All Resources To Start a Small Business Website — Blogging Platform, Hosting, Blog Design, Themes, Plugins, Graphics Design, Social Media Management and Blog Monetization Tools.
Blogging is a platform to present content in front millions of people worldwide. Therefore, you need time and necessary resources & tools to present your content through blogging. In this instance, you need a variety of tools daily to organize your content for your online business.
For the last two years, I have used so many tools, training, resources and services available for blogging and found them very useful. Most of the resources referred here are my favorite and use them time to time or regular basis according to my needs. Also, few tools are referred from my favorite bloggers to whom I really trust.
Particularly, People who are new to the blogging platform, face difficulties due to lack of organized collections of necessary tools and ultimately leave the online business.
If you are a passionate blogger, whether professional, part-time or writing for your hobby or to make money online through online business, you also may find need this tools very useful.
I have divided these resources into different sections to make it precise for your maximum usability. This is done so that, you can identify and choose the right resources for right purpose whenever you need.
Using the right blogging tools and resources will enhance your blogging and make you successful in the online marketplace.
NOTE: “Some of the resources referred here contains affiliate links and will earn “JA Directives” a very small commission if you sign-up to the services using mentioned links. This adds no cost to you but assists me to buy a cold coffee”.
40+ Resources To Build a Small Business Website
Platforms for Blogging
Without any confusion my most recommended blogging platform is WordPress.org. Recently, I have shifted all my previous blogs to WordPress.org from other platforms. You can also use the below platforms:
Completely free hosted blogging platform where you don’t have to spend a single penny.
Another free blogging platform which is owned by Google.
A 7 day Free Trial is available which is also used by many top blogs and bloggers.
It’s an open source blogging platform that provides a simple, clean interface that makes it very easy to use.
It’s a San Francisco-based, global platform that lets people easily create a unique website, blog or online store. It’s based on drag-and-drop components, which enable you to quickly create new pages.
It’s a platform that is mainly set up to build websites, but it can also be used to start a blog. The key feature of Wix is that the web pages or blogs you create with the platform are supported for portable devices, so your readers can see your work easily displayed on their smartphone or tablets.
It’s a blogging option that is very popular with younger audiences. The platform itself is simple to use. One of the best features of Tumblr is that it is focused on the community of bloggers.
Hosting Solutions
1. Kinsta
Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting provider where they take care of all your needs regarding your business website or your blog. They run their services on cutting edge technology and take support seriously. Excellent support.
2. BlueHost
It was founded in 2003 based in Orem, Utah and proving leading web solutions for more than 2 Million websites. At the same time, they have 750+ vast dedicated team for 24/7 customer service. Their major products are
- Shared hosting
- WordPress hosting
- VP hosting
- Dedicated hosting and
- Re-seller hosting
If you are just starting then its recommend that you use BlueHost as your hosting solution.
You can easily start a website with BlueHost as low as $ 3.95/month with a free domain for one year. To build a website and get started with BlueHost as your webs hosting click to Get Started Now.
3. HostGator
It was founded in 2002 and has been established for a long time in the web hosting industry. With over huge customer satisfaction and near about 12,000 servers under management, they are one of the biggest and major well-known web hosts.
They offer both dedicated and VPS options for clients whose sites grow to require the extra power and excellent customer service.
You can start a website with HostGator as low as 1 cent for the first month. Create A Website For Just One Cent For Your First Month! Use Coupon: 1CENT.
Domain Tools
1. Namecheap
Great place to buy a domain name at a cheap price.
2. Godaddy
A good place to purchase domains at a low price. They are trusted by more than 13 million customers, compared to any other registrar.
Blog Design Themes & Builders
1. Theme Forest
Envato is the owner of ThemeForest which is based in Melbourne, Australia. They have 7,760,187 community members and more than 11,340,988 items for sale. They really believe in good ideas and they believe people deserve to earn a living doing what they love. You will get best Themes, graphic designs and other design tools from here.
TOP-SELLING THEMES ON THEMEFOREST:
Template monster is one of the best serving Themes for your website since 2002. You can get any category of themes for WordPress, Joomla, Magento website. One of the most popular themes of template monster is Monstroid WordPress Theme with more than 6,116 Downloads.
MOJO is a big and popular marketplace for themes. For new WordPress users who might struggle to get their theme up and running, MOJO also offers an installation service at $49 for the theme and $99 for the theme along with WordPress. Their services are excellent.
TOP-SELLING THEMES ON MOJO THEMES:
- Highend – Ultimate Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme
- Creativo 5.0 – Ultra Responsive MultiPurpose WP Theme
- Daisy – Simple & Minimal WordPress Blog
- Birch – A Responsive WordPress Theme
- Nectar – A Responsive WordPress Theme
Find more themes on MOJO Themes
4. My ThemeShop
MyThemeShop themes are fewer resource-intensive compared to other themes because of their lightweight scripts, which load very fast. They have 132 quality themes with 344234 Happy Users! The never sacrifice code quality for good design that bogs could go down and destroys the search engine ranking. Performance is their highest priority.
Find themes on MyThemeShop
5. Themify Themes
One of the most popular themes which are trusted by 65,934+ customers. Themify themes & plugins assist you to build create exceptionally responsive WordPress websites.
