As a busy mompreneur, you don’t have time to waste with products and services that give you sub-par results. I’ve experimented with a ton of things in the three years since I launched this blog. Here are the ones I’m currently using, and highly recommend!
Disclosure: There are some affiliate links below, but these are all products I highly recommend. I won’t put anything on this page that I haven’t verified and/or personally used.
Web Hosting
Your website is the skeleton on which you’ll build your entire blog. You want a hosting service that provides:
- Excellent customer service
- Fast load times
- Fabulous pricing
I started hosting with another company, but in January of 2018, I moved to FastComet at the recommendation of the tech guy I had helping me with my blog. It’s a move I don’t regret, and it’s actually cheaper than what I was paying before!!!
As a bonus, they have a domain name included for as long as you’re with them, so you won’t have an addition fee to renew that every year. Click below to learn more.
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Blog Design
When I first started, my blog was UGLY. I mean, really UGLY! I’m not a web designer.
But, thankfully I found a great company to help me. I’ve now had BOTH of my blogs designed by the amazing Blogelina team. They do great work, and helped me give my blogs a facelift.
Best of all? They didn’t cost me an arm and a leg. I found their pricing very affordable! Click below to learn more.
Stock Photos
When I first started blogging, I spent WAY too much time searching free photo sites for beautiful pictures I could use for my blog. If you look through my early posts, you’ll see that I wasn’t really successful in my quest.
Finding photos took too long, and I got to the point where I really didn’t care what they looked like, I just wanted to be done.
The photos on my blog are much more lovely now.
The difference?
I decided to join a paid stock photography site. After doing some research, I picked Pixistock. I’ve been a member now for almost six months, and don’t regret the cost at all. Here’s why:
- Picking pictures isn’t as time consuming. They’re organized nicely by color or theme, and I can easily find what I want.
- I can download a bunch of them at once, and use them throughout the month. Batching for the win! (And it takes WAY less time than batching from free photo sites where you have to do a search for each and every photo.)
- With a little time back, I can put more effort into the actual design of the images instead of just being done and not caring.
- I can use any image I want – all of them on the site are perfect for bloggers. This really minimizing the thought I have to put into picking out pictures.
- There are so many pictures to choose from, I can pick a unique one for each of my pins.
- The terms and conditions for these pictures are clear and easy to understand.
- My shares have gone up tremendously since I started using these beautiful photos!
I plan on sticking with Pixistock! If you’re interested in getting started, click below.
Selling Digital Products
When I first created my eBook, The Ultimate Guide to a Successful Family Writing Time, I knew I wanted to sell it from my site. What I didn’t know was HOW to accomplish that.
I experimented a bit with an on-site shop through WooCommerce. But, I found it time consuming to set up. I wasn’t sure how to handle things like sales tax or anything else. And I really didn’t want to spend the time to learn.
Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD. <=a motto I learned in high school that’s been good for me as a busy momprenuer.
I don’t have to do everything on my own, even if I technically could learn how and figure it out.
My solution? SendOwl!
I’ve loved how easy it was to set up. They also have an affiliate program. And are a low monthly rate – flat fee. No surprises! I like that part best.
Have your own product to sell? I highly recommend SendOwl! Click below to get started.
Housing My Course
Adding products is a great way to increase your revenue streams and make more passive income. I’ve tried SO MANY methods to get my course, Balancing Diapers and Deadlines, housed in a way I love. Over time I’ve experimented with five different systems.
The one I’ve been using for the past two years, and imagine I’ll stick with in the future is Zippy Plugins. Here’s what I love about them:
- Easy to use, with great documentation
- My course is on my site (well a subdomain of my site…) so I don’t have to share my profits with another company
- They offer great customer service (and helped me quickly get my course back up and running after I hit a wrong button and made it all disappear)
Social Sharing
I used to think blogging was just about creating great content. I figured if I wrote it, tons of people would instantly show up at my site ready to read.
Guess what?
I was wrong!
If you don’t market your blog, you won’t get any readers.
Period.
No market = No readers
No readers = No profit
No profit = Sad me
Don’t do what I did! Optimize your blog for social sharing right from the start. I use Social Warfare Pro, and have been happy with it. It makes it easy for me to insert Pin descriptions, and create custom Twitter and Facebook messages. Click below to get started!
Email Marketing
It took me a while to see the point of growing an email list. I played around with it haphazardly for my first year of blogging, and then I started to take it more seriously. At that point, I subscribed to ConvertKit.
I wrote a whole post about why I love ConvertKit and find it worth paying for despite having a small list. You can find that information here. Basically, it’s easy to use, sends me an email reminder each week (I’d totally forget if it didn’t!), and keeps track of the important stats I want to know about.
If you’re looking for an easy to use email marketing platform, ConvertKit is definitely what I recommend!
Ready, Set, Blog for Traffic
Elna Cain’s Ready, Set, Blog for Traffic course has been a tremendous help in growing my blog traffic. It’s full of several different strategies, which meant I could pick and choose which ones to focus on first.
This course has been recently updated, and I can’t wait to go back through it and learn even more!
I’ll be adding more resources over time, so check back if you’re interested in what products and services I’m using to save time, money, and sanity as a busy mompreneur!
