Curious about what tools and resources I use to manage my online business and life? I compiled this list so you can find everything easily in one place!
When I was starting out online I searched out these pages of gold all the time. I wanted to know what successful entrepreneurs were using to make money online. What email marketing service was the most popular? How can I market my content on Pinterest and get traffic like this do? What’s the best way to accept payments from my first clients? So many unknowns but these resources people listed was a great starting place.
I only include what I use, so if it’s here you can trust that it’s worth investing in.
My content may contain affiliate links for products I use and love. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links, I’ll earn a small commission.
Website Resources
Website Hosting
I recommend two website hosting services for WordPress websites. Investing in self-hosting will give you more options in terms of what you can do with your website and is an avenue most serious bloggers take at some point in their online growth.
The first hosting provider I used for Caffeine and Conquer is Bluehost. From May 2018 – May 2019, I hosted my website on their servers and had no issues. They offer a free domain with every website and have great sign-up discounts.
From June 2019 to the present, my website has been hosted with SiteGround to take advantage of their new customer prices. My experience with them has been nothing but positive. If you sign-up with SiteGround you can look forward to fast customer service, perks, and resources to help you transition to them and optimize.
Related Post: Save Money With This Website Hosting Renewal Tip
Theme
This website is currently using the Genesis Framework on WordPress, with a child theme by Her Park Studio. The framework allows for beautiful website designs and search-engine-optimization that is ideal for ranking on Google. If you’re interested in creating a dynamic website that can do almost anything, I highly recommend Genesis with a child theme.
Pinterest Marketing Resources
Tasty Pins
Don’t put your pin descriptions in your ALT text field! I can’t repeat this enough. Tasty Pins makes it easy to follow best practices for Google AND Pinterest SEO. The plugin creates image fields for pin description, ID and ALT text so you can focus on both. Add multiple and hidden pins to your blog posts for added optimization.
Tailwind Scheduler
This is the only scheduling tool I use! An official partner of Pinterest, you can use Tailwind without fear of trying to game their system. Easy to use, smart and convenient, it saves me hours each week managing my own and client schedules.
Related Post: How Tailwind Helped Me Work More Efficiently
Pinning Perfect Online Course
This is the only Pinterest course you need to take to master organic growth on the platform. I have completed several Pinterest courses and none of them have provided as much value as Pinning Perfect. I invested in this course after managing Pinterest accounts for almost 2 years and still found loads of useful information to help me serve my clients better. It’s well worth it!
Email Marketing Resources
Convert Kit
In 2020, I switched from Mailchimp to ConvertKit and it was the best move ever for my email marketing. Not only is the interface more simplified but the feature to visually map out my email automation and funnels have made nurturing my subscribers 10x easier. I’m also able to make data-driven decisions based on the analytics they provide me – and there’s a lot!
Visual Content Resources
Canva Pro
My go-to graphic design editor for everything online, including pins, is Canva. Use their drag and drop templates to create your social media posts, pins, eBooks, and almost everything else you need to design. With the paid version you can download your own fonts, save your brand colors and create a team.
Ivory Mix Stock Photos
Rather than use free stock images, I invested in a subscription via Ivory Mix. Not only does she provide new images each month, but she also offers templates, caption ideas, courses, workshops, a private member Facebook group and so much more. You can purchase individual products from her, or do like I did and get the full VIP Membership for a year!
Other Useful Resources
PayPal
If you’re planning on making money online you’ll need somewhere to process transactions. There are many e-wallet and payment management services online. As a Pinterest manager, I use PayPal because it’s easy to create a client invoice, keep track of my sales growth, and work with different currencies.
VPN
If you plan on working with Pinterest clients outside of your country, you will probably need a VPN subscription. I use Proton VPN, which allows me to change my IP address to avoid being seen as suspicious by website’s like Pinterest. I can access client Pinterest accounts from countries such as the USA and Australia for a small monthly fee (it’s only $5).