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Seven of the Best Resources for Bloggers

This article contains affiliate links, meaning if you choose to purchase any of the products mentioned, I will receive a small commission of that sale at no cost to you.

Are you new to the blogging game but are unsure what the best resources are to succeed? Well search no more, I have compiled the ultimate bloggers resource guide to help!

Whatever your niche, whatever you are promoting or selling, I have the best resources for you here.

Website Themes

Okay, first impressions count. This, we know. When a reader first visits a site, they make a decision whether they want to read on or leave.

One of the easiest ways to impress is to have a beautiful theme. Striking, feminine themes that are easy to navigate aren’t so easy to find.

However, Beautiful Dawn Designs has a gorgeous collection of feminine WordPress designs that are sure to impress. These themes allow you to change the layout, colours, and fonts without altering codes.

Beautiful Dawn Designs also offers the Blueprint Blogging course and ebooks on topics such as writing content that goes viral as well as offering blogging planners.

Check them out here —–> Beautiful Dawn Designs website

Another website with beautiful, feminine designs is Code and Coconut. Their themes are also compatible with WordPress and are reasonably priced, eye-catching and sure to entice your audience!

Check them out here —-> Code and Coconut website

Digital Marketing

Perhaps as part of your marketing strategy, you plan on selling a digital product like an ebook or online course? But what is the best platform to do that through?

Send Owl is an online platform where you can easily and inexpensively create a storefront and start selling digital products and services. SendOwl enables a rapid launch process, making it as close to “one-click” as you can get.

Interested in trying Send Owl? Check them out here —–> Send Owl Website

Another option to sell ebooks is Blurb. The difference with Blurb is that you can also create, design and sell a book or picture book through Blurb.

Blurb is a self-publishing and marketing platform, unleashing the creative genius in everyone. Blurb’s platform makes it easy to design, publish, promote, and sell professional-quality printed books and ebooks.

Interested in designing and self-publishing a book or ebook? Check Blurb out here —–> Blurb’s website

Affiliate Marketing

If your marketing strategy to monetize your blog is to use affiliate marketing, then you need to sign up to ShareASale.

ShareASale is an affiliate marketing network, with a large number of merchants suitable for all niches.

ShareASale is simple to navigate and allows you to join multiple affiliate marketing programs all on one platform.

Interested in joining ShareASale? Check them out here —–> ShareASale website

Another affiliate marketing program you could consider is Niche Vendor. Niche Vendor is a market place where people sell their digital products. They have a range of merchants to choose from and pay up to a whopping 50% commission on every sale!

Interested in joining Niche Vendor’s Affiliate Marketing program? Check it out here —–> Niche Vendor website

Marketing & Promotion

So, you have your blog but how do you market it? You may know by now that Pinterest is one of the best ways for a blogger to promote their blog.

Pinterest is a visual search engine and bloggers are known to get a huge number of page views through Pinterest alone.

However, manual pinning is very time-consuming. So, the ultimate blogging resource for bloggers is Tailwind.

Tailwind is a social media scheduling tool, which automatically pins to multiple boards at selected times. Basically meaning you have more time to do what you want to do, write!

Tailwind works with Pinterest, but also works with Instagram too and is my favourite blogging tool by far.

Interested in signing up to Tailwind to accelerate your pageviews? Check it out here —-> Tailwind signup

Other Blogging Tools

A must-have for any blogger is Grammarly. While I have always considered myself to be fairly good with spelling and grammar, having the peace of mind knowing that my blog posts are 100% faultless is worth its weight in gold.

There is nothing worse than reading a blog post or article with spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. So, to avoid this, many good bloggers use a tool called Grammarly.

Grammarly automatically skims over your writing and alerts you to any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. It certainly is a must-have.

Interested in downloading Grammarly? Do so here —-> Grammarly download

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Learn To Workout For Yourself To Reach Your Goals

It would be easy to become very dishearted on your fitness journey if you constantly compare yourself to others. These are the reasons why you should only focus on your journey and stop comparing your fitness to others.

