Bulletproof Blogging Resources and tools

Bulletproof blogging resources — a powerful set tools to establish your online authority. Every solopreneur who blogs professionally, or wants to, needs a great set of resources to manage their platform and streamline their creative workflows. These are the blogging resources I use or have used. These are tools that I recommend.

Many are affiliate links for which I receive a commission. That in no way affects the price for you. If you choose to purchase them elsewhere, you will find the same price. If you choose to make a purchase them through the Bulletproof Blogger, thank you. I greatly value your support and vote of confidence.

Web Hosting

Bluehost — I switched all of my hosting needs to Bluehost three years ago and couldn’t be happier. Customer support is fantastic, and I can count on getting any issues resolved quickly. Hosting is available for as low as $3.49 per month on a three-year term. A great price!

Hover — I purchase and manage all of my domains through Hover. All domains purchased through Hover include Domain Privacy, a feature that costs extra through many other providers. They have a super-streamlined process with no upsells, unlike other domain sellers.

Site Design and Management

WordPress — The best blogging platform around. Best of all, it’s FREE! WordPress is a powerful Content Management System (CMS), which just means it’s not just for blogs. It easily handles all types of sites, including — eCommerce, online courses, digital downloads, audio and video media, etc. WordPress powers over 22% of the websites on the Internet, including many major companies. If you truly want to “own” your platform, you want a self-hosted WordPress site.

Genesis Framework and Themes — I use the Genesis framework and themes exclusively to build my sites and those of my clients, with one exception — some eCommerce sites. The Genesis Framework by Studiopress is a premium theme known for its clean, highly-efficient coding, superior SEO performance, and speed.

WooCommerce and WooThemes — This is my exception in building client sites. While the WooCommerce plugin can be used on Genesis-powered sites, WooCommerce as some awesome themes geared specifically for eCommerce. Oh, by the way, they are also owned by Automattic, the developers of WordPress. Some free themes. The WooCommerce plugin is always free.

Dynamik Website Builder — This is a powerful Genesis child theme developed by Cobalt Apps. This premium theme gives you nearly complete control over every aspect of your site design without the need for extensive coding experience. I have used Dynamik Website Builder for several years, and it just keeps getting better.

BeaverBuilder — A powerful WordPress visual page builder plugin. Build WordPress sites quickly, with custom layouts for every page. It works great with the Genesis Framework, but you can use it on any WordPress theme. Build a completely customized site within a couple of hours. If you want to do-it-yourself solution, BeaverBuilder is a best-of-class visual page builder.

Genesis Dambuster — A free plugin for Genesis themes. Use it with BeaverBuilder and the Genesis Framework to quickly create full-width custom page layouts. Particularly useful for building landing pages. Remove unwanted page content without having to touch any code.

CSS Hero — WordPress theme editor plugin to easily customize every CSS property of your theme with an intuitive point and click interface. Works with a large variety of WordPress themes, including Genesis themes. Makes theme customization a breeze with no coding.

WP Rocket — Let’s face it speed optimization for your website can be a real chore. Even the best caching plugins can be confusing to configure. I’ve tried them all, and numerous other configuration plugins to optimize my sites. WP Rocket is a paid plugin, well worth the money in time and frustration saved over other solutions. Super easy to install and the results are very impressive. Better than any other solutions I’ve tried.

MainWP — Do you manage multiple sites? MainWP allows you to monitor, maintain, update and backup multiple websites from a single WordPress dashboard. Best of all this plugin is free though you may want to pay for an extra add-on or two for convenience. I am an affiliate for add-ons, though, for the average user the base plugin will be more than adequate.

ServerPress — If you want to build your own or client site locally on your computer ServerPress is the tool for you. With single-click WordPress install, you can have a new development site up in a matter of seconds. Site design and development is fast when you can work locally. When you’re done just upload the new site to your hosting provider of choice directly from ServerPress.

Email Marketing

MailChimp — This is my email marketing service. Simple interface, easy to use. If you are just starting out, MailChimp is an excellent choice to build your email list. The service is free to use for your first 2000 subscribers.

OptinMonster — World-class lead generation technology for opt-in forms, welcome gates, floating bars, sidebar forms and more. I use OptinMonster in conjunction with MailChimp to build my email list. I used OptinMonster for a couple of months before making the full leap to the annual plan, so it wasn’t a casual purchase.

Writing

Byword2 — This is the app I use for writing all of my blog posts. Clean, simple and fast text editing with Markdown. I can publish drafts directly into WordPress.

Marked2 — A previewer for Markdown documents. I use Marked2 side-by-side with Byword to see exactly how my post or document will look in WordPress.

Evernote — My Bulletproof vault for research materials, articles and everything else that helps me maintain a paperless lifestyle. A freemium product.

Grammarly — Everything I write gets a Grammarly check before publishing. It works in your browser with WordPress though I prefer to use the desktop version of the app before moving my content into WordPress.

Visual Media

Canva for Work / PicMonkey — I dropped Photoshop and now use Canva and PicMoney exclusively to develop and enhance images for blog posts, social media posts and marketing materials. Canva for Work doesn’t have an affiliate program, but if they ever come out with one, I’ll be one the first to sign-up. Both free and premium versions are available. See how I use them for the Bulletproof Blogger here.

Screenflow — A powerful video editing and screen recording program. Ideal for creating screencasts, online video and recording webinars. Add professional touches to your videos with built-in transitions, annotations, text, audio & video filters, screen recording highlights, callouts and much more. Publish directly to Youtube, Vimeo, Wistia, Facebook and others.

SnagIt — Quickly capture, edit and annotate images, screenshots, full-length web pages and record video with SnagIt. Cut and keep only what you want. I use it to capture text and images for my swipe files and send them directly to Evernote vault from the app.

Social Media

CoSchedule — A premium plugin for WordPress that serves as your editorial calendar and command center for planning and publishing your blog and social media posts. It streamlines your content publishing workflow. The costs $19 per month for solopreneurs or $180 if paid annually ($15 per month).

Buffer — Another social media content scheduling and publishing app. The free version will meet most users needs, however for $10 per month you can connect more accounts and publish more content to Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

HootSuite — A complete command center to manage your social media activity. Another freemium product.