Blogging Resources

Check out this huge collection of blogging resources for all bloggers to choose the right blogging software, themes, hosting, domain names, etc. to help improve your blog. Sit back and check out this extensive collection.

Blogging Software

• WordPress.org - the best way to start a professional blog. It is the most powerful blogging software with the widest range of features. Needs your own domain name and hosting to get started. Opt for 1-click WordPress hosting services like Hostgator. This site is also powered by WordPress and is highly recommended.
• WordPress.com - This is another powerful self hosted alternative to WordPress.org but there are some wordpress.com limitations which you need to know. Here is the easiest paid way to move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
• Blogger – this is Google’s free blogging tool which is easiest way to start a blog. It has powerful blogging tools and options to develop a fully featured blog without much coding options. You will get a name.blospot.com blog address and later you can get your own custom domain names. This site also started on Blogger and later migrated to WordPress.org
• Tumblr and Postereous - are other super quick and simplest option to get started very quickly with a blog. Features are not powerful as Blogger, but it is the fastest way ever to start a blog, photoblog or moblog.

WordPress Themes

•  Thesis, StudioPress, or Catalyst  are paid premium themes which offer value for money in terms of SEO benefits, custom design, amazing theme framework options and one click design changes which will work for webmasters with no design or coding experience. All these themes offer unique capabailities – choose whichever you like. Read our Thesis theme review.

  

Logo Design

• 99Designs –  Getting a great logo is essential to create a strong brand presence and convey a professional blog image. 99Designs offers a logo contest starring at $295 wherein hundreds of designers compete over a week to win your prize amount. This let you get all the design options you can possibly get. With optimal feedback and options, you can get yourself a unique and professional logo. We even got our current logo at 99designs.
• Logoworks - is an excellent logo design service, which will give you a professional logo design with starting packages for $299 which will give 4 original logo concepts by 2 designers and allow 2 logo revisions.
• Gotlogos –  is a cheaper logo design service which will create a good logo for $25 only. But only one logo with no revisions will be provided. We got our earlier logo from them.

 Domain Name

Your own domain name give you freedom to create your brand identity, move hosting, and keep control of all your web resources. Buy your own domain name as it comes cheap for under $10.

• Godaddy – is the world largest domain name registrar. It offers you an amazing host of all inclusive domain name services for a reasonable cost. We host all our domain names on Godaddy for over 5 years.
• Free Domain name –  Most webhosting services will offer you free domain name with a good hosting package. Look out for these deals.

Web Hosting

If you choose self hosted blogging options, hosting is not required. But if you opt for WordPress (which give you full freedom and domain ownership), then  you need a good web hosting service.

• Hostgator | Bluehost Hosting – these are great places to start your blog with shared hosting. They have 1-click WordPress install services which will remove all hassles. The bandwidth, disc space and customer support are all great. We also host  a few small sites with them.
• Knownhost VPS hosting – If you site has outgrown shared hosting,. this is the best VPS hosing service to upgarde to. They have excellent VPS packages and provide the best technical support ever. QOT is also hosted on Knownhost and read our 2 year Knownhost review.

 Make Money Online with Advertising

• Google Adsense (PPC) – Offers the best pay per click (PPC) advertising to earn money just by adding a simple line of code. It is valuable even for small sites as you can earn money online from whatever little traffic you have. They have strict guidelines and you must follow them to stay in the program. You can Google Adsense on all our posts and it is the biggest income source for this site. Read more about Adsense.
• Chitika (PPC) –  is another good pay per click program which features product images besides product links and gets a high CTR. Now they have Chitika Premium units which display search targeted ads and have good user interest. which  It is a good alternative to Google Adsense. We have made some good money with Chitika.
• Buy Sell Ads (CPM) –  this service allows custom size banner placements on your blog.  Choose from a huge marketplace and charge ad fees based on your pageviews. They also allow RSS advertising. We also use BSA ads and you can see the 125×125 banner ads running in our sidebar right now.
• Amazon.com (Affiliate) –  Sell products like gadgets, music, software and anything else you can imagine and get paid a good affiliate commission for the same. If you run a product oriented site, carefully embedded links can make money online easily.

Site Traffic Tracking

• Google Analytics - it is the best, most accurate and most powerful site traffic tracking tool out there. It is powered by Google and is totally free.
• WordPress Stats –  this is a simple yet accurate WordPress plugin which will provide site traffic overview easily.

SEO

• Scribe SEO -  is the ultimate SEO copywriting tool which will help you write articles which get high search engine rankings.