We all have different abilities. We all have different levels of fitness. Size, shape, age, gender are all variables when it comes to fitness.

Step into any gym and you will see an array of different levels, from the beginner to the complete gym junkie.

But stop there. Do you want fitness motivation? Then focus purely on your journey and how far you have come. Don’t focus on those around you.

What I have come to learn is that I don’t have to lift the heaviest weights, or spend hour upon hour in the gym to increase my fitness.

As I get older, I have less aerobic ability than I did 15 years ago. I don’t need a 3-hour gym session to feel fitter and stronger. And I certainly don’t need to compare my fitness levels to anyone else around me.

Compare Only Your Own Achievements

Here’s the best fitness motivation you can get: comparing your own achievements and celebrating them.

When I decided I wanted to train for a half marathon, I went in headfirst. I rushed my training, wanting to get fitter faster. I joined apps such as “Strava” and “Runkeeper” and began comparing myself to my friends and colleagues.

You see, I’m a terribly slow runner. I wasn’t happy with this so I pushed myself, harder and harder. I ran 5 times a week, increasing distances daily.

While I felt a great sense of achievement, it came at a cost. I developed issues with my feet. My iron levels plummeted as I developed “runners anaemia”. I felt burnt out and I crashed. Hard.

Why? Simple because I wanted to run as fast as my mates. I knew they ran 5-minute kilometres, so I wanted to as well. But, the reality is, my body isn’t made for running. I fare better in the gym lifting weights.

We All Have Different Levels of Fitness

I am not a natural-born runner, I never have been. However running, it seems, comes naturally to others. Focusing on my strengths, however, and tailoring my workouts to sessions that I enjoy are key.

I much prefer hitting the weights. You may prefer dancing (pole dancing, Zumba etc.) It matters not what form it takes, it only matters that you get yourself moving and enjoy it.

Now, I mix it up. I go for shorter, slower runs. Or lift weights in the gym. I bike ride. I walk and I feel better for it.

Keep An Exercise Diary

Rather than comparing yourself to your friends, or following a bunch of fitness freaks on Instagram, keep a diary. Track your achievements. Investing in a good set of scales that tracks muscle mass and BMI etc is a great way to keep track.

Have A Goal In Mind

The best way to achieve your fitness goals and stop comparing yourself to others is to know what you want to achieve.

Perhaps you want to lose a bit of weight? Or maybe you want to build muscle? Be more toned or increase cardio fitness.

Whatever it is, write it down and aim for it. It will make it all the more satisfying when you reach it.

Most importantly – know you are doing the best you can to the best of YOUR ability. That is something worth celebrating.

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What I Wish I Knew About SEO Before I Started Blogging

When I first started blogging, I thought it just involved a bit of writing and publishing. I was very naive and soon found out there is so much more to it than that. What I wish I knew was the importance of SEO for bloggers to gain traffic to my site.

What is Exactly is SEO?

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the way in which search engines, such as Google, Bing and Pinterest search for keywords. When a user inputs data, the search engines scour the internet and attempt to locate these keywords within websites.

Type a phrase into the Google search bar and you will see a number of phrases appear in a drop-down box. These are commonly searched keywords that Google auto-populates.

These are also key phrases you should be adding to your blog post or article to assist Google or other search engines in ranking your website higher than others.

The Importance of SEO For Bloggers

Okay, you might be thinking “well why is SEO so important for bloggers?” I thought the same thing at first and continued writing my blog posts without researching what SEO was all about.

Major error. Why? Because it made my job so much harder in the long run.

Once I finally decided I loved this blogging thing, I decided I wanted to really start promoting my blog. I wanted people to read my content. So, I started researching SEO. I realised the importance of it regarding “organic traffic” aka traffic that lands on your site through website keyword searches.

What I discovered was I really should’ve attempted to understand the importance of SEO sooner. That is if I wanted people to find my site.

