10 Blogging Tools I Use That Helped Me Achieve More Than 30,000 Pageviews Within 2 Months
*This post may contain affiliate links, As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can read the full disclosure here.
If you are looking to start a blog or grow your already existing blog, in this post I am going to be sharing what blogging tools I use and found useful.
When I started blogging years ago (3 years to be exact), I was clueless what tools would help me grow my blog traffic and earn me income. (I was pretty skeptical of spending money just to figure out later it wasn’t something I wanted, and the budget was pretty tight, too) I used to read tons of blog posts of people who were making a significant amount of money from their blog and I would always wonder about their strategies and tools they use.
So, I have taken many courses, tried many tools and now I am sharing only that I think could help you out!
So, if you don’t know, I already have a blog in the productivity and personal development niche that is almost 3 years old, doing better financially so I decided to start another one (this one) and write on many different topics that I like (including about blogging, why not if it helps people).
I will also mention free alternatives so if you are just starting out and the budget is tight, you could use them before you spend anything at all but keep in mind the free tools will always be limited.
And when I am writing this post, this blog is around 2 months old and I am already seeing great results.
But if you are a new blogger, you might not see results too quickly and it is okay, you will get there.
10 Blogging Tools I Use (How I Went From 0 To 25,000 Pageviews Within 2 Months)
1) Domain
If you already have a blog up and running you may want to skip point one and second. But you are still thinking about starting it, the very first step is to think about the domain name.
While thinking about domain name, I’d keep a few things in mind-
1) Do not limit yourself unless you are very sure of what you’ll be blogging about long term.
2) Use .com. If your desired name isn’t available with a .com name maybe try something else.
Once you are sure what your domain name will be, I recommend using Namesilo (all my domain names are with them), to register your domain name. You can also use a coupon code to get a discount.
Tip- It’s often recommended to keep your domain and hosting separately for security purposes.
2) Hosting
The next is finding a good hosting provider to host your blog. In the past I have tried many hosting providers such as lyrical host, skystra, and bigscoots.
I never had any issues with any of them. Lyrical host may be a bit on the higher side but they do provide additional benefits like they have a resource library where you’ll get tons of stock images and blogging resources. But I found them to be a bit slow compared to any other hosting company I have tried. A great choice for beginners.
| Check out Lyrical Host and use coupon code ‘stunning10’ to get 10% off. |
This blog is hosted on Hostarmada and I love them, you can save massive for the first few years which is great until your blog starts to make money.
| Sign Up for Hostarmada | Sign Up for Bigscoots |
I know many people recommend bluehost but I have no personal experience to share although I have mostly heard negative things about them like they increase price when it comes to renewing, they are slow and not having good customer support so I would not recommend them.
Good customer support is a must for me especially when you are a new blogger.
3) Good Quality Theme
I am always in search of good quality feminine themes that reflect my style and personality while making sure they are also good quality and fast loading. If you are wondering, this blog is using a say yes theme by studio mommy. When I bought this theme and had some questions, I reached out to April (the owner of studio mommy) and she made a video for me showing how to resolve the issue and I was able to fix my issue within an hour.
It is also made on the kadence framework so it’s a lightweight theme that loads fast and the support was great. On my other blog, I am using the Audrey theme from 17th avenue designs. I like both and they have different designs to suit your needs.
Definitely worth checking out. Both of them are reasonably priced too. I bought this theme for under $50.
4) Stock Images Membership
As you already know by now, I have two websites and I am currently paying for 3 stock membership sites to have new, high quality images and templates for my business. If you are just starting out, one would be more than enough for you.
1) Elevae– This is the first ever stock image membership that I became a member of last year when it was social squares. I like their collection of images as you know I have a personal growth blog and they have some great lifestyle images that helped me build my blog.
2) Pixi Stock– I bought pixi stock membership recently in July 2024 and I loved it. It’s not just stock images that they have. They have a whole collection of quotes, pinterest, instagram templates and all the marketing templates you will ever need in your business. I loved it.
| Use PXAFF15 FOR 15% OFF Here. |
3) Style stock society– They have a collection of images that you can download. You won’t have to worry about downloading a single image every time which saves time. Style stock society has been my favorite stock image membership so far.
| Sign Up For Styled Stock Society Here. |
5) Keysearch
Keysearch is a SEO tool that many bloggers use (including me). I love how affordable it is compared to all others out there. Plus it has everything you need. In the beginning, you can sign up for a month to see if it is helping you out. I know a lot of people are also using rankIQ but I have never tried that one. I always recommend keysearch.
