50+ Great Blogging Resources

Today I’m going to take a brief deviation from the DIY and food world to share a bit about the business side of the blog with y’all.  If you’re not a blogger, bear with me through today,  and things will be back to normal tomorrow with this month’s Home Depot Gift Challenge post.

***To view the updated list – visit my Blogging Tips page HERE***

Now, I’ve only been at this whole blogging thing for right at a year and a half so I am by no means an expert, seasoned blogger and believe me, there’s a ton of learning and changing that I’m constantly working on myself.  But, in that year and a half, there’s been SO much I’ve learned that has helped this blog immensely.  Blogging can be overwhelming, confusing, and is a ton of work, so it is my hope that this roundup of things I’ve found will help others navigate the crazy world of blogging just a little bit better.  If there’s something you love that I haven’t included here, please share it in the comments to make this an even better resource!

**Some of these links are affiliate links because they’re websites I use and love.  There’s no additional cost to you, I just make a small commission to keep things running around here.  Click here to see my full disclosure policy.

Technical Stuff

• Platform – This is where you run your blog from.  There are a handful of options, but the main two are Blogger and WordPress.  I started out on Blogger then moved to WordPress on January 1st this year.  Blogger was great, but it is run by Google so you don’t have full ownership of your site.  Wordpress, however, is not so you don’t ever have to worry about your site being taken down.  I cannot recommend WordPress enough, it completely changed the way I blog and it is SO much more user-friendly than Blogger.  I had to teach myself how to insert all sorts of code when I was on  Blogger, but in WordPress there are plugins and widgets that accomplish these tasks code-free (we’ll talk more about that later).   If you haven’t started your blog yet, I highly recommend starting out on WordPress.  If you have, and you’re on Blogger, I also highly recommend migrating over.  I hired my original designer to migrate me over so that the graphics would all be the same and everything would be ready to go, but there are numerous tutorials on how to do it yourself.

• Hosting – I started out on a non-hosted Blogger site (xxx.blogspot.com) but became self-hosted about six months into it so that I could get rid of the standard blogspot address and become www.tableandhearth.com.  I went with BlueHost and have been with them ever since.  It was much more inexpensive than I expected, about $5/month.  I paid for a few years up front to get a lower rate and just have to renew my different domains annually.   I have no idea what all the terms and technology surrounding their plans and stuff are, but their customer service is awesome and respond really quick.  I am not to the point where I need to upgrade my hosting because of massive traffic, but (hopefully!) that will happen at which point I’ll probably need to switch from BlueHost.  I hear good things about Synthesis so check that out if you have high pageviews (>100K/mo probably).

• Templates/Themes – Themes are like your blog’s skin, it’s is your site’s general appearance.  The possibilities are endless for themes on both Blogger and WordPress, from free to complete custom designs.  When I was on Blogger I had one of the standard designs for a few weeks (I wish I had a picture of my page then), then bought a template on Etsy to make it look a little more unique and interesting.  When I moved over to WordPress, I used the free Foodie Pro theme on the Genesis Framework and just switched to a new them from AngieMakes this summer which I LOVE!!!   It’s so nice to be able to customize absolutely everything and their customer service can’t be beat.  I’ve also heard great things about Restored 316 themes.

• Google Analytics – Once your site is up and running, you’ll want to set up Google Analytics as soon as possible.  This is the industry standard for reporting your pageviews, referrals, demographics, and all kinds of other information surrounding your site.

Plugins

WordPress allows you to use things called plugins for a number of tasks and gadgets for your site.  They are extensions you install on the backend of your site which enable certain functions and graphics without having to mess with coding like you do on Blogger.  There are endless plugins out there but these are some of my favorites.

• RSS Image Feed – Adds the featured image to your post excerpts in RSS feeds (like automatic emails).

• PopupAlly – A completely customizable sign-up form popup.  This is by far the easiest one I’ve found to use and I love that you can set it to show up at different times (immediately, after 30 seconds, on exit intent).

• Ultimate Nofollow – If you use any kind of sponsored links in your posts, including affiliate links, those links need to be No Follow.  It took me forever to really pay attention to and understand this, but with this plugin, all you have to do is check the box when you insert the link and you’re done.  To read more about no follow links, read this.

• J Query Pin It Button for Images – Allows you to upload a custom Pin It button graphic to show over your images so that readers can easily pin your post.

• Optimize Database After Deleting Revisions – Cleans up extra/deleted posts, comments, and the like to keep your site from getting bogged down.

• WP Gallery Custom Links – This is the plugin I use for all my galleries.  I like that you can enter code for no follow links in its Custom CSS section and make affiliate link product galleries with it.  

• TinyPNG – Compresses images in your media library.  You get 500 free compressions per month, with a nominal fee if more than that.

• WPsmush – Yet another way to further optimize your images.  This automatically reduces the file size of your images when you upload them.

