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.
Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click on them AND buy the product, we get a small affiliate fee. I have personally used these products and highly recommend them.
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 is another powerful self-hosted alternative to WordPress.org but there are some wordpress.com limitations that 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
Premium WordPress Themes
- StudioPress offers paid premium themes that offer value for money in terms of SEO benefits, custom design, amazing theme framework options and one-click design changes that will work for webmasters with no design or coding experience. All these themes offer unique capabilities – choose whichever you like.
Professional 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 lets 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.
Solid Domain Names
Your own domain name gives you the freedom to create your brand identity, move to host, and keep control of all your web resources. Buy your own domain name as it comes cheap for under $10.
- Namecheap – is one of the world’s largest domain name registrar. It offers you an amazing host of all-inclusive domain name services for a reasonable cost. We host many domain names on Namecheap for over 5 years.
Reliable Web Hosting
If you choose self-hosted blogging options, hosting is not required. But if you opt for WordPress (which gives you full freedom and domain ownership), then you need a good web hosting service.
- A2 Hosting – this is the turbo webhosting servers that currently power our website.
- 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 your site has outgrown shared hosting,. this is the best VPS hosing service to upgrade 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. We are now on their SSD Hosting which is even faster and more stable.
Make Money Online
- 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.
- 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.
SEO Writing
- SEM rush – this is probably the best research tool forest out there in the market. It allows you to do exhaustive keyword research, find keywords that competitive sites are ranking for, and perform detailed site audit on your website to improve your search engine rankings.
- Scribe SEO – By using advanced algorithms it will help you write the perfect SEO optimized post every time.
Email Marketing
- Aweber.com – is the best email marketing and list building tool out there. From building professional sign up forms, to designer newsletter, Aweber will help to grow your email list for marketing and brand building. And you can easily migrate your current email subscriber list to them for free without losing any subscribers.
Stock Images
- Fotolia.com – this is the best site to get stock images to make your blog posts impressive, highlight important areas of your site etc. Plans are incredibly cheap starting for as low as $12 for 10 credits which can buy you 10 high quality photos. You can choose subscription plans to access over a million photos for as low as $0.16! Many high resolution images you see on this page as well as across the site are from Fotolia.