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!

Learn How to Create and Monetize a Blog

Woman Technologist emoji 40 items
This list is designed to give you the inspiration and resources to start, market and monetize your blog/website for a side hustle income or even replace your 9-5 over time.
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Successful Blogger Interviews and Tips

YouTube channels to learn tips and get inspired by successful bloggers who are making a great income from their blogs/websites

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Get inspired by listening to how successful bloggers make over $10k-$50k/month and more. Listen to how they got started, their tips and apps they use to scale their blogs/sites to success. Jared Bauman's a great interviewer and I learn a lot from the...youtube.com/@niche-pursuits
Niche Pursuits Podcast - inspiring and actionable interviews with successful website owners/bloggers. Learn the latest SEO, affiliate marketing and online business tips and strategies
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Successful blogger Brandon Gaille teaches you the blogging strategies that top bloggers use to grow their traffic and monetize their blogs.
The Blogging Millionaire
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Adam Enfroy has great videos on how to monetize blogging. He covers the topics of affiliate marketing, SEO, blogging, content generation, keyword research and more. I enrolled in his Blog Growth Engine course a year ago and have found his course and ...
Adam Enfroy on YouTube - Blog Growth Engine
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Ricky Kesler and his team give you practical tips and strategies on how to monetize your blog and keep you updated on new developments and how to fix things that are no longer working.
Income School
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Sophia Lee makes over 75k/month from her blog. She shares her content planning and pinterest strategies so she offers a different perspective to some of the other YouTube channels.
Perfecting Blogging | By Sophia Lee Blogging

Creating a Blog/Website from Scratch

Follow these great tutorials and YouTube channels to learn how to build a blog/website ready to monetize.

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
I like how he also takes you through his keyword research process and the prompts he uses to write an article using ChatGPT4.
How to Build An Affiliate Marketing Website (Full Guide)
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Ferdy's free courses on YouTube are amazing! He literally gives you the step-by-step guide to learning how to build an affiliate website from scratch and more and it's TOTALLY FREE! He's a great teacher and his tutorials are even better than heaps of...youtube.com/@ferdykorpershoek
Complete Affiliate Marketing Course For Beginners 2024 by Ferdy Korpershoek (Includes a Step-by-Step Guide on How to Build Your Blog/Website!)
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
He takes you through the interface of 6 of the most popular website builders so you can decide which one suits you. These are: GoDaddy, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, Shopify and WordPress.
BEST Website Builder 2024 (My TOP Recommendation) by Metics Media
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Alex Cooper teaches you about the best WordPress themes to use, and shows you how to monetize your sites, and is willing to show you some of his sites as well as you can learn over his shoulder so to speak. I like his transparency and simple to follo...
WP Eagle - WordPress and Affiliate Marketing
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Great looking templates, and easy-to-use website builder. Great for creating blogs and portfolios for creatives.
Squarespace Website Builder — Create a Website in Minutes
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Over 800 designer-made templates available. They also have a free plan so you can test out the builder first to see if it suits your needs.
Wix Website Builder
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
I use WordPress.org for my affiliate blogs atm as it gives me the ultimate flexibility with all the plugins I can install. I also just pay one hosting fee for unlimited sites with Greengeeks.com which suits me. There is a bit of a learning curve with WordPress.org but I've found it worth my time.
WordPress.org is an open-source CMS (content management system) software that is installed on a web hosting server like GreenGeeks.com or Bluehost.com

SEO and Keyword Research

These YouTube channels and resources can teach you how to organically rank your content in Google

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
I find Matt Diggity's tips highly educational and actionable.
Matt Diggity - SEO Techniques based on Real Test Results
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Julian Goldie uses AI tools to bulk generate and rank content on Google. He conducts lots of experiments and shows you what he does. It's great to follow along to see how he uses the tools and the results he gets.
Julian Goldie SEO, Building Backlinks and AI Tools
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
I always listen to the latest things Kyle Roof has to say in interviews etc.
Kyle Roof: ChatGPT SEO Strategies, AI & Onpage SEO Tactics to Rank #1. Interview by Julian Goldie
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Ahrefs is a premium SEO tool and this YouTube channels provides some great tutorials on how to use their tool and other tips to grow your organic traffic on Google.
Ahrefs YouTube Channel- Premium SEO Tool
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Gael Breton and Mark Webster teach you how to create profitable authority websites. They talk about SEO, link building and more.
Authority Hacker - Building Proftable Authority Niche Websites. Gael Breton and Mark Webster.
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Nina teaches people how to build and scale their blogs to achieve financial freedom. She talks about her strategies such as SEO, Pinterest, tools to use etc.
She Knows SEO - Nina Clapperton
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
I find Nathan Gotch's tutorials highly practical and actionable.
Nathan Gotch - SEO Expert and Trainer.
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
LowFruits helps you analyze the SERPs and find you low competition keywords you can rank for. It's also very cheap compared to Ahrefs. You can buy credits eg 2k credits for US$25 or you can get a standard subscription of 3k credits/month for US$249/y...
SEO Tool. LowFruits : Analyze the SERPs faster
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Keysearch is a great keyword research tool to find competitive long-tail keywords. It's also a lot cheaper US$17/month (200 daily searches) vs Ahrefs US$99 (lite plan).
SEO Tool. Keysearch: Keyword Research Tool | SEO Analysis & Difficulty Checker
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Ahrefs is a premium SEO tool because they're the 3rd most active web crawler in the world behind Google and Microsoft. ahrefs.com/big-data. So basically you get access to ‘lots’ of raw data and you can basically filter, sort the data anyway you want. There are free tools available too: ahrefs.com/free-seo-tools
SEO Tool. Ahrefs. There are free tools available too.

