My Recommended Blogging Tools & Resources
If you're building a blog, you'll quickly discover that there are hundreds of tools promising to make blogging easier, faster, and more profitable.
The truth is that you don't need dozens of subscriptions to succeed. You simply need the right tools at the right stage of your blogging journey.
Below are the platforms, services, and resources I personally recommend for bloggers. Whether you're starting your first blog, growing your traffic, building an email list, or monetizing your audience, these recommendations can help you move forward with more confidence.
Ghost
Best for: Building a professional blog and newsletter business
If you're serious about blogging and want an alternative to WordPress, Ghost is my favorite blogging platform. It combines blogging, newsletters, memberships, and SEO tools into one streamlined platform.
Ghost will be particularly appealing if you want a clean writing experience without dealing with plugins, updates, or technical complexity.
I moved The Solo Blogger to Ghost because it provides a fast, modern publishing experience that keeps the focus on content rather than website maintenance.
I also created my own Ghost theme called Jasmine for myself and bloggers who want a clean, professional design. Jasmine is the theme currently used on this site.
If you join The Solo Blogger newsletter, you'll get 15% off the Jasmine Ghost Theme as a thank-you for subscribing.
Feather
Best for: Turning your content into a blog and newsletter
Feather is another great blogging and content publishing platform designed to help you publish content without any complicated website setup.
It's mostly used by SaaS companies to manage their blogs but also suitable for personal blogs, creators and other kinds of businesses that want a simple way to publish blog content, build an audience, and connect their content with email.
With one pricing, you can run unlimited number of blogs. Your billing only increase as your blog traffic grows.
If you want something that's more focused on writing and publishing than managing a traditional website, Feather is worth checking out.
DreamHost
Best for: Shared WordPress hosting
DreamHost is a web hosting provider worth using if you're starting a self-hosted WordPress blog.
It gives you the hosting infrastructure you need to run your own website while giving you with more control over your site than you would have with a hosted blogging platform.
If you’re looking for simple, affordable WordPress hosting, DreamHost’s shared hosting plans offer excellent value. You get the essential features needed to run a self-hosted WordPress blog, including daily automated backups, while keeping your costs low and maintaining plenty of control over your website.
Their launch plan (shared hosting) lets you host 25 websites for $1.99/month when you subscribe to their 4-years length plan. That is $95.52 to host 25 websites in four years (Auto-renews at $7.99/month)
If I were planning to build a blog on WordPress.org, DreamHost is one hosting option I'd use.
Hosting.com
Best for: Managed WordPress hosting
Hosting.com is my preferred option if you want managed WordPress hosting without paying a premium price. Its managed WordPress plans include a range of features designed to make running your website easier, while still giving you the performance and flexibility you need for a growing blog.
Managed WordPress hosting experience is a little different. Instead of simply providing the server space for your website, managed hosting puts more of the technical work in the hands of your hosting provider, including things like WordPress maintenance, performance optimization, security, and backups.
This can be a good option if you want to spend less time dealing with the technical side of running your blog. If you're building a self-hosted blog and want to compare hosting providers before making a decision, Hosting.com is another option worth considering.
Outrank
Best for: Creating SEO-focused blog content with AI
Writing consistently is one of the biggest challenges most bloggers face.
Outrank helps simplify content creation by generating SEO-focused blog articles, content recommendations, and optimization suggestions. It can significantly speed up the research and drafting process while helping you identify opportunities to rank in search engines.
If you are trying to publish more content without sacrificing quality, Outrank can become a valuable part of your workflow.
Kit
Best for: Building and monetizing an email list
It should be common now that every blogger should start building an email list from day one.
Kit makes it exceptionally easy to create opt-in forms, landing pages, automated email sequences, and newsletters. It also offers the best free plan features letting you collect 10,000 subscribers on its free plan.
Whether you're collecting subscribers, delivering freebies, or promoting products, Kit helps you stay connected with your audience beyond search engines and social media. If blogging is your home, your email list is your most valuable asset.
Dub
Best for: Managing and tracking affiliate links
If you notice the affiliate links on this blog are branded (example: https://go.thesoloblogger.com/dub instead of https://refer.dub.co/thesoloblogger) and so many are other blogs.
Dub allows you to create branded links, monitor clicks, organize affiliate partnerships, and track performance from one dashboard.
Instead of sharing long and messy affiliate URLs, you can create professional branded links that are easier to trust, easier to manage, and easier to analyze.
