For all BforBloggers readers, This page consists of all the tools and services I use at BforBloggers every day. I believe in transparency, and this ideology has given me a lot.
Let me give you a quick list and an introduction to some of the best tools I have come through and used here at BforBloggers.
Along with a few of my recommendations to help you find something that suits your needs.
Email Marketing
I use GetResponse as my email marketing service.
It gives me everything, from automation sequences to tags + segments. GetResponse has a user-friendly UI and a pretty easy-to-use EMS software which makes everything swift and time-saving. Read GetResponse Review.
I’d also recommend trying Moosend, it’s the most affordable yet powerful email marketing service I’ve seen in a while. And it comes with almost all the features you need.
Web Host
Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting
One of the best things I did in 2020 was moving BforBloggers to Kinsta.
Kinsta Hosting is a premium, managed WordPress hosting. Which means I don’t have to care about anything related to servers. BforBloggers uptime and speed had never been so high and consistent. Their support is just amazing as well.
You get 2 months free when you sign up for the annual plan.
For anyone looking for a more affordable, easy, and quick way to start a blog, I would recommend DreamHost.
Plugins
Some essential plugins I use:
- Akismet
- No self-pings
- Similar posts
- Syntax highlighter evolved
- Nginx helper
- Imagify (compresses images)
- Flying Pages
- Image Optimization for SEO
Other Important Plugins
OptiMole – This is the best image compression plugin + CDN I’ve tested so far. Highly recommended.
Advanced Ads – I use this plugin for Ad management. Wp Advanced Ads has a special section for Adsense, and whenever I make a custom banner for affiliate product promotion, I have many options to choose from, and the image option is my favorite.
Thrive Plugins– I create lead forms using thrive leads, and the comment section is powered by Thrive comments. It adds a beautiful layout, lazy loading module along with voting features and gives an entirely unique look to BforBloggers cause it’s super customizable. Eventually, I also use Thrive headline optimizer.
NitroPack – A speed optimization tool that allows me to reduce the page load time and get high scores on speed test reports. It comes with image optimization, GZIP/HTML compression, preload, cache optimization, image CDN – you name it.
Link Whisper – To automatically scan my posts and link new posts to old posts using an anchor text. This plugin saves time. It gives suggestions to add internal links to blog posts based on artificial intelligence.
ThirstyAffiliates – To handle, cloak, track, and manage all of my affiliate links in one place from one dashboard.
Yoast – Yoast handles everything related to on-site SEO and also helps me with my on-page SEO. Yoast premium is entirely worth just because of internal link suggestions and auto-redirects. The free version is better than any other SEO plugin out there as well.
Title and Nofollow links – To add a nofollow tag to specific links.
Schema Pro – To add the review box you see below some reviews such as this. It also adds appropriate schema markup to posts, which I like the most. I shifted to this plugin in 2018, with the initial configuration. Since then, the plugin has come a long way and has become one of my personal favorites of all time.
WP Rocket – The cache plugin that makes BforBloggers load under 2 seconds. But NitroPack has replaced it as of 2021.
Gravity Forms – The Gravity form maker is the one I use to create contact and other forms here on BforBloggers.
MonsterInsights Pro – To connect Google analytics and catch up with the analytics data from the WordPress dashboard itself. As well as to track the performance of different authors in terms of how much traffic their articles bring.
Social Snap – The one plugin I use at BforBloggers to add customized share buttons and follow us widget.
BackupBuddy – I use this plugin to save a remote backup of BforBloggers automatically. It’s really a great backup plugin to have.
Enable Contributor Uploads – This plugin allows my contributors to upload and add images in their guest posts easily, something which WordPress doesn’t allow by default.
Custom Post types UI – This plugin allows me to take care of the deal section by creating a custom post type along with a custom taxonomy for it. Really helps in the management of multiple post types.
Thrive Leads – Recently, Thrive leads were added to our plugin list, and this one plugin has increased our conversion rate better than any time before and to be frank, it’s really better than Bloom in every way. I highly recommend you to use this if you are serious about growing your email list.
WP User Avatar – This plugin allows our contributors to upload their custom avatar to display in their author box and comments across BforBloggers.
Redirection & 404 solution– To keep an eye on and fix the dead and broken links across the site.
