This post has been updated from it’s original content which has expired

Blogging Resources I rely on for a smooth work day

WordPress is the only way to go because you have so much freedom to design and a plethora of Plug Ins to choose from. Support is great from many resources. 

Hosting

Siteground keeps me happy. I have been with them a few years after moving away from Go Daddy because they kept raising their prices. Customer support has always been excellent. I have no complaints. When I crash my site, usually because I updated a rogue plug in, they always politely talk me through the repair with little wait time. 

A word of advise on the subject of updating plug ins which results in crashing your site. Get the technician to send you a screenshot of how to fix it. Save the screenshot and you can fix it yourself from now on. That is what I do.

Graphics and Photo Editing

PicMonky and Canva are my two go-to resources for editing photos and creating graphics. I have been using both since 2013 with no complaints. They suit all of my needs.

PicMonkey is the best place to edit photos if you plan to do a lot of tweaks. Through the years, PicMonkey has added lots of features which are fun to use and make interesting graphics and now even videos. I use the paid version because I love all of the features and it is not expensive.

Canva is my daily go-to for designing graphics of every sort including video for Pinterest. Don’t be afraid to take some time and learn your way around Canva, it is totally worth the investment of your time. Again, get the paid version so you can have all of the bells and whistles to make your work day easier.

Social Media Scheduling Tools

There are only so many hours in a day and some of them are required for eating and sleeping rather than blogging. Social Media Tools are a neccesity for all bloggers both new and those with many years experience. 

You will hear lots of different sites for scheduling social media shares. I like to keep it simple.

Facebook Scheduler. I use the Facebook tools and occasionally post organically. FB is a beast, hard to get good traction but it is also necessary if you plan to do sponsored content. If/when you get to a point where you can hire an expert to manage your Facebook, throw yourself a party because you deserve it. 

Instagram. Instagrammers either love or hate the site. If you plan to sell anything or do sponsored posts, go ahead and invest some time in IG. A good scheduler for Instagram is Tailwind because you can add the hashtags and they will even save your commonly used hashtags. 

Join Tailwind (my referral link)

Pinterest. Most bloggers count on Pinterest as a main source of traffic referral. While that can be fabulous, be sure to also focus regularly on developing your SEO skills so you get lots of organic traffic as well. Again, Tailwind is my preference for scheduling to Pinterest. 

Twitter. Oh dear Twitter. Either you will or won’t care for it. If you do decide to build a Twitter account, go with using the free versions of Schedulers. I still use Hootsuite and have no complaints. It works for me and in my opinion, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Hootsuite will let you drop the link, then pull your featured image and allow you to shorten your link with just a couple clicks. There is a limit to the number of free posts you can schedule each month so keep that in mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing!