Blog management

Web hosting

My current hosting provider of choice is WPX, as their customer service is second-to-none. There’s always someone available to help me when I need it, and the team goes above and beyond to solve my support issues. Plus, it makes my sites fast.

Content management system

I run all my blogs on WordPress. It’s flexible, free, and comes with loads of useful plugins. Make sure you choose the self-hosted version rather than the dot com version.

WordPress theme

Having the right WordPress theme makes a huge difference to your blog. Kadence is my top pick. It’s clean, light, and includes great-looking starter templates to get you started easily. It also works great with the Gutenberg block editor, so you don’t need to use bloated page builders like Elementor or similar

Assorted SEO tasks

I use RankMath to handle a range of key SEO tasks, from submitting sitemaps to Google to organizing my 301 redirects.

Other tools

Keyword research

My favorite advanced-level tool for keyword research, backlink analysis and competitor analysis is Semrush. It’s a powerful tool with a ton of different features, but well worth getting used to. If you’re a beginner blogger wanting a more guided keyword research experience, then I’d recommend checking out RankIQ.

Email marketing

I currently use Kit (formerly ConvertKit), which offers a user-friendly, intuitive platform for email marketers at all levels. The free version lets you build your list up to 1,000 subscribers – perfect for getting started with email marketing.

Quiz building tool

Interact is my top quiz tool, with lots of handy options for building quizzes that get results for your business. It also integrates neatly with Kit, so you can achieve a seamless conversion journey for your new leads. Get a 14-day free trial of Interact here.

Multipurpose AI writing assistant

I’ve tried many of these and my top pick is Claude 3.5 Sonnet from Anthropic (the previous LLM, Claude 2.1, is also great, but has been discontinued in the official Anthropic platform. You can access 2.1 via Poe, but you’ll need a paid Poe subscription to do so).

On-page optimization

I’m currently using Frase. It’s simple to use, intuitive, and offers a handy side-by-side outlining feature to help you compete effectively in the SERPs.

Creating custom images

Canva is a super easy way to produce custom blog images (along with any other type of image you could wish for). The Pro version includes a huge library of stock images, along with graphical elements, filters, and many other exciting design features.

Collecting payments

Stripe offers an elegant and user-friendly solution for collecting payments on my blog. It integrates neatly with apps like SavvyCal and Calendly, so clients can book consultation slots and make payments – all in one seamless workflow.

Scheduling system

Having an automatic scheduling system set up makes life so much easier. I used Calendly for a long time, but have recently switched to SavvyCal. It offers a more powerful feature set for scheduling across multiple calendars, plus a handy feature to allow me to accept or reject booking requests based on specific qualifying criteria (which Calendly doesn’t have). Overall, SavvyCal offers a smarter user experience than Calendly.

Managing affiliate links

I use Lasso to keep my affiliate links organized and updated, generate product boxes to use in blog posts, and help me drive more revenue by identifying new affiliate opportunities across my websites.