The Ultimate Guide to Blogging Resources

“What do you use for [fill in the blank]?”

It’s one of the most asked questions in the blogosphere. That blank could be a blogging platform, hosting service, blog graphics, you name it. It’s always helpful, especially when starting out, to know what others use to run their blog. As much as it may appear that bloggers sprinkle unicorn dust to create a great blog, sadly that’s not true. I know that I put Blog Clarity together with lots of sweat and a few frustrated tears. Magic it is not!

To save you hours of searching for this and for that, here’s a peek behind the curtain to see all the tools, resources, plugins, and STUFF I use to run Blog Clarity. I pinky swear you’ll find something useful in here.

Just a note that a handful of these links are affiliate links but I use and recommend everything in here.

The Basics

The Oooh Pretty Stuff

Favorite Design Tools + Places to Find Images

People often ask me what programs I use for my pinnable images and my e-course handouts. Answers are here + my favorite places to find images.

1. Creative Market: My favorite place for modern design elements

I looooove me some Creative Market. Reasonable prices and high quality. I've purchased fonts, backgrounds, icons, textures, and Photoshop actions from here. Plus, check out their weekly freebies. I can't tell you how many great things I've gotten there for free.

2. iStock Photo

I’ve been using iStockphoto for years in my marketing life. They have great graphics and photos for reasonable rates. People often ask me who did my blog designs (for Blog Clarity and Adventuroo). For most of it, I used graphics that I purchased from iStockphoto then tweaked them using Adobe Illustrator (you have to have a vector-based program to alter graphics). If you’re working with a graphic designer, it’s a great place to get ideas of what design components you want in a blog design. For free photos, I sometimes use their free site stock.XCHNG but I find I like the paid ones better (I buy the smallest versions on most of them).

3. Picmonkey

With Picmonkey, it’s so easy to do so many things. Wondering the dimensions to design a Facebook cover photo? Just use their template and BAM! Want to make a collage? They already have loads of options to choose from. The program isn’t perfect, but overall it’s a great option to create graphics for your blog. I ended up getting the paid version but you can do loads with the free version too.

4. Fotolia: My favorite place for stock photos that don't suck

My current go-to place for photos (they have graphics and videos too). Reasonably priced and a good selection. They even have an iPad app for easy searching for images.

5. Adobe Creative Suite

In order to design my blog graphics and e-course handouts, I use the Adobe Creative Suite applications Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I also do some of my pinnable images with Photoshop. Best part? With a subscription, you get access to both web and desktop versions of fonts via TypeKit. I might have jumped up and down when I learned that little fact.

Plugins Schmugins

By now, you probably know that WordPress is the king of plugins. It’s kinda like iPhone commercials when they say “there’s an app for that.” There’s a plugin for everything! Just know that too many plugins can slow down your site so chose them carefully. A wee bit of advice… Before you install a plugin, back up your site. And check your blog after installing a plugin to make sure it doesn’t make anything wonky.

For all you Blogger bloggy peeps, don’t get frowny-faced just yet. Some of these plugins are also available for Blogger! For some others, I linked to tutorials that will help you get a similar functionality.

Sharing and Caring Plugins

These plugins are great for spreading the blog love.

1. CommentLuv

CommentLuv was one of the first plugins I ever installed and it’s still one of my favorites. When someone leaves a comment and the CommentLuv button is checked (I keep my defaulted to be checked) it will automatically pull up the commenter’s most recent blog post. It’s great because sometimes a blog post title will be enticing enough for other commenters to click the link, giving that commenter some traffic. A great way to spread the love!

2. WordPress › jQuery Pin It Button For Images ” WordPress Plugins

Pinterest is my number one source of referral traffic so it’s important to make pinning my posts as simple as possible. In addition to having a PinIt button within my Digg Digg sharing buttons, I also have a PinIt button that appears when you hover over an image. This jQuery PinIt Button for Images plugin is a cinch to set up. Plus, you can disable the feature on individual posts and pages too if you’d like.

NOTE: If you're using Ahalogy, it DOES work with this plugin. You just have to set it to Dynamic.

3. Comment Reply Notification

Did you know that by default WordPress does NOT notify someone that they've received a reply to their comment? BAH, right? That's why this plugin is one of the most useful plugins to keep the convo going within your comments. When someone replies to a comment on your blog (whether it’s you or another reader), it emails the original commenter to let them know. You can customize the email too, which just adds to the fun (my subject line says “Your fabulous comment at Blog Clarity has a new reply.”) Just note that you have to reply from the post or from within your WordPress admin. It won't work if you do it from your WP phone app. While there’s no option like this for Blogger, if you install another commenting system like Disqus or Intense Debate, it will offer this functionality.