• EasyRecipe – For food bloggers, this allows you to create printable recipes within your post.  Customizable to match the look of your site.

• WP Edit – Adds more font appearance options that what is standard in WP

Photography & Graphics

• Photoshop – Photoshop is the well-known, long time standard for graphic design and photo editing.  I still plan on learning it someday but just don’t have the time quite yet.  You can now buy just a monthly subscription to it and other Adobe products.

• PicMonkey – If you don’t want to delve into Photoshop yet and just need a quick and easy way to edit photos, PicMonkey is perfect.  I used the free version for a year or so and then upgraded to the Royal paid plan to get access to more fonts, gallery styles, and other options.  I edit, resize, and watermark all of my images in PicMonkey.

• Creative Market – An amazing marketplace for graphics, templates, themes, and fonts.  I can get lost on there for hours.

• DSLR Camera – One of the best things I’ve gotten for the blog is my Nikon D3200 that was a birthday present from the husband.  I shot in automatic mode for the first year I had it and even though I knew it wasn’t all it could do, it was a marked improvement from my phone which I had been using (example: this post, ugh!).

• Shoot Fly Shoot – I’ve only done the first video but that was enough to get me to be able to shoot in manual mode and my photography GREATLY improved.  As expected, it was a game changer, even as beginner as I still am.  I’m still pretty amateur but it’s been so nice not to have to fight with the light now.  Craftsy also offers good photography courses.

• Tripod & Remote – Our house doesn’t get the greatest light inside so I have to really slow down my shutter speed to make shots work, which makes it impossible to get a non-blurry shot.  A tripod is a must. I actually can’t remember what it was like before it.  I also got a remote for the camera as well, so in conjunction with the tripod, I never have to worry about blurriness.  I still do sharpen, that’s just cause bloggers are sharp-obsessed. Bonus too that now I can have my hands doing “action” shots without being in super weird Twister positions.

• Image-Maps – I just recently learned how to make Image Maps and now I’m obsessed with making  them.  It’s totally free and allows you to make a collage and have each image in that collage clickable.  We use these for our group challenge projects and I used it to make the categories and posts over in my sidebar. *see additional instructions and notes on my Blogging Resources page

• DaFont – A wealth of free downloadable fonts.  Many times you can find free versions of otherwise expensive fonts on here.  Be forewarned, you’ll get sucked in and want all of them.

Advertising & Affiliates

• Skimlinks – A simple widget allows any product links on your posts to be affiliate links, and there is a browser extension that makes it easy to grab an affiliate link from any page you’re on.  It’s nice not to have to join a ton of networks but still get affiliate benefits from sites.

• Other Affiliate Networks – Various websites/stores offer their affiliate programs through various networks.  Some of the larger examples include Share-A-Sale, PepperJam, AffiliateWindow, and Commission Junction.  Through those, you can find your unique affiliate URL and link to product pages through that. 

• Propel – Propel is offered by The Blogger Network and is for smaller sites with ~80K pageviews or less a month.  I got started with them last month and have already made more in that one month than I had on my own with Adsense and BlogHer since January.  If you’re big enough to get on with The Blogger Network themselves, definitely go that route, but for smaller sites, it’s completely worth the $99 start up fee in my opinion.

• Google Adsense – This is Google’s ad network and is pretty straightforward to implement although they don’t offer a ton of ad size/placement options.  My earnings were pretty mediocre with it but many bloggers do really well with it.

• Passionfruit – Passionfruit is an easy way to manage selling ad space in your sidebar, usually for small shops and artisans or other bloggers.  It’s not too bad of a fee from  $3 to $9/month based on plans.

Staying on top of Things/Social Media

• CoSchedule – This is one of my favorites as well, and I use it mainly for sharing posts on Facebook and Twitter.  It has a plugin that integrates with your dashboard so when you compose a post, CoSchedule is right at the bottom and you can easily make a handful of social shares from right there with the URL already integrated.  It’s nice to see it in calendar view so I know what I’ve got scheduled to go out when.  It’ll also pull up old posts to make them easy to share again.

• Blog Planner – There comes a point with a blog where there’s so many ideas and commitments that you’ve got to start jotting it down and keeping it all organized.  I’m old-school and still prefer a paper planner but there are a ton of electronic planners and PDFs that you can customize and print as well (like this one).  I have one from Plum Paper that is PERFECT but I’ve heard great things about Erin Condren too.

• Hootsuite – Another social media scheduling tool.  I haven’t personally used it yet but I know many bloggers who do, mainly in conjunction with a few others as well.

• Mailchimp – Corey from Tiny Sidekick has a great tutorial for how to offer a daily vs. weekly RSS checkbox.

• Edgar – This seems to be the ultimate tool in social media scheduling.  It comes at a price, $40/month, but Edgar can do some pretty awesome scheduling according to my blog friends who use it and they completely swear by it. I like that it has categories that you can add posts to, like affiliate links, blog posts, other’s projects, food, etc.  It does have a free trial so you can give it a whirl before you commit.