Themify Builder standalone plugin costs the US $39.00. A Single theme costs the US $49.00 and the Theme Membership Club (all themes) you can get in the US $79.00
The Themify themes have a builder which called “Themify Builder” that’s why it’s easy to build any design faster and easier than ever before.
Find themes on Themify Themes
6. Wp Beaverbuilder
Beaver Builder has been launch at the beginning of 2014. It is one of the most popular resolutions in the competitive WordPress page builder market. The best part is they offer a variety of pre-made templates with which you can instantly build your stunning looking website.
Beaver Builder is highly user-friendly product through which you can build professional looking pages for your websites.
Get the Beaverbuilder
7. Creative Child Themes
Excellent choice for you; if you use DIVI as your website theme. Creative Child Themes provide a variety of professional-looking child themes for DIVI at an affordable price.
You can get Creative Child Themes here.
8. Page Builder Sandwich
One of most innovative front-end drag & drop page builder. You can create sites visually & smoothly, and with a professional look. It works with any theme. If you don’t know how to code and build a website this is absolutely for you. You can easily create, customize, and tweak any layouts and designs within less amount of time. They have both free and paid version as well. So you have the option to try it for free.
Let’s try a free copy Page Builder Sandwich.
Graphic Design Tools
1. Canva
This is an excellent online graphic design tool. They have huge of template collections both free and paid whatever you like to use. I regularly use Canava to visuals for my website and blogs. Fantastic for preparing graphics to use in social media. Learn from YouTube video tutorials “Canva from beginners to advance”.
2. Fotor
An online photo editing tool. Very simple and easy to use for beginners to create visuals for blogs. Variety of pre-made templates are also available for free. They also have paid version to access to more properties.
3. 99designs
If you need a logo, graphics or any other kind of design support elements created by thousands of professional designers which is offered through 99designs. This is a great place to get your visual support.
4. PicMonkey
Very useful resource for creating visual contents for your website or blog.
5. iPiccy
iPiccy makes your photo awesome with many easy to use photo tools. Edit pictures, apply beautiful photo effects, add text and even paint! Enjoy free photo editing online and show your creativity with the iPiccy editor!
6. Pixlr
You can make your every moment beautiful with the pixlr family of photo editing apps. You can make a logo and edit any photo as you desire.
7. piZap
You don’t need to be a Photoshop expert to have fun editing your digital photos. With piZap, you can start right away without ever reading a manual or taking a class. You can Try piZap pro is Free For 7 Days.
8. Gimp
Again you don’t need to be an expert Photoshop graphic designer. you can make excellent digital photos. You can also download it as it is an open source software. To know its use there are tons of YouTube tutorial videos from which you can learn a lot.
Excellent photo editing software. With this create your best photo ever. You just use one-click adjustments for quick improvements or going-depth with perfect selections, layers, brushes and content aware editing tools. Try 30 days free trial at Paintshop pro.
Tools for Social Media Management
1. Social Quant
Social Quant is the most rapidly growing platform to increase the size of your Twitter community with targeted relevant followers who are interested in what you Tweet about your personal or company account. I have excellent experience with Social Quant. They offer a 14 days free offer to test the service. I am damn sure that you will love their service and resources for marketing on Twitter.
No Credit Card required. Try it for free at Social Quant.
2. Tweetdeck
My favorite software I use every day for twitter marketing and automation. It is the most powerful Twitter tool for real-time tracking, organizing, and engagement. Reach your audiences and discover the best of Twitter. Just schedule the tweets for a week and do other works while getting more followers and leads.
3. Hootsuite
It makes managing all of your social media accounts as easy as delegating the process to a virtual assistant. The free version lets you connect only three social media accounts, schedule your messaging and see the very basic analytics information. Upgraded Plans are available for people who need to organize more accounts and for those who already have a big team.
Blog Monetization
1. Affiliate Marketing
If you have writing capabilities and have some good knowledge of the internet, then you can start affiliate marketing to earn huge amount of money end of each month. But, you have to work hard to generate your first income. Once you know how to sell? You are all set for online business.
- Amazon Associate: One of the best way to earn online to become an Amazon associate. Though its commission rate is very low (4%), but you have to think about Amazon’s product ranges. So, how much money you can earn from Amazon associate? The answer is its completely up to you, means the more you work the more you earn.
- ClickBank: Best for startups.
- ShareASale: Huge Collection of products.
- Rakuten: Another big affiliate company.
2. Google Ad-sense
It’s most popular advertising program run by Google which allows publishers like you to monetize your blog or website with an advertisement. If your contents are original and engaging you can easily use Google Adsense as a publisher by showing advertisements to earn money online.
3. Infolinks
This is another option for bloggers to monetize the website by showing advertisements. If you have good traffic in your blog you can expect a good amount of money.
There are a number of reasons to choose Propeller Ads as a source of income from your blog. They will monetize 100% of your inventory. Very interesting!!! right???
5. Self Publishing e-books
You can create e-books easily and able to sell through your blog or amazon kindle publishing.
This page is always be updated and more resources will be added very soon. Please share your opinion in the comment too. So that I can also learn something new.
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