4. Digg Digg plugin

Digg Digg makes it easy for readers to share your blog posts. It’s pretty easy to configure and I love the way it looks. Currently, I offer the ability to share a post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and Google +. You can choose where you want the buttons to display and their orientation (vertical/horizontal). Be sure to configure your Twitter button settings to include your Twitter name.

Plugins for Increasing Readership and Pageviews

These plugins make readers happy because they make your site easier to use and interact with. Some of these plugins encourage readers to hang around your site for a while… hooray for pageviews!

1. nRelate Related Content

This plugin shows thumbnails at the bottom of a post that link to other articles related to the current one. In the past, I’ve used LinkWithin but I found I really like the look on nrelate Related Content better. You can exclude categories, create a title for the box (default is “You may also like -”) and decide how many posts you want to show. My favorite part is that you have many built-in options to change the look, including an option to use your own CSS for a unique look.

2. nRelate Popular Posts Plugin

With you might know nrelate for related content, they also offer a Popular Post plugin. You can exclude categories, select how many posts to display and display them with or without a thumbnail. If you’re feeling extra fancy, you can even customize the look with some CSS. While Blogger doesn’t have this exact plugin, there’s a Popular Post widget that you can easily add to your sidebar.

3. Tweet Old Post

I knew about the Tweet Old Post plugin long before I actually started using it. But I was hesitant because I saw tweets like “Enter this awesome giveaway!” and it was from 6 months ago or “Cute Halloween Ideas” and it’s June. I finally stepped off the ledge though. And love it! If you use this plugin, be sure to make sure your posts are categorized properly. Then simply exclude the categories you don’t want to tweet out. I wrote a post about this plugin if you want more deets. The only bummer about this plugin is that you can’t exclude weekends. I don’t tweet enough on the weekends and so sometimes these show up two tweets in a row. But I’m willing to let that slide for the great traffic those tweets bring to my blog.

4. What Would Seth Godin Do? (WWSGD)

WWSGD greets new users with a message that you customize. You can tell them what your blog is about, encourage them to subscribe, ask them to fan your page, whatever! No matter what you do with it, my advice is to keep your message simple. I also love that you can tell it how many times to show a reader (mine’s set at three times). If you don’t know who Seth Godin is, he’s awesomeness). By the way, for the love of Batman don’t use the generic message it comes with. I wrote a post about how to customize your call to action so you sound like YOU, not like generic text.

5. Hello Bar – Get More Clicks With The Hello Bar Notification Bar

Why hello here, Hello Bar. This is a special bar that you can add to the tip top of your website to drive attention to important things like your RSS feed or products you may sell. I use it on occasion to promote things like my courses or my e-book. You can even do split testing where you test two different messages and see which one performs better. To learn how to set it up, hop over to my Hello Bar tutorial.

Behind-the-Scenes Plugins

This part isn’t sexy, but here are some necessary plugins to keep you from having a bloggy heart attack.

1. Akismet

Akismet (free for personal blogs) filters out spam. While I check it every couple of days because some legit comments occasionally slip through the cracks, it always manages to catch the spam. I could publish a book with the hilarious spam I get, like “The dear author, thanks you for a vital topic!” Blogger has Automatic Spam Detector built in so you shouldn’t need anything (though I can’t promise it catches all the spam).

Public Service Announcement: Unless you have a major spam problem that a plugin isn’t catching, turn off comment moderation and word verification. They hinder engagement big time. If you’re worried you won’t know if someone comments without moderating, you can simply adjust your WordPress or Blogger settings to email you when someone comments.

2. BWP XML Sitemaps

I can’t say that BWP Google XML Sitemaps is the best but that’s just because all the technical stuff regarding sitemaps goes above my head. I needed a sitemap and this plugin made one (plus an index). So BOOM. Sitemaps help with SEO. Keep all the settings to default unless you know what you’re doing (mine are on default- ha!).

3. Comment Form 7

Contact Form 7 allows you to make customized contact forms. While there are a ton of contact form plugins out there, I’ve messed with a couple of others but like this one the best. For Blogger, you can create a form in Google docs or try one of these two contact forms. JUST MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR EMAIL ON YOUR CONTACT ME. Yes, I was shouting. You can read this post to find out why.

4. WP Ban

When Akismet isn’t enough, you must break out this bad boy. I used to have a really bad spam comment on Adventuroo. And more recently, I’ve seen spammers actually leaving genuine comments but then see they're linked to spammy sites. In both cases, most of the spam was coming from the same handful of IP addresses. With this plugin, you can ban IP addresses so they get a customizable message when they try to access your site. Mine lovingly says “You Are Banned, Sucker.” This plugin also comes in handy when you have an anonymous hater (hater, stop hatin’!). Watch Kludgy Mom’s video to see how to set this plugin up.