• Leadpages –  If you will be offering email incentives or ebooks, Leadpages is highly recommended to manage landing pages and signup forms.  Again, I haven’t used it personally but I’ve seen it in action on friend’s blogs and it’s pretty awesome.

• Hellobar – I love this little thing!  Totally free, totally easy to use, and totally customizable.  It puts that little banner at the top of your site which you can link to any outlet you wish such as your email list, Pinterest, Facebook, etc.  They also offer popup boxes and little windows that slide in at the bottom too if you don’t want the banner.  The only drawback is that for email subscriptions, you can’t offer anything but name and email fields.

• Rafflecopter – Easy and user-friendly way to run giveaways.  I love that you just have to add the code once and if you make any changes to links during the giveaway, it automatically updates and you don’t have to update the code.  I use the free version and use the “Create Your Own Option” link to make entries that are normally under the paid version.

Branding/Networking

• Moo – I had some business cards made here before I went to a conference this summer and I was amazed at how practical they were, how good they looked,  as well as how fast they showed up.  I had 50 square custom-designed cards printed front and back and it was under $30 with free shipping and 10% off.  And I received them just a couple days after ordering.

• Minted – Aside from having beautiful art, fabric, and event decor, Minted has some of the prettiest stationary and paper goods that I’ve seen.  They’re a great source for business cards too.

• Etsy – Awesome marketplace for creatives.  In addition to the arts and crafts Etsy offers, it’s also a great place to find graphics, themes, and connect with graphic designers for custom work like logos and media kits.

• Conferences – I can’t say enough how inspirational going to the Haven Conference was last July.  The connections I made there, both with other bloggers as well as brands, were so real and encouraging.  You can read more about all that HERE.  

• FB tribes – The absolute best thing I’ve found in my blogging journey are Facebook tribes with fellow bloggers.  It makes such a difference to have people you can ask questions to about blogging and people to promote each other’s posts and accomplishments with.  Many of these blog friendships have become very close, true friendships that I cherish.  Seek out similar bloggers who you follow and inquire about FB groups you can join, or see if they’d like to start one with you.

Getting Noticed

• Gawker Sites – The suite of Gawker sites are easy and quick to submit to, although some are pretty discerning in the quality of photography they’ll accept.  There’s Craft, Dwelling, Food, Wedding, and StyleGawker.  It’s always worth a shot.  I have the best luck at Craft and Dwelling Gawker and see a good amount of traffic from there when I get approved. FoodGawker seems to be the  hardest to get approved.

• Link Parties – Link parties are a great way to share your posts, find awesome inspiration, and connect with other bloggers.  They’re usually weekly or monthly and can drive a good amount of traffic when you get featured.  The ones I link up to can be found here.

• Contributors/Guest Posting – Guest posting and/or becoming a contributor for another blogger is a great way to make connections and drive traffic as well.  Reach out to fellow bloggers and bloggers who you admire and ask if they’d like to have you guest post.  You can also subsequently see if they may be looking for regular contributors as well.

• Special Posts/Tours/Challenges – Us bloggers love to get together and do themed series.  Home tours and blog hops are almost always game so see if other bloggers may be looking for participants, or even reach out to a handful and start your own.  The upcoming holidays are always an excuse to do one.  Additionally, we also like to challenge each other so come up with a task and ask other bloggers if they’d like to take part and post on a certain deadline.  You can always make it more interesting with a giveaway too.

• Apartment Therapy – This is a huge traffic driver if you get featured here.  I haven’t submitted yet but I know quite a few bloggers who are regulars around there.  A really cool site for inspiration and ideas anyway too.

• Remodelaholic – I LOVE Remodelaholic and they are so great about supporting other bloggers and showcasing their projects.  You can always tag your project photos with #imaremodelaholic for a chance for them to feature you, and you can submit an actual guest post too.  I see big boosts in my traffic anytime I’m featured here.

• Hometalk – Hometalk has been widely used by bloggers to help get our projects featured and increase traffic.  In our experience though, less than 1% of that traffic makes it to our blogs because they will share your HT post rather than your blog post, and never tag the blogger in their social shares.  There have also been some questionable usage of people’s content by them so for these and a handful of other reasons, I will no longer be giving them my content.  If you want to post there, I encourage you to read their terms of service carefully and shoot me an email and I can tell you more about it.

Phew!  I really hope some of the information here will help you in your blogging journey, and again, if there’s something I missed that you’d like to add please tell me about it in the comments below.  This post will be a permanent “Blogging Resources” page on the blog so it’ll always be easy to find and I’ll be updating that page periodically as I find more nuggets that can help us.

Click HERE to go to the updated Blogging Tips page!

Back to DIY’in tomorrow!