6) Pin Inspector
This is for pinterest. If your niche isn’t pinterest friendly, you might want to avoid this one but if you fall into food, home, garden, kids, self growth, travel, and any other pinterest friendly niche, this tool will help you a lot researching about your competitors and getting new keyword ideas.
7) Blogging Courses
When I first started blogging, I thought I would figure things out myself as I move forward. I consider myself a pretty self-taught person and the internet has all the information, right? Wrong.
Currently, I get most of my traffic from Pinterest but when I started promoting my blog on Pinterest 3 years ago. It was pretty hard to even get 1,000 pageviews in a month. It took me almost 2 years to get a significant amount of traffic from pinterest- thanks to the strategies that the course I took provided.
It was trial and error and still it was hard to figure out myself.
I am sure you can figure things out yourself but courses are there to teach you things that you would learn in years after tons of trial and errors. I believe our time is more precious than $$$$. Plus, you will be able to make that dollars back pretty quick if you apply the strategies taught in the course.
I bought many courses, but I only recommend the following as I found them to be the most useful so I won’t be mentioning all.
Plus, keep that in mind that maybe if you think your blog niche is pinterest friendly or you just want to spend your time on SEO, then select the course for your needs.
1) Pinteresting strategies (For Pinterest only)- I thank Carly (the creator of this course) for making this course. It helped me in a way no other course I bought before could. It’s pretty reasonably priced for the value it provides. It helped me to find keywords on Pinterest, use them in your title and description, how many pins to create and publish per day, or the method that gives you results.
| Sign Up For Pinteresting Strategy. |
It’s pretty detailed. Definitely the best $97 I spent for my business. It is perfect for any level blogger whether you are a beginner or someone who’s trying hard on the platform but not getting any traffic.
2) Stupid Simple Blogging (For Google SEO, Email Marketing, Facebook and Pinterest)- Mike’s stupid simple seo was a popular course among blogging to learn on and off page SEO. When Google update hit many bloggers in September 2023, Mike decided to update this course and he updated the entire courses and added many new ways to make it as a blogger- SEO (on and off page SEO), Email marketing, Facebook, and Pinterest course and so much more that will help you make your side hobby a great income builder.
I highly recommend it. If you have the budget to buy only one course, it has to be it. It’s for both beginner bloggers and also if you are blogging for a while and not seeing results.
3) Get Your Keywords Together (For Google Seo Keywords)- As much as I love and recommend stupid simple blogging, I understand that there are many people who may not be able to take this course at this point and that is okay.
I have been there so I got something else for you- Get your keywords together.
This ebook goes into details of keywords and teaches you how to use your keywords so google ranks your post. (and how to avoid over-using it. It’s under $50 at the moment. So it’s a steal.
8) Canva
I use Canva for all my design needs- for making pin templates to making printables everything is made using Canva. I use Canva pro as it gives you more options-like you can save your branding colors, fonts, logos, use additional stock images and soo much more. If you are planning to promote your blog on Pinterest or selling printables, I highly recommend it.
9) Convertkit
Another blogging tool that I swear by. This is an email marketing platform that I use. There are so many options out there but it’s important to make sure the user interface is easy to use and you’ll get all the functionality you need for your blogging needs. I definitely recommend convertkit. Recently, they also started to pay if you have over 10,000 subscribers and I’m sure it will get better over time.
| Check Out Convertkit Here. |
10) Plugins I Use
Last but not least, if you are a new blogger and wondering which plugins to use, here is my list of plugins I use. (Mostly all are free).
- – Anti spam bee (to filter out spam comments).
- – Autoptimize cache plugin
- – Hubbub (for social share)
- – Link whisper (For internal linking).
- – Rank math seo (Seo plugin)
- – Smush (to optimize images)
- – Updraftplus (for backup of your site).
And that’s about it! I hope you found this post on blogging tools helpful. If you have any question related to blogging, post in the comments below.