E-Commerce & E-Learning Tools

Plugins and apps too set up an online shop and teach courses.

1. Sensei by Woothemes: Platform for My Self-Paced Courses

When I decided to turn Content Brew into a self-paced course, I spent hours researching a good LMS (Learning Management Platform) and finally decided on Sensei. I chose Sensei mainly because it easily integrated with Woocommerce. So far I’ve been happy with it, but it lacks a few features I wish I had. Some parts were easy to set up and others I’m still trying to get fleshed out!

2. Woocommerce: My Shop Plugin

If you've ever purchases a course or e-book through my blog, then you've seen Woocommerce at work! The actual plugin is FREE but you can purchase extensions to enhance the store if you’d like (there are also some free ones like the Genesis Connect one I use). Just don’t get carried away with paid extensions. It does a lot without paying a dime!

3. WP Affiliate Plugin: My Affiliate Program

Do you sell products on your site and want to increase sales? Then you definitely need an affiliate program. You reach more audiences and get more sales. Period. Plus, WP Affililate was recommended to me by a fellow blogger. It’s fairly simple to set up. While it’s a paid plug-in, it’s worth it if you’re serious about an affiliate program.

4. Mandrill by Mailchimp: So My Shop Emails Send Out

The plugin is called wpMandrill and the app is called just Mandrill. This one can get confusing to explain so bare with me. Mandrill is called a transactional email service, meaning it sends out non-marketing emails like order confirmations, receipts and so on. Mandrill essentially sends out emails that are generated by WordPress like my Content Brew order confirmations. I use this because I can’t seem to get WordPress to send out my Woocommerce emails.

Mandrill improves the authenticity of my emails (meaning it’s less likely to go to spam) and I can ensure my shop’s emails are actually going out. It’s free for up to 12,000 emails/month, which has been plenty for me. WARNING: This is an advanced app and isn’t necessary for 99% of bloggers out there.

5. Screencast-o-matic: For My Video Tutorials

Screencast-O-Matic rocks my socks. Want to make screencast tutorials? Then use it. I use it for all my Blog Clarity e-course videos. There's a FREE version and you basically use it online so there’s nothing to install. Easy peasy. While there's a free version, I pay just $15/year for the PRO version. Two big benefits? No watermark on videos and you can upload directly to Vimeo!

Businessy Blog Things

Tools and resources perfect for those who are serious about building their blog as a business.

1. Social Media Management Dashboard – Hootsuite

I've been a HootSuite user since about 2009- it's my favorite way to post to manage Twitter! You can also use it to post to multiple accounts and schedule posts or tweets as well. There's so much power in this app (I use the free version). For example, these streams will make you go ooooh. And if you don't know what streams are, then you can start here with a HootSuite primer.

2. Mailchimp- For my Email Subscribers, RSS-to-Email, and Course Emails

I’ve been doing email marketing since about 2003 and through multiple Email Service Providers (ESPs). Guess what? Mailchimp is my favorite ESP. And if you’ve heard the rumor that Mailchimp didn’t accept affiliate links, then you need to read the truth straight from the monkey’s mouth. It’s completely free for those with under 2,000 subscribers, to which I say SCORE! It’s super easy to use and that monkey talks my language. Like when I send a newsletter, Mailchimp tells me things like “A fine piece of work. You totally deserve a raise.” And I’m like, you’re right. I DO deserve a raise!

3. Evernote- So I Can Remember ALL THE THINGS

I can't live without Evernote. CAN'T. I use it to save articles, ideas, and even memories of funny things my kids say. I use the free version, but you can get space and features with their premium account if you need it. Wanna know how to use it? I spill the details in my Content Brew course.

4. Feedblitz- My Feedburner Alternative

I pay $1.50/month to host my RSS feed through Feedburner. IMO, Feedburner will go the way of the do-do bird eventually so I'm ready.

5. Bloglovin'

To read some of my favorite blogs, I use Bloglovin'. It's easy to find new blogs to follow and search for your favorites too.

6. Feedly

When Google Reader went down in flames, I imported all my Reader subscriptions to feedly. I currently follow the more businessy blogs and websites through Feedly and the more personal blogs through Bloglovin'.

7. Listly: For List Lovers

Listly is my new favorite toy. All these lists? Made with this. It has a social aspect to it too, but for now I'm just using it to embed links. I am using the free version, which allows you to make three lists Premium lists (which means they can have affiliate links + other features). I'm seriously considering the monthly fee for this bad boy. But for now I'm in exploration mode. And lovin' it.

I’m just getting this page ramped up so I’d love for you to pin, share, tweet, or otherwise love on this page to spread the info-overload onto other bloggers.