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119+ Best Resources for Blogging


Ever since bloggers like John Chow and Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker spilled the beans that people could make A LOT of money from blogging, thousands of people have been jumping on the blogging bandwagon every month dreaming of duplicating their successes.

Just like with any other business ventures, most bloggers fail at generating significant, if any, income from their blogs.

How can you build a successful blog that attracts a large audience, pays your bills, and fulfill your dream as a full-time blogger? The following books, tools, themes, plugins, hosting, and resources can help you get closer to that dream. I did all the hard work so you don't have to. Enjoy!

Top Earning Blogs

The following blogs rake in thousands of dollars each month through ad revenue, partnerships, sponsorship, and even personal appearances. Their earnings are shown based on reports and estimations.

Income: $500,000 to $800,000 per month

TechCrunch is one of the leading online sources for news on the tech industry, from startups to gadgets to apps to guides and more.

Income: $560,000 to $600,000 per month

Mashable shares the latest and most relevant global news and more on tech, culture, and entertainment

Income: $200,000 to $400,000 per month

This blog covers the latest celebrity gossip news.

Income: approx. $208,000 per month

Being passionate about fashion and photography, Chiara Ferragni created The Blonde Salad to express her creativity and life stories. The blog has grown a lot since then, and she is now considered a fashion icon in Italy, appearing in different forms of media. She also has her own shop where she sells her own collection.

Income: $100,000 to $200,000 per month

A fashion and lifestyle blog by Kristina Bazan and James Chardon, Kayture is one of the most influential blogs in Switzerland sharing about beauty, travels, stories, and more. Bazan has partnered with major fashion and luxury brands.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Interior designer Aimee Song blogs about fashion, design, travel, DIY, and more. She has also written a book called Capture Your Style, which provides tips and tricks to creating beautiful images for Instagram or other social media.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Wardrobe stylist Chriselle Lim blogs about beauty, fashion, and life through her own personal style and flair with details taken from her experience in the industry. She has become influential and inspirational to thousands of women all over the world.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Cinemagraphs Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg create visual stories on fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle and more through stunning photographs and videos.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Rach Parcell's personal blog features her own style through her outfits, home decors, and beauty tips. Parcell has also launched her own clothing line.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Starting the blog in college and working on it part time, Julia Engel was able to grow Gal Meets Glam into a full time business. The blog hopes to inspire people to "add a little glam" to their lives through posts about style, design, travel, and more.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

"A Selective Editorial On All Things Snob," this blog features pieces on beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and even children.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Amber Fillerup Clark shares her love for beauty and fitness through features, tutorials, tips, stories, and more through her personal blog.

Income: approx. $83,000 to $250,000 per month

Influencer Shea Marie blogs about fashion, beauty, health, and more. Being a real style icon, she has worked with high fashion brands and publications, and has reached millions of people through her work. She has also created Same Swim, her own swimwear collection.

Income: $150,000 to $190,000

A really useful site for web designers and developers, Smashing Magazine shares articles and eBooks on coding, design, graphics and more.

Income: $150,000 to $180,000 per month

Self-made millionaire Timothy Sykes shares his story and tips to gaining huge profits from trading stocks.

Income: $80,000 to $110,000 per month

A blog about all things New York, Gothamist features articles and videos about the news, food, art, entertainment, and more.

Income: $55,000 to $120,000 per month

This site provides global access to hundreds of tutorials, courses, and eBooks on coding, web design, business, graphics, game development, and many more, offered through a membership subscription.

Income: $110,000 per month

This daily weblog shares useful tips and information to get things done more effectively. They also include relevant links and downloads for more information.

Income: $50,000 to $100,000 per month

One of the leading tech blogs, VentureBeat documents research, shares news, and holds events for the tech industry to educate and inspire people.

Income: $60,000 to $80,000 per month

This blog shares all things tech for personal use, from smartphones to cars and so much more.

Best Books on Blogging

Successful bloggers excel at three tasks:

  • Creating quality content people want

  • Driving traffic to their blogs

  • Converting traffic to revenue

Each of the following recommended books covers either one or a combination of the three tasks:

By Ruth Soukup

Whether you have been blogging for years or just a few weeks, How to Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul offers solid advice and practical action plans for creating an authentic, successful, and profitable blog.

With wit, wisdom, and the insight of someone who’s been there, Ruth Soukup shares how she grew her own blog, Living Well Spending Less, to over one million monthly visitors, earns a full time income, and still is able to write about the things she truly cares about.