In simple terms, the importance of SEO for bloggers is this – embed a keyphrase into your blog post and you will rank higher on the results page than others. This will equal more “organic” traffic to your blog.

The Best SEO Plugin Tool

So, now I understood the importance of SEO for bloggers, I discovered the “Yoast” SEO plugin. I downloaded it and ran it over my old blog posts. What I found wasn’t good. The SEO analysis of all of my old blog posts was poor.

So, I began at the beginning and started adjusting all of my old posts. This, needless to say, was an extremely time-consuming exercise. I’ll be honest, I still have a few old posts that need amending.

Due to this, I could be missing out on organic traffic. Not great if you are wanting to monetise your blog.

Wanting to try Yoast? Download it here —–> Yoast SEO Plugin

The Importance of SEO Moving Forward

Now, when writing a blog post, I have the Yoast plugin open and amend my post as I go. Once I have all green lights, then I publish. If it finds any errors, then I correct before the post is published.

How Does Yoast Work?

Yoast reviews each blog post and scores it on certain points. These points then convert to an overall score, giving you an end result of “grey” “orange” or “green” scores.

The aim is to get both the “SEO Analysis” and “Readability Analysis” into the green and you’re good to go.

The “Readability Analysis” function gives results on the following areas:

• Flesch Reading Ease (a test used to measure how easy or hard the article is to read)
• Passive Voice
• Consecutive Sentences – Measuring the variety in the sentences to ensure they aren’t all the same
• Subheading Distribution – Assists in the ease of reading
• Paragraph Length – Ensures each paragraph isn’t too long to assist the ease of reading
• Sentence Length
• Transition Words

The “SEO Analysis” function gives results in the following areas:

• Outbound Links – Links to external websites
• Internal Links – Links to other areas of your blog or website
• Meta description/Length – The excerpt which is seen underneath the title of the article/blog post to gives readers an idea of what the article/blog post is about
• Keyphrase – Setting a keyphrase to assist with SEO and allows search engines to understand what the article is about
• Image Alt Attributes – Putting descriptions in the “alt attributes” section of each image which again assists search engines in understanding what the article is about
• SEO Title – Ensuring there is a set SEO keyphrase in the title and lower subheadings
• Keyphrase – Ensuring the keyphrase (which search engines will search for) is located in certain areas of the article or blog post
• Text Length
• Keyphrase Density

The End Result

The end result for me is increased traffic to my blog. Also, it has assisted me in writing better articles, that are more easily searchable and easier to read.

If you are thinking of starting a blog or are currently blogging and you don’t use “Yoast” I highly recommend you download it!

Best of all, it is free!

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Dear Husbands – No, You Don’t Deserve Extra Praise

Dear husbands of the world, I have some home truths for you, which you may not like hearing. The biggest truth is your children are your responsibility too.

From All Wives Out There…

When it comes to household responsibilities, it has traditionally fallen onto the woman. Why? Because decades ago women stayed at home and had children. It was their role to be the homemakers while their husbands worked.

Well, times have changed and this is why husband’s mindsets need to change.

Housework Is Your Responsibility Too

When doing housework around the house, you are not doing it to help your wife. You are doing it because you live in the house and make a mess too. So, if there is a mess, clean it.

Cleaning is your responsibility just as much as it is your wife’s. Do not expect extra praise or think you are doing something out of the ordinary when cleaning.

Similarly, don’t wait to be told to clean. If it’s dirty, clean it up. Your wife is exhausted from working too, so this isn’t an excuse not to help out.

It Isn’t Babysitting If They Are Your Children

On the days you stay at home with your own children, you are looking after them as their father.

This is part of the responsibility that comes with being a father. You are not “babysitting” them. Babysitting relates to children who are not your own.

So, when your wife works or has a rare night off, do not expect praise for looking after your own children, they are your responsibility too.

When you put the children to bed, you are not doing it to help your wife out. You are doing it because they are your children and need to be put to bed each night.

This is part of the responsibility you signed up for when you chose to be a father. Remember, your children are your responsibility too.

