Here is a list of resources, posts, services, and products we use here at UpNorthParent.com.
Blogging Articles on UpNorthParent.com:
- What is a Blog? And a Look at Three Different Types
- Three Reasons You Shouldn’t Start a Blog
- Should I Use My Own Name for the Name of My Blog?
- How Do I Choose a Name for My Blog?
- What to Check Before Naming Your Business or Blog
- What Should I Blog About? Go Broad or Niche Down
- How to Start a Blog
- Should I Use Free Hosting or Paid Hosting for My Blog?
- How to Use a Blog to Market a Photography Business
- How to Optimize a Blog Post for SEO
- 9 Ways to Make Money Blogging
- Why ConvertKit is the Best Email List Builder for Bloggers
- Which Social Media Platforms Should I Be On? | Best Social Media for Bloggers
- Can I Be a Stay-at-Home Mom and a Blogger at the Same Time?
- I Don’t Want To Be JUST a Mom
- Why Work-Life Balance is a Myth & How to Avoid Feeling Like a Failure as a Mom
Blogging Resources and Services We Use:
- ConvertKit
- Dreamhost
- BigScoots
- Restored 316 Themes
- iMark Interactive
- Canva
- Social Warfare
- Tailwind
- Fiverr
ConvertKit – The BEST email list builder software we use for both LauraRadniecki.com and UpNorthParent.com’s email lists.
Dreamhost – A web host service that makes it easy to check to see if domain names are available, and offers affordable blog hosting for beginner bloggers. It’s what we used for the first 10 years of our blogging journey.
BigScoots Web Hosting – A web hosting company designed for serious bloggers who are working to grow their traffic, and who are seeing higher traffic numbers. This is who we recently switched to from Dreamhost.
Restored 316 Themes – Our favorite place to buy high quality, feminine WordPress blog themes. It’s where we bought the theme we currently use on both LauraRadniecki.com and UpNorthParent.com.
iMark Interactive Web Development and Site Maintenance – Grayson and his team are responsible for maintaining both LauraRadniecki.com and UpNorthParent.com, and has helped tweak both sites to make them exactly the way we want them. The tech side of blogging isn’t where my interests or strong suits fall, so I’m THRILLED to hand that over to iMark Interactive.
Canva – We could not function as a blogger and online business owner without Canva. It’s an online design software that makes it EASY to design graphics for all sorts of uses (social media, website photos, promotional materials etc.) They have branched into video creation and more; it’s an incredible tool. Every single blog post needs pinnable images in it for Pinterest, so we use Canva to make those graphics for every post. We use Canva to make digital resources and products, we use Canva to make marketing materials like business cards, and you can even make and order t-shirts with Canva! We are a Canva Pro user, meaning we pay an annual fee to get more features and capabilities within Canva. It is one of our most often-used services.
Social Warfare – Social Warfare is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add share buttons for social media to your site and blog posts, you can add multiple Pinterest images into your blog posts, and you can customize the description that will come up when people pin your images to Pinterest or post them to Facebook. It’s a very helpful tool to encourage people to share your content.
Tailwind – Tailwind is a Pinterest (and Instagram, but we only use it for Pinterest) scheduling tool that allows you to streamline and automate the social media sharing of your blog content. Instead of getting onto Pinterest every single day and being required to pin your content to Pinterest every day, we use Tailwind to add content in all at once, and then schedule it to go out over the next weeks or months. This is how we are able to be active on Pinterest and still have some form of balance in life. We also use Tailwind’s SmartLoop feature which lets you put your content on a sharing loop so that once it’s all set up, it will continue to share your content indefinitely! Talk about a time SAVER! Money well spent.
Fiverr – Fiverr is a website that lets you find freelancers to help you with your projects for very reasonable fees. I use it to find graphic designers to help me turn my hand-drawn craft patterns into digitized, printable versions. You can find someone to help you with anything from logo design to graphic design, or video editing and copy editing to more. And most services begin at just $5! Outsource what doesn’t come naturally to you so you can focus on what DOES come naturally.
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If you have blogging questions that haven’t been answered by these posts listed above, feel free to reach out! I’d love to talk more with you and hear about your blogging goals!
xoxo,
Laura