In this book, you will:

  • Stop comparing your blog to those around you and instead learn to leverage your own unique assets.

  • Discover the secrets to creating amazing, compelling blog content that brings readers back again and again.

  • Learn how to increase your blog traffic and build solid platform through field-tested strategies.

  • Develop a solid social media strategy for capturing viral growth through Pinterest and Facebook.

  • Dramatically boost your revenue through diversified income streams.

  • Improve your productivity, learning to work smarter not harder, and take concrete steps to transform your blog into a business.

 

By Joanna Penn

After 13 years working as a "cubicle slave" in the corporate world, Joanna Penn started writing books and blogging, using her words to create products and attract readers. In September 2011, she left her corporate job to become a full-time author and creative entrepreneur. Since then, she has grown her business year on year, all because of her writing. More importantly, she is finally living the happy life she always wanted.

In this book, Joanna Penn shares how she makes a six-figure income from writing books, blogging and marketing in an ethical manner.

Although not a book exclusively on blogging, it contains very useful information for bloggers.

 

By Ann Handley

Everybody Writes is a go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is, in fact, a writer.

In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt. . . does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary?

Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our currency; they tell our customers who we are.

That means you've got to choose words well, and write with economy and the style and honest empathy for your customers. And it means you put a new value on an often-overlooked skill in content marketing: How to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well. That's true whether you're writing a listicle or the words on a Slideshare deck or the words you're reading right here, right now...

And so being able to communicate well in writing isn't just nice; it's necessity. And it's also the oft-overlooked cornerstone of nearly all our content marketing.

In Everybody Writes, top marketing veteran Ann Handley gives expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results.

These lessons and rules apply across all of your online assets — like web pages, home page, landing pages, blogs, email, marketing offers, and on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media. Ann deconstructs the strategy and delivers a practical approach to create ridiculously compelling and competent content. It's designed to be the go-to guide for anyone creating or publishing any kind of online content — whether you're a big brand or you're small and solo.

Sections include:

  • How to write better. (Or, for "adult-onset writers": How to hate writing less.)

  • Easy grammar and usage rules tailored for business in a fun, memorable way. (Enough to keep you looking sharp, but not too much to overwhelm you.)

  • Giving your audience the gift of your true story, told well. Empathy and humanity and inspiration are key here, so the book covers that, too.

  • Best practices for creating credible, trustworthy content steeped in some time-honored rules of solid journalism. Because publishing content and talking directly to your customers is, at its heart, a privilege.

  • "Things Marketers Write": The fundamentals of 17 specific kinds of content that marketers are often tasked with crafting.

  • Content Tools: The sharpest tools you need to get the job done.

Traditional marketing techniques are no longer enough. Everybody Writes is a field guide for the smartest businesses who know that great content is the key to thriving in this digital world.

 

By Joy Deangdeelert Cho

With roughly 95,000 blogs launched worldwide every 24 hours, making a fledgling site stand out isn't easy. This handbook gives creative hopefuls a leg up. Joy Cho, of the award-winning Oh Joy!, offers expert advice on starting and growing a blog, from design and finance to overcoming blogger's block, attracting readers, and more.

Learn how to:

  • Design your site

  • Choose the right platform

  • Attract a fan base

  • Finance your blog

  • Maintain work/life balance

  • Manage comments

  • Find content inspiration

  • Overcome blogger's block

  • Choose the right ads

  • Develop a voice

  • Protect your work

  • Create a media kit

  • Leverage your social network

  • Take better photographs

  • Set up an affiliate program

  • Partner with sponsors

  • Build community

  • Go full-time with your blog

  • And more!

 

By Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

This new edition gets you up to date on the very latest changes that affect the blogging-for-business landscape. Featuring new material on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; plus new ways and tools to grow your audience and expand your business beyond your blog, this professional blogger's bible is better than ever.

This book:

  • Helps novices choose a blog topic, analyze the market, set up a blog, promote it, and earn revenue

  • Gives aspiring bloggers proven techniques and the tools they need to succeed in building a business from their blogs

  • Reveals 20 key ingredients for a successful blog post

  • Offers solid, step-by-step instruction on how bloggers actually make money, why niches matter, how to use essential blogging tools and take advantage of social media and content aggregators, how to optimize your advertising, and much more

  • Includes techniques for attracting and growing an audience and how to mine new business opportunities beyond your blog

Written by two professional bloggers, this updated edition of ProBlogger tells you exactly how to launch and maintain a blog that makes money.