Best Affiliate Programs and Platforms to Join

Naturally add products, apps and services that are relevant to your blog post topic and join the company's affiliate program and a referral commision when someone buys the product or service via your link. 

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
This platform Benable is a great affiliate platform as they've already partnered with over 35k sites that will pay you a commission when people purchase things from your lists!
Benable - Shareable lists of things you recommend
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
This is the most comprehensive list I've found of the best affiliate programs out there. It's sorted by category too, so just click on your niche to find the right ones for you!
The 10,676 Best Affiliate Programs of 2024
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Everyone knows Amazon and they have zillions of products you can add/share in your blog posts. So it's a great place to start and learn.
Amazon.com Associates Central
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
A good list of affiliate platforms to join with clear desciptions of the pros and cons of each platform.
11 Best Affiliate Platforms And Networks Compared (2024)
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Since I'm based in Australia, I thought I'd add one in for the Aussie affiliate marketers out there.
10 Best Australian Affiliate Programs & Networks In 2024 by Authority Hacker
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Ad Networks

Displaying ads on your site is one of the most common ways to monetize a blog. You can earn money based on clicks or impressions. Placement and design are key - ads should be visible but not hinder the user experience.

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Nina Clapperton lists the best ad networks based on personal experience.
19 Best Ad Networks for Bloggers to Make 6 Figures - Nina Clapperton
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
If I was trying to monetize my site straight off the bat, I might look into these. Atm, I'm going to build my traffic up first.
3 Best Ad Networks For New Bloggers (with Fast Approval)
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AI Content Creation Tools

Speed up your content creation game with these AI writing tools. Use these tools for idea generation, outlining and generating a first draft of your blog post.

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
KoalaWriter's generates top-quality long-form SEO-optimized articles for you with just a few clicks! It also gives you real-time search results, has a great outline editor, and generates cool AI images ready to use commercially. You can also create Amazon Product Roundup and Amazon Single Product Review posts quickly!
KoalaWriter: The Best One-Click SEO Optimized AI Writer
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
SurgeGraph's a great AI long-form article generator and SEO tool-in-one. It gives you great keyword ideas and shows you the Keyword Difficulty as well as the Opportunity Score. You can Auto SEO-Optimize the article generated saving you heaps of time. Product AI ...
SurgeGraph: Grow Your Organic Traffic. FAST.
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Claude is a cool, free AI chat app I love using. I've found it generates quite ‘creative’ and conversational outputs. It also tends to give a 100% or v.high ‘Original’ score in the Originality.ai AI detection app atm (if you care about that score, since Google say they're ok with AI content as long as it's 'helpful').
Claude.ai: Cool Free 'Creative' Chat App
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
I like to use ChatGPT-3.5 as a starting point for brainstorming, outlining, generating a quick 500 word blog post etc. I've also got a subscription to ChatGPT-4 but sometimes I prefer the output from the ChatGPT-3.5 model.
ChatGPT: Great Free Chat App
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Quillbot's also got a very useful tool called QuillBot Flow where you type in a topic and description and it'll generate a blog, essay, or research paper outline for you. You can also use Quillbot Search to look up articles from the web or academic articles!
QuillBot AI: Paraphrasing tool, Grammar Checker, and Writing Assistant

Social Platforms to Help Drive Traffic to Your Blog

In 2024, you need to diversify your traffic sources beyond Google, especially since the Google Helpful Content Updates can really make your organic traffic take a dive.

 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Instagram's great for visual content and can drive traffic through engaging images, stories and videos. It's great for the lifestyle, fashion, travel, and food niches.
Instagram
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
LinkedIn is the go-to platform for professional content and networking. It's ideal for sharing industry insights, professional tips, and in-depth blog posts. LinkedIn is particularly effective for B2B businesses, entrepreneurs, and professionals look...
LinkedIn
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Great for quick updates. Good platform for reaching professionals and tech people, news seekers and influencers.
X (formerly Twitter)
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
It's known for reaching an ‘older’ audience, probably Gen X and older. You can reach people through Facebook groups and ads.
Meta (formerly Facebook, also owns Instagram)
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Kirsten Lowe profile picture
Threads is a cross between Twitter and Instagram. It complements Instagram, focusing on text-based updates.
Threads (by Instagram)
 
Kirsten Lowe profile picture
TikTok's format of short, engaging videos makes it perfect for reaching a younger audience. It's great for creating viral content, behind-the-scenes looks, and educational snippets. The platform's algorithm can significantly boost your visibility, ma...
TikTok
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