OptinMonster – Thrive Leads is good. But when you have multiple websites and want a centralized space to edit multiple lead forms, integrations and data collection, OptinMonster is so far, the best lead gen tool.
That is the complete list of plugins I use here. I’m really selective when it comes to choose or shift to a new plugin. You can trust them without any issue at all as they power BforBloggers every day.
Also note that I don’t really change plugins too often because that might cause compatibility issues, but I’ll make sure whenever I change something, I update this page as well.
These were the stuff I use. Let me also share some of the resources I trust and recommend to anyone willing to start and manage a blog, grow and build its authority, and make more money from it. This will help you choose better tools that you can trust upon. Without too much confusion.
WordPress Theme
I use Genesis Framework here. It’s highly customizable and robust at the same time, that is something I definitely look for in a WordPress theme. Additionally, a few lines of code can reshape the whole site structure the way you want. Something I don’t think any other theme can that easily.
My theme is a custom-made child theme, and unfortunately, you can not download it.
Recommended Resources
DreamHost – I really love DreamHost for one single reason: Maintaining quality. When you’re starting out, that’s what you expect apart from being user-friendly. DreamHost has it all. It gives you free SSL, free DDOS protection, low rates, unlimited bandwidth, and storage space with great support. If you’re starting a WordPress blog and plan to grow steadily, they are the ones I’ll recommend to host your WordPress blog with.
ConvertKit – If ever I would want to switch to another email marketing service, It would be ConvertKit. That’s because they make email marketing as simple as possible with exceptional features that are great to target and engage any sort of email list. They also let you go beyond that by providing actionable guides and optimization tips through support.
Grammarly – One thing you would never like to see in my blog posts is typo and grammar mistakes. Grammarly is a chrome extension that solves this problem for free. It helps me to write error-free articles all the time, and its premium version also helps me write advanced paragraphs. (Pro tip- open the Grammarly editor and double click on a word to find its synonyms).
Penji – Whether you have to get awesome blog images, professional logos, book covers, posters, flyers, and almost any visual you want, the Penji team will do the job. You can send them as many tasks as you might have and as many revisions as you need, which means unlimited everything.
Missinglettr– Missinglettr is something you would fall in love with because it is a utility-focused social media automation tool that helps you build your social following faster. It lets you automate multiple social accounts, schedules your posts, re-target unengaged visitors, test different blog posts, track their performance, and more. Highly recommended.
IFTTT – This amazing online tool can save you a lot of time and headaches. IFTTT lets you automate social media, email accounts, office products, notes and almost everything that’s on the internet with a set of rules and actions you want and when you want. Above all its really free to use.
SEMrush – The one SEO tool that does it all. SEMrush handles site audit, backlink analysis, domain analysis, competition analysis, keyword research, local SEO, cross-domain comparison, and so on. It’s not that affordable, but it’s worth it.
Canva: Canva is a cloud-based graphic designing tool. You can use to create featured images for your blog posts, ebook covers, posters, ad banners, Twitter banner, Facebook and Instagram posts and much more. Most of the featured images I post are made with Canva.
Stencil – The tool I use to create beautiful custom images here. I really like their interface and flexibility to use any icon, model, and template.
Themify – Apart from Genesis, this is the one WordPress theme shop I mostly recommend to anyone. Themify is one of the easiest to customize theme and page builder that works great for anyone, either beginner or pro.
Elementor – To build some specific pages like the store. The only page builder plugin I’ll recommend for beginners.
Gsuite – If you are using a web host that doesn’t allow you to have an email address with your domain, you should definitely choose Gsuite. It makes handling emails and managing them more comfortable, and moreover, it’s elegant and organized begin so powerful in features because it lets you manage all of the Google apps single-handedly
LongTailPro – This one tool really outranks most of the keyword research tool when it comes to finding long-tail keywords. Using LongTailpro, you can target high volume but long-tail keywords that are easier to rank. It makes keyword research convenient and easy.
Unbounce – At the end of the day, if you are willing to get more leads and probably more sales, you should have a look at Unbounce. It is a full-featured landing page builder that makes it easy to create any type of landing page be it a sales page, squeeze page, webinar subscription, or simple blog landing pages. You get 20% off too.
You should check out the PartnerStack list I created here.
That’s all. I hope you have found something that you can utilize to further take your blogging success to another level. These are tools I trust, and these resources help me in my daily blogging life.
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