 

By Jack Davies

You don't have to be a computer genius to create a beautiful, full-functioning blog. Website expert Jack Davies will take you by the hand and show you how anyone (even a beginner) can easily create a wonderful website using the power and beauty of WordPress.

This Kindle ebook shows you:

  • How to register your own domain - and the mistakes to avoid

  • How to get the best hosting – we reveal the hosting companies that WordPress actually recommends you use

  • How to get WordPress installed and up and running with a few mouse-clicks

  • How to design and build a 100% professional-looking website, even without any experience

  • How to add and format your content

  • How to use graphics and images

  • Exactly which themes, plugins, and widgets you should be using

It also comes with plenty of screen-shots and illustrations.

 

By James Gregory

In this tell-it-all style Kindle ebook, author and blogger James Gregory gives you the exact, step-by-step recipe he used to transform a food blog into a $100,000 internet business.

In addition to learning the ingredients of a successful food blog, you will also learn how to:

  • Get traffic and build your brand with social media

  • Create professional-quality food photography

  • Build and monetize your mailing list

  • Create stable, passive advertising revenue

  • Start earning money from your recipe e-book in one month

  • Make money with affiliate programs

  • Build and sell your own recipe app

Although a book about food blogs, it shows you a road map to build a successful blog in any niche.

 

By Regina Anaejionu

This one-year blog editorial planner helps you create a purposeful and profitable content plan for your blog through a mini blog business plan, ideal reader survey, monthly theme planning, monthly content planning, and standard monthly calendars.

The blog planner is set up with blank months so that you can start using it any month of any year. Each month includes a page to plan important goals and tasks before the month begins, a page to track progress on key stats and goals after the month ends, two pages per month to brainstorm content ideas for your blog, email list, products, and collaborations, as well as space near the monthly calendar to write notes or record your content ideas before plugging them into your calendar.

Keeping your blog post process checklist, business plan, and other planning pages in the same place as your monthly editorial calendar will help you stay focused in creating a compelling content plan that encourages blog growth and increased profits.

Best Resources for Starting a Blog

Blogging Platform

  • WordPress.org - the best and most popular blogging platform in the world; you can get your blog with your own domain name (e.g., nickchou.com).

  • WordPress.com - a free hosted blogging platform that allows you to create a hosted blog like nickchou.wordpress.com.

  • Blogger - a free hosted blogging platform owned by Google that allows you to create a blog like nickchou.blogspot.com.

  • Tumblr - a publishing platform that allows you to create a blog like nickchou.tumblr.com.

  • MovableTyle - a publishing and blogging platform by Six Apart.

  • TypePad - a blogging service owned by Endurance International Group.

  • B2evolution.net - alternative

  • Concrete5.org - alternative

Hosting for Your Blog

Free Blog Themes

Paid Premium Blog Themes

Backups

Best Resources for Getting Blogging Ideas

  • Quora - get inspirations for your blog from the most popular Q&A website on the planet.

  • HutSpot Blog Topic Generator - enter three nouns and it will spits out 5 potential blog topics.

  • Google Alerts - receives a notification when Google Alerts finds new results, such as web pages, blogs, or news articles, that match terms you entered to the tool earlier.

  • BuzzSumo - enter a topic or a URL and you’ll see what's hot on social media.

  • QuickSprout - Neil Patel's popular content analysis tool. Enter a URL to the tool to see what pages on the website and what social media posts have received most traffic.

  • Google Trends - see what topics are trending as well as the search volume for the different keywords and phrases you’re considering using.

  • Google Keyword Planner - one of the best keyword research tools. Enter keyword ideas to find out related keywords and their search volume.

  • Google Analytics - one of the best analytics tools that tracks every aspect of your website traffic: visits, referrals, conversions, bounce rate, etc.

Best Resources for Organizing Blogging Ideas

  • Editorial Calendar - a WordPress plugin that helps you plan for your blog content.

  • Google Calendar - another calendar tool you can repurpose as your editorial calendar.

  • Epic Blog: One-Year Editorial Planner - a one-year blog editorial planner that helps you create a purposeful and profitable content plan for your blog through a mini blog business plan, ideal reader survey, monthly theme planning, monthly content planning, and standard monthly calendars. By Regina Anaejionu.

  • Trello - collect and organize blogging ideas and resources in this wonderful tool.

  • Evernote - drop everything into this note-taking tool—notes, snippets, photos, videos, links, and more.

