Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
Essential Blogging Tools
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items Over the years, I’ve tested countless blogging tools to streamline my workflow, improve SEO, and grow my audience. This list includes the must-have resources that help me run my blog efficiently—from website hosting and design to content creation and...
Sections
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Blogging Must-Haves
Affiliate Programs
Sales Tools
Email Marketing
Blog Design + Images
Writing Tools
Blogging Must-Haves
Throughout the years I tried and tested many blogging tools. This is a list of my favourites and must-haves.
It might be a bit of a learning curve if you’re not use to Wordpress, but it’s the best system to manage your blog or website. Choose Wordpress.org and not the .com version.
Download – WordPress.org
Lyrical Host is my favourite hosting company. Their support is outstanding and they will help you move hosting companies or set you up from scratch where needed. I can’t recommend them enough! Enjoy a 10% hosting discount with code: Discover10
Web Hosting & Domain Names Made Beautiful – Lyrical Host
You’ll also need a domain name! Namecheap is a great place to get started, and the set up is straightforward.
Buy a domain name - Register cheap domain names from $0.99
SEO can feel overwhelming, but Nina Clapperton’s 6 Months to 50K SEO course made it easy to understand and implement. This course helped me get started with SEO, teaching me how to grow my blog’s traffic and rank higher on Google. Learn how to get to...
Nina Clapperton 6 Months to 50 K SEO Course
This course changed my life as a blogger. After completing 6 Months to 50K SEO, I took The Profitable Part-Time Blogger and saw another huge transformation. I now make daily affiliate sales, improving my website structure, increasing sessions, and ge...
Nina Clapperton - Profitable Part-Time Blogger Program
Set up Google Analytics to start tracking your website traffic!
Access your Google Analytics account
I love Rank Math for SEO and content optimisation. You can easily create snippets, descriptions and redirects if needed. There is a free version that does everything you need, but there is an extra premium option also.
The #1 WordPress SEO Plugin in 2025 - Rank Math
Set up a free Ahrefs account for tracking backlinks, site health, technical SEO audits, and much more! You can also analyse the SERPs, perform keyword research and competitor analysis.
Ahrefs—Marketing Intelligence Tools Powered by Big Data.
My number one favourite tool to do my keyword research. It’s super affordable and simply a must have.
KeySearch for Keyword Research
Google Search Console is another tracking much have, and it’s completely free.
Google Search Console
My brain is always making over hours and Trello helps me organise my thoughts and planning. Perfect for remembering all your ideas, to-do lists and more!
Trello
Semrush is an SEO powerhouse tool for link tracking, insights, keyword research, content strategy and much more! You can create a free account and unlock paid sections depending on your needs.
Semrush SEO Toolkit: Check Website SEO with Analysis Tools
Affiliate Programs
These are affiliate partners I trust. If you choose to use them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps support Discover Portugal and allows me to keep sharing honest travel tips and guides.
Travelpayouts is an affiliate platform that connects travel bloggers with trusted travel brands like flights, hotels, insurance, and tours. It allows me to recommend useful travel services while keeping everything in one clear system. I use Travelpay...
Travelpayouts
Stay22 is a travel affiliate platform that helps travellers find accommodation while staying on the page they’re already reading. I use Stay22 to share hotel and accommodation options directly alongside my travel guides, making trip planning easier a...
Stay22
Sales Tools
If you want to start selling your own products on your blog, this tools will be helpful!
The easiest online booking system for my photography tours and photoshoots. Easy to set up, and easy for clients to use.
Acuity Scheduling
ThriveCart is my go-to tool for managing payments, digital products, and subscriptions with ease. It offers high-converting checkout pages, seamless integrations, and powerful automation to help maximize sales. Whether you're selling digital products...
ThriveCart - The Ultimate Checkout and Sales Platform
Zervant is the invoicing tool I use to keep my finances organised and hassle-free. It’s easy to create and send professional invoices, track payments, and manage clients—all in one place. Whether you're a freelancer or running a small business, Zerva...
Zervant | Powerful Invoicing Made Simple | Online & Mobile
I am no fan only monthly fees, and Tidycal is a one time fee for using a calender. You can link it to Stripe and PayPal and start creating booking for call or service.
TidyCal | Simple calendar management and booking solution
Perfect for contact forms and quizzes
Formly
Perfect for selling digital products! It is totally free, but they will take a small % of the sale.
Payhip
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Email Marketing
I started my newsletter from the start of my blog, and it's been a journey! These are my trusted email marketing tools at the moment.
Do you want to create a fun quiz without monthly fees? The Quiz Creator does exactly that! You can create as many quizzes as you like, and each one offers a chance to connect with and convert your audience.
The Quiz Creator - Create Unlimited Quizzes Fast
Set up a mailing list for your website and use a platform like Mailerlite to set up welcome sequences and regular newsletters.
Create Email Marketing Your Audience Will Love - MailerLite
Blog Design + Images
I have been a photographer for nearly 20 years, and these are my favourite blog/photography tools
Pick a fast theme for your Wordpress site like Kadence. They have a free and paid version, and it’s super easy to start creating a beautiful looking website.
Kadence WP | Free and Premium WordPress Themes & Plugins
If you do want to buy a theme, I highly recommend the pretty designs by Restored 316. Some blocks might slow down your site though, but it’s easy to fix once you get the hang on designing your site.
Kadence WordPress Child Themes - Restored 316
Use Canva for all your designs. You can easily create banners, social media posts, Pinterest designs etc. The free version already comes with tons of options!
Canva: Visual Suite for Everyone
I've been using Adobe Suite for nearly 20 years, and Adobe Lightroom is my favourite tool for my images.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Get access to a library with more than 300 million royalty-free stock images, videos, and music files
Depositphotos: Royalty-free Images, Photo Stock, Video & Music
Stock images and videos by highly trained professionals
Shutterstock: Stock Images, Photos, Vectors, Video, and Music
Writing Tools
Gamechangers that help me write content!
This Nina Clapperton course is another game-changer! I finally feel like I can clone myself, and it's great for scaling your business! A Custom GPT is more than just a tool—it’s a valuable digital product that can replace a course, enhance student su...
How to Use ChatGPT Tasks to Automate Your Blogging Workflow
English isn’t my native language, and I always get a little help from Grammarly to make my texts more readable, and remove grammatical errors.
Grammarly for spell checks
Pay only once for a writing tool instead of monthly! Neuronwriter is an amazing help with ranking on Google.
NeuronWriter