Running your own blog is not an easy task. Thankfully there are a lot of resources for bloggers. These include WordPress, Google Analytics and Pinterest! Check out this blog post for the tools I use to run my blog.

Hello everyone & welcome back to my blog! Today is Friday which means it’s blogging tips day. In today’s post, I wanted to share the top tools that help me run my blog. As much as I enjoy writing about travel, I also enjoy writing about the ‘business’ aspect of blogging and sharing what I learned on this journey. Let’s begin!

Before we get into the blog post, check out my Instagram to see where in the world I am today.

WordPress:

♡ This is an obvious one. I do not host via WordPress directly but I do use SiteGround to host my website. SiteGround‘s customer service is stellar! I encountered some problems when I first started my site and they helped me resolve it in 15 minutes.

Furthermore, they have some of the most affordable plans out there. I paid $110 dollars for the whole year. Siteground automatically updates my WordPress with the newest versions available so I don’t have to worry about any of that!

All in all, if you’re thinking of starting your blog and are looking fora an excellent service, check out Siteground! You will not be disappointed.

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Lightroom:

♡ Lightroom has exploded in recent years! I use it to edit my photos for Instagram as well for my blog photos. You can create your own presets to match your brand which is what I did. The current preset I used is a very warm toned and I made it myself.

If you don’t want to do that, there are a number of places where you can purchase presets for cheap. Three of my favourite bloggers sell their own presets for crazy cheap. Check them out here:

⇢ Heleneinbetween
⇢ Finduslost
⇢ Fallontravels

Another place where you can buy some pretty amazing presets for free is Etsy. If you want to give your blog and social media that extra oomph, consider making your own presets or purchasing one!

WordPress themes:

♡ When I first started my blog last year, I immediately knew what layout I wanted to have. There are a number of websites that have amazing premium themes (including WordPress!). I am giving you my top ones where you can find girly, chic themes.

⇢ Pipdig themes:
I am currently using one of their themes and I love it! The one I bought is the Viva Viva theme.

⇢ Angie Makes:
My first ever theme was purchased from here. I absolutely love the girly, floral aesthetic their themes have. Furthermore, they look so professional and they have a lot of features that help you take your blog to the next level!

⇢ HelloYouDesigns:
I absolutely love their themes! When my blog is due for an update (which is coming up soon), I will be purchasing a theme from them. I love how chic and professional they are as well as very dynamic! You have everything showing on your homepage without overwhelming your readers which is key.

Planners:

♡ As I mentioned in my eleven ways to stand out as a travel blogger blog post, I use planners to help me stay organized and on top my blog posts. I can’t recommend planners enough because if you’re like me, I forget all of my ideas if I don’t write them down in one place! Staying organized is key and a planner will definitely make your blogging journey and experience more easier.

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Facebook Groups:

♡ Everyone wants their blog to grow and readers to read their content right? You’d obviously need to put your content out there to do so! Facebook groups are one of the many excellent ways where you can promote your blog. Furthermore, you can learn so much about blogging from other users! I created my own Facebook group and Facebook page to help me promote my blog as well as other bloggers and learn from them!

My main focus is Pinterest (more on that in the next point) but I do use Facebook every now and then to promote my blog. Here are my top groups:

⇢ Start A Money Making Blog
⇢ Boss Girl Bloggers
⇢ Slaying Social: Community for Impactful Travel Content Creators

Pinterest:

♡ Pinterest is possibly one of the best tools you can use to grow your blog. While I use Facebook and Instagram to promote my blog, 95% of my traffic comes from Pinterest. Crazy, I know! Like Google, Pinterest is a search engine and users search for information on there. That is why it is super important to SEO optimize your profile, pins and boards. If you’re a blogger and you’re not on Pinterest yet, I recommend creating an account! You will not be disappointed.

Editing tools for Pinterest:

♡ Tying with the above point, you’d obviously need to design your own pins, upload them to your profile and provide a link to your blog! There are a couple of editing tools out there and I am going to give you my top two:

⇢ Photoshop:
If you have basic knowledge of photo editing, I recommend using Photoshop. This is what I use to create all of my pins. It is not free but worth the investment if you want to expand your editing skills.

⇢ Canva:
Canva is a free online editing tool that a number of bloggers use. You can find already made templates and it is very easy to use! If you’re not tech-savvy, Canva is the tool for you!

Tailwind:

♡ Before I took the plunge and invested in Tailwind, I used to manually pin my pins and my traffic was meh. Furthermore, I would need to pin every hour and sometimes I would forget. Now with Tailwind, I only spend an hour or two scheduling my pins and my traffic has doubled! It can be overwhelming at first but give it some time and you’ll start seeing results in no time. It will take some time to start seeing the results you want. I haven’t reached my goal yet (get at least 10K views from Pinterest) but I am on the right path! It takes trial & error to figure out how many pins you need to put out daily without hurting your traffic and overwhelming your followers, but you’ll get there!

Google Analytics & Adsense:

♡ I use Analytics to check my traffic on my blog and see if it’s improving or declining. It is an amazing tool to keep track of how your blog is doing and see where you need to improve! On the other hand, I use Analytics, to keep track of my earnings and impressions. Blogging for me isn’t just for money and I am not on Analytics every day but I do like to see how certain ads are doing compared to others. They are both amazing tools to keep an eye on how your blog is performing!

Stock images:

♡ It’s no secret that bloggers make use of stock images and my favourite website is Unsplash.com! You can find an image for literally everything on here and I make use of it not only to use their images but also to take some photo ideas. There are a lot of stock images websites out there but Unsplash is my fav because 1) they have super high-quality images and 2) it’s free!

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And that brings an end to today’s rather short post! I hope you found it useful even and if I missed something, let me know in the comment box below. As always, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on my social media (linked below!)