Best Resources for Writing for Your Blog

  • Toggl - one of the best time tracking tools on the internet. This can be useful if you want to have more focus as a blogger.

  • aTimeLogger - my favorite time tracking app. Works for iPhone and Android devices.

  • Hemingway Editor - a handy tool to analyze the readability of your blog post. It will point out if a sentence is too complex or dense.

  • Grammarly - checks for spelling, sentence structure, style, punctuation, and more.

  • WordPress Distraction Free Writing - a built-in feature in WordPress editor. Click on the four-way arrow icon in the top right corner of any WordPress post and you are now distraction free.

  • Evernote - this can also be a great writing tool in addition to being a blogging idea organization tool.

Best Resources for Getting Images for Blog Posts

Royalty Free Images

  • Pixabay - search over 670,000 free high quality stock photos, vectors and illustrations. My favorite site to get free images.

  • Flickr - search millions of images with Creative Commons license from Flickr that allow commercial use.

  • PhotoPin - a website where you can search millions of Creative Commons photos from Flickr. Make sure to check "Commercial" to show images that allow commercial use. This tool makes it super easy to post a credit back to a photographer.

  • PhotoDropper - a tool similar to PhotoPin. The only difference is that it is not web-based. You can install it as a WordPress plugin, or download it as a standalone application.

  • Death to the Stock Photo - receive free, high quality images in your email every month.

  • MorgueFile - search over 350,000 high quality, high resolution photos. Free for commercial use. No attribution required.

  • FreeImages - search over 388,000 free photos, textures, and illustrations. Attributions and permission may be required for some images.

Image Editing Tools

  • Canva - a fantastic tool to design amazing visuals for your blog and social media. It's $1 if you use Canva's images but free if you upload your own.

  • PicMonkey - a free online image editing tool. Easily add text, frames ,filters, and effects to images.

  • Meme Generator - browse popular memes on the internet, and create your own memes with this online meme generator.

  • Gimp - a simple, Photoshop-like image editing application. Standalone downloads availabe for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

  • Stencil (formerly Share As Image) - an online tool to create images.

Professionals for Hire

  • Behance - an online community for designers to showcase their artwork. Owned by Adobe.

  • Dribbble - similar to Behance.

  • 99designs - start a design contest, receive designs from designers from all over the world, pick your favorite, and get the job done.

  • DesignContest - a site similar to 99Designs.

  • Custom Fan Page Designs - hire a professional to design your social media pages including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, and more.

  • Fiverr - get the job done for $5.

  • Upwork - one of the best places to hire freelancers.

  • Freelancer - similar to Upwork.

  • Guru - another marketplace to hire freelancers.

Best Resources for Making Money with Your Blog

  • Google AdSense - make money on your blog with Google AdSense ads.

  • Amazon Associates - make money by selling Amazon products on your blog.

  • Easy Digital Downloads - Sell digital products with WordPress.

  • Pretty Link Lite - a WordPress plugin that tracks the clicks of your affiliate links in your WordPress blog.

  • John Chow - learn from John Chow, the Dot Com Mogul, who went from zero to over $40,000 per month in two years with his blog.

  • ShoeMoney - learn how Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker went from unemployment to earning 8 figures in less than 5 years.

Best Resources for Driving Traffic to Your Blog

  • Shareaholic - makes it easy for your blog visitors to share your blog posts on social media with the click of a button. It works on any sites.

  • ShareThis - a tool similar to Shareaholic.

  • Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack - these WordPress plugins makes your blog more search engine friendly.

  • WP Sitemap Page - easily create a sitemap for all your blog posts and Improve the SEO and navigation of your website.

  • WP Touch - a WordPress plugin that makes your WordPress blog mobile-friendly.

  • Broken Link Checker - a WordPress plugin that checks your WordPress blog for broken links.

  • BrokenLinkCheck.com - an online broken link checker that works for any website.

  • Edgar - a powerful tool to schedule your social media posts. Your blog content and social media should work together seamless. Most social updates are seen by only a small fraction of your audience. Edgar is allows you to build a library of updates by category and reuse your updates in the future.

  • SproutSocial - a social media management tool that allows you to manage all your social media accounts in one place.

  • SumoMe - a suite of innovative tools to grow your website traffic, including scroll box optins, smart bars, welcome mats and other innovative tools

  • OptinMonster - a tool to create lead capture forms that you can A/B test.

Best Resources for Engaging Blog Readers

Best Blogs about Blogging

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