Women Shouldn’t Do Everything Always

The one night you cook dinner, you are not the greatest husband in the world. Dinner always needs cooking, you do not deserve extra praise for doing this role. You are just like your wife, who cooks meals all the time. You eat too, so don’t just expect to walk in the door and have dinner on the table.

When you do the grocery shopping, you don’t deserve extra credit. You do it because you need food in the house as do your children. If food is running low in the fridge or the pantry, write a list, grab the grocery bags and go shopping.

Demanding Praise

When your wife comes home from a hard day at work, don’t demand praise for tidying up the house while she was away. She does it all the other days when you come home from work and you say nothing, so you deserve no more praise than her.

When you spend one day home with the children, don’t tell your wife how hard it was or how tired you are. She does it too, so she is aware of how hard it is.

What husbands need to realise is that for every job you see your wife doing, there are 10 more jobs you don’t see her do. She never expects praise because she considers it her role.

You should too.

Most of all, because you were born male, this doesn’t give you automatic rights to do less. You do your equal share, that’s your role too.

Signed tired, frustrated, exhausted wives of the world.

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How To Change Your Perspective On Your Body

Women are our own worst enemies looking in the mirror we see all our flaws, ignoring our worth. We need to change the way we think and look at our bodies through men’s eyes.

When we look at ourselves and see stretch marks, cellulite, fat thighs and an untoned belly. Looking at our reflection we criticise our boobs, fat butt and imperfect skin. We sabotage our self-esteem because we are told by mainstream media that men want waif thin women, with a perfect tan, perfect hair and not an imperfection in sight.

However, in reality, this isn’t what men want. All men are different, some are legs men, some like boobs. Some men like skinny women, others like women with thick thighs and big butts.

Most of all though, men don’t necessarily find the “perfect woman” attractive. Men don’t look at a naked woman in front of them and say “No sorry, too much cellulite.” Men look at a naked woman in front of them and see perfection.

They don’t see the stretch marks, the freckles, the too-pale skin. They don’t think your boobs are different sizes or your tummy too fat. My husband for example like what he refers to as “ghetto-booty.” While I think my butt is too large, he sees a beautiful, curvy woman.

We layer on our make-up, too scared to walk out of our home without our faces painted. But in reality, men don’t notice. If they see an attractive woman, that’s all they see.

We hate the fact that, after having children, our tummies are no longer washboard flat. We try to hide our bodies and are self-conscious around our partners. When in reality, men just see a stunning woman whose body gave birth to his beautiful children.

Social Media Reality

Look through Instagram and you will see millions of pages of “real women” not “perfect” women, with men commenting on how gorgeous they are. What we might see as imperfections that no-one could be attracted to, the comments by men show that this just isn’t the case.

Take another example, Marilyn Monroe is widely considered as one of the sexiest women to ever live. Marilyn was curvy and voluptuous. Her tummy wasn’t toned and yet men adored her. At some point, the media decided skinny was best but this isn’t what real men truly want.

The Reality

Let’s take the social experiment show “Love Island” for example (stick with me here). There are several attractive women and men who are put together in a house, in the hopes of finding love.

One of the girls who entered was a 6 foot tall, blonde model labelled a “bombshell.” Yes, she was attractive and yes she is exactly what mainstream media want us to believe is the epitome of “hot.”

Despite this, not one of the men in the house admitted they were attracted to her. Enter another woman who was curvy, shorter with bigger thighs and a bigger butt. All the men thought she was stunning and chased this girl instead.

It puts into perspective that what the media want us to believe is the “ideal” woman is not indicative of what real men actually want. What we are trying to strive to be is not what men actually find attractive.

What we need to do is to look at our bodies through men’s eyes. Look at our bodies through the eyes of men. Cherish our bodies for what they are, beautiful, unique and imperfectly perfect.

We need to strive to be the best version of ourselves we can and stop striving to be something the media tell us to be. It will make us all happier within ourselves.

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