 🙂
Lindsey
This is such a useful post, thank you. I’m just upping my game with the blog at the moment – just made the step to go self-hosted and currently working on my Pinterest. This is full of such great tips – and I’ll definitely be coming back for the plugins once my migration is complete. Thank you!
Lindsey | https://aramblingreviewer.wordpress.com
Richie
Great list of tools and resources, thank you.
Do you have any ‘before and after’ load time comparisons for after you started using WP Rocket? I’m always curious to see just how much load time can be saved with plugins like that.
Colour Me Dubai
Those Pinterest tips were especially helpful, thank you!
Hannah Louise
Some really good tools here, some that I absolutely love and some that I’ve never heard of! Definitely have to try some more!
Päivi / Delight Digital Direction
Thank you for sharing this amazing list of blogging resources! All of them are useful and helps a lot to organize and make your blog better. Some of them I’m already using but I found out some new tools to try.
🤗
https://delightdigitaldirection.com
Lomash Kumar
Lots of useful blogging tools for every blogger, may of those new for me. Thank you for sharing this.
Sarah Mark
A great post so many fab tips thank you! I have been debating using tailwind for Pinterest And will definitely try it now! So much to fit in!
Sarah
http://Www.simplysarahjayneloves.com
Bri Cruz
My favorite thing about bloggers helping other bloggers is that they don’t feel the need to keep allll these amazing resources to themselves. Thanks so so much for sprucing up my list of resources, I absolutely love this post!!! I’ve dabbled with a few of these that haven’t really worked for me but I’ve found for everyone that doesn’t work, there’s one that helps take my blog to a whole new level.
Community over competition!!!
xo Bri
Grislean
I love all of these! I just started blogging and I have been using these. The only one I didn’t know was keywords everywhere chrome extension. Will definitely try.
Sara
So great to see how many things have and haven’t changed during my two year blogging hiatus!!!! Thanks for writing such a brilliant, well detailed post!
Molly @ Transatlantic Notes
I’ve been blogging for a while — about 11 years — and there are some things here I could definitely still use and learn about. I don’t monetize my blog from personal choice (so far), plus I don’t tend to write about things that are easy to monetize in a natural way but if I ever did, you’ve provided some great advice!
Chloe
This is super helpful! I didn’t realise there were all these different tools and resources to help me with my blog. I’ve already downloaded a few more to help and I’ve signed up for the free course too. Thank you so much for sharing these 🙂 I can’t wait to use these to further help my blog and take it to the next step!
PAm
Very helpful, resourceful post!! I’m a beginner blogger so posts like these are a great resource to come back to when I’m looking for help! Wonderful, thank you so much!
Britt K
You’ve got some great suggestions here. If anyone is looking for free stock photos, I highly recommend trying the website O-Dan.net – it’s a site that allows you to search across a number of different sites including pexels, pixabay and unsplash all in one spot. Not having to navigate from one site to the next makes the search much quicker!
Georgie Rainford
Love these! Really helpful, I’ve opened some of the different links ready to take a look at them when I’ve worked through my to-do list. Thank you!!!
Change of Tomorrow
Love the list. I’m using most of these and I’ll be incorporating others soon!
Claire
This is so helpful, even though I’m not a new blogger now, there is so much I still have to learn.
I’m giving mySelf the summer holiday to get my blog where I want it to be so I’ll be using some of these suggestions
Em and Jess
Such a useful post, and it’s so helpful to have all of this information in one place to refer back to whenever I need it 🙂 I’m with wordpress now and if I could go back in time I’d have started with wordpress because it’s so much better than my old website!
Ashlyn
Thanks for sharing! This is very helpful!
Jenn
There’s a lot of things on this list that I had no idea about. Thank you for posting. I am going to look into some of these things.
Rayo
Great helpful resource. I use Trello to plan and manage my time
Chrissy
Such great tips! I’m slowly making my way towards being self-hosted but I know I’ll get there eventually! x
lauren
what a brilliant post! im definitely going to check out some of these websites.
i use airtable for planning – its wonderful, and i only recently started using canva and i really appreciate the designs it has avaiable to inspire
Kat T
Great post! Especially for inexperienced bloggers like me!!
Kelsey
Oof.. this makes me wish that I’d used wordpress!! You really sell it well! Can you switch platforms or is it too late for me? Im at Weebly
Molly @ Transatlantic Notes
Really useful — thanks for sharing!
Savana
I use most of them, some of them are new to me. This was such a useful post
Gabby
This is a great list you compiled! I def use many things on here – Canva being my #1 favorite.
I also agree that you should invest in eBooks and course to speed up your process! I wish I would have invested as soon as I started blogging!
Much love always,
GABBY | http://www.gabbyabigaill.com
Didi
Great tips,and I subscribed to your newsletter 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Ieva || TheSpareMinimum.com
Super helpful list! I’ve used most of these tools and can definitely approve the choices!! 🙂
Sara Smith
I like to use Google Keep for keeping track of everything I have to do. It’s nice because you can color code it and get it on every device. I’m glad to see some of the other tools I use on here as well! Thanks for the post!
Adam
I use WordPress.org and have done from the start, so glad I made that decision.
I use or have used most of these, there’s a few that I need to look into though. Thanks for sharing.
Winnie Tataw
Thank you this was very insightful!
Natasha MacFarlane
This is brilliant! I use MailChimp and several of the other things you suggested but many I don’t. totally going to be looking into these now. Thank you for sharing!
Irelandandelsewhere
Great post thank you, we use wordpress for our hosting and are slowly getting more confident with the platform! We have found its really easy to set up and track your activity etc 😊
Samantha
This post has been so helpful! Thank you!
melissa major
Such wonderful resources for bloggers! I need to work on my SEO and stuff!
Very helpful post
Mel 🌙 | Moonlight Mel
Eddie
Some great tips and resources. I found this with the free WordPress platform. It’s very restrictive, going self hosted with WordPress was probably the best blogging decision I did. Thank you for the SEO tips too, this is one are I’m currently trying to improve.
Chris - CJ Attractions Guide
These are so helpful for me as I am looking at taking my blog to the next level and going from the free version to self hosted. Thanks so much forbthe recommendations., hope you have a great day 😊
Chris
Emma
Such a good list of resources. I’ll definitely be dipping in and out as I expand my blog!
Clarissa Cabbage
Wow this is SUPER helpful! I definitely need some of these WordPress plugins and I really think I need to change my email marketing platform. Got this bookmarked. Thanks!
Amber Page
Some great resources here! I completely agree that you need to go self-hosted if you are blogging! Thank you for sharing!
Amber – https://theunpredictedpage.com
Rachel
Great Post. I am still a beginner blogger and this definitely helps with a few questions I had. Thank you 🙂
Lam and TheGlam
Thank you Rachel your comment warms my heart ❤️ happy to be helpful
Kayla
Great post with many helpful options! As a newbie blogger I’m constantly looking for ways to better run my blog so I appreciate this! Thank you for sharing! 💗
Neecee B
Great resource for new bloggers like myself
Cassie
I love unsplash! I use WP Forms Lite for my site and they do the job. I love a good free app/plugin.
Lam and TheGlam
Yess! Unsplash is my favorite after Canva 😉 They have lot of high quality free images for every niche 👍
Aurenda
This was so helpful. Thank you so much.
Kelly Diane
This is such a helpful post and you’ve included so many great resources. I’m definitely going to be referring back to this post to check them all out.
Lisa
Great list of resources including a few I don’t know about.