It's one of my favorite tools for affiliate marketers and bloggers who want a cleaner workflow. The best part? It's free and you get to connect up to three domains on Dub free plan.
Beehiiv
Best for: Newsletter-first creators
Beehiiv is a powerful newsletter platform designed for creators who want to grow an audience primarily through email.
You get newsletter publishing tools, blogging capability, subscriber management, monetization tools, referral programs, and audience growth features into a single platform.
MorningScore
Best for: SEO and keyword research
MorningScore is an SEO tool that helps you understand how your website is performing in search and find opportunities to improve your rankings.
You can use it for keyword research, rank tracking, SEO analysis, competitor research, and other parts of your SEO workflow.
I like it as an option for bloggers who want SEO tools without necessarily jumping straight into one of the more complicated enterprise-focused platforms.
Tailwind
Best for: Pinterest marketing and content distribution
Creating great content is only half the battle. People need to discover it. Tailwind helps bloggers schedule, manage, and optimize their Pinterest marketing efforts. It also gives you designing tools so there won't be any need for a Canva subscription.
Since Pinterest remains one of the best traffic sources for many bloggers, Tailwind can save hours of manual work while helping your content reach a wider audience. It's a valuable growth tool.
Sellfy
Best for: Selling products online
As your blog audience grows, you may eventually want to sell something. Sellfy makes it easy to sell both physical and digital products through a professional online store.
With Sellfy you can sell ebooks, templates, printables, merchandise, memberships, and physical products (including priont-on-demand).
If monetization is part of your long-term plan, Sellfy provides a reliable foundation for ecommerce.
Fiverr
Best for: Outsourcing specialized tasks
You don't have to do everything yourself. Fiverr connects bloggers with freelancers who can help with graphic design, website development, content editing, video creation, branding, and countless other services.
As your blog grows, outsourcing certain tasks can free up time and allow you to focus on creating content and serving your audience.
Hunter
Best for: Finding and verifying email addresses
Hunter is a free useful tool when you need to find professional email addresses and get in touch with people for your blogging business.
It's particularly useful for blogger outreach, guest posting, partnerships, collaborations, sponsorships, and other situations where you need to find the right person to contact.
Hunter also includes email verification tools, which can help you avoid sending emails to addresses that don't work.
Fillout
Best for: Creating forms and collecting information
Fillout is a flexible form builder that you can use to create everything from simple contact forms and surveys to more advanced forms, applications, quizzes, and data collection workflows.
It's useful for bloggers who need to collect information from their audience, whether that's through a simple form on their website or a more detailed application or questionnaire.
You can also accept one-time and reoccurring payments for products or services like coaching.
My Blogging Templates & Resources
I've also created a few resources to help bloggers organize their content, affiliate marketing, and overall blogging business.
Blogger Business OS
Best for: Managing your blogging business in one place
The Blogger Business OS is my all-in-one workspace for managing the different parts of a blogging business.
You can use it to organize your content, affiliate links, SaaS subscriptions, expenses, sponsorships, products, leads, guest posts, tasks, milestones, SEO, websites, recommendations, resources, and more.
If you have a lot of moving parts in your blogging business and want somewhere to keep everything organized, this is what I created for that.
SaaS Affiliate Program Tracker
Best for: Managing SaaS affiliate programs
If you're a blogger who promotes software and SaaS products, keeping track of all your affiliate programs can quickly become messy.
My SaaS Affiliate Program Tracker helps you keep your SaaS affiliate programs organized in one place, so you can keep track of the programs you're part of and the information you need to manage your affiliate partnerships.
Get the SaaS Affiliate Program Tracker →
Blog Content Planner Sheets
Best for: Planning your blog content
Planning your content gets much easier when you have somewhere to keep track of your ideas, upcoming posts, and publishing plans.
My Blog Content Planner Sheets are designed to help you organize your blog content and keep your publishing workflow under control.
If you tend to have dozens of post ideas floating around without knowing what to write next, this is for you.
Get the Blog Content Planner Sheets →
Recommended Reading
If you're looking for practical advice on starting, growing, and monetizing your blog, here are a few articles I'd recommend:
- What Is a Blog and How to Start a Blog
- How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform
- 10 Blogging Niches That Make the Most Money
- How Much Can You Realistically Make From Blogging?
- Learn All About Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers
- 12 Free Traffic Sources for New Bloggers
- How to Write Blog Posts 10x Faster
- Best Membership Software for Bloggers