Last updated on June 28th, 2022

Digital products are exactly how we make 80-90% of our full-time blogging income. The best part? It’s completely PASSIVE once you get your product created! Find exactly what product to make for your blog AND grab our free ebook template to make it happen!

Want our FREE Ebook (includes worksheet pages) for Canva OR InDesign? It’s available in our evergrowing Design Vault! Get that product made, out there, and generate income in no time at all!

Literally, every second of your day counts.

Especially when you are a new blogger that works from home. Especially if you are a mom with small kids.

Especially if you want to grow your blog quickly.

As a side note: if you’re NOT a new blogger, you can check out my post about the tools I use to run my blog once I hit the six-figure point right here. This post contains resources and tools I used when I was still growing my blog.

And it seems like everyone has some kind of tool that you absolutely need (and buy). And this ONE TOOL will streamline your entire business.

It will magically make you go from zero to millions. It’s the missing piece that your business has been dying for.

Well. I’ve bought a lot of things. I’ve tried a lot of things. Here’s exactly what I used to go from launch date to over $2,000/month in just 3 months.

WANT TO REMEMBER THIS LATER? SAVE IT TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD! ⬇

WEBSITE

Pixel Me Designs

We might be a design agency, but we’re definitely not web designers. Laura is not only affordable, but she did an amazing job with our branding and website. We wanted bold and colorful, and we got it. The wait list was a bit long, but worth it. We highly suggest getting on her waitlist as soon as possible!

SiteGround

We made the switch to Siteground after Bluehost shut down another one of our websites after we had a post go viral. They said, “we were taking up too much space on the server.” So, we did some research and made the switch to SiteGround. We LOVE them, and they have excellent customer service.

Thrive

We use thrive to build all of our lead boxes. We especially love that it was a one-time cost instead of a monthly fee. It’s easy to use and looks professional.

WRITING

Grammarly

The thing we love about Grammarly is that it works on any screen on your computer (not just the web). So whether you’re writing in email, Facebook, Google Docs, WordPress, etc., it;ll highlight the spelling or grammar error. Just click and it’ll fix it for you! It can’t get easier than that!

The Copy Word

If you struggle with captivating copywriting, this is the site for you. We downloaded her freebie on writing Facebook ad copy, followed it, and literally got this message a few hours later from one of our subscribers who saw the ad:

Fabulous ad! So well written. It’s hitting all my pain points! It makes me want to sign up again! Really nice work.

LIST BUILDING

ConvertKit

We’ve had ConvertKit since day one in our business and love our choice with this! I especially love that we can segment, tag, and build funnels to automate sequences and SALES. Yes, automated sales!

Email Marketing Strategy Solved

Follow this list-building course, and you’ll know how to organically build an engaged list of qualified leads for your business. The course walks you through getting creepy close to your avatar (in a good way) and nurturing your list, so they trust you, LOVE you, and want to buy from you. The methods in this strategy were the first thing that actually made sense to me. I was able to implement it and stick to it, and it was a game-changer!

RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS

Trello

I think most of you know that I’m a HUGE Trello fan! I even have already made boards in our resource library for you to use. Trello has been a game-changer for me when it comes to planning out my content and my projects, not to mention stepping out my goals. LOVE!! And again, free.

Dubsado

We use this for literally anything client-related and bookkeeping. It allows you to send forms, invoices, contracts, and pretty much anything else to any client or brand you’re working with. You can also store and send canned email responses to save time which is hands down our favorite part.

SendOwl

If you sell digital products, SendOwl is a great tool. They handle the monetary transaction and delivery of our products which means we don’t need WooCommerce to sell our digital products.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Recurpost

This tool is legit gold for automatically posting social media posts on a rotation. You load up different libraries with content (so for example, blog posts, other’s content, memes and quotes, engagement questions, etc.) and set it to a schedule.

Social Media Templates

Believe it or not, we use our own templatesThese save a TON of time when it comes to making our social media images. They are custom-made to match your brand and style. All I need to do is swap out the background image and change the title. Done and done.

Facebook Ads

After implementing the strategy I learned in List Love, I set up a Facebook ad to promote my freebie. I also created a tripwire to cover the cost of the Facebook ads (& then some!!)

CREATIVE NEEDS

Canva

You probably saw this coming from a mile away. YES, Canva is most definitely in my toolbox. I could go on forever about it, but one of the ways it really makes my life easier is by letting me quickly resize images. So I make my pin, my featured image, and my Facebook image super fast. Another great way is by setting up templates for myself so I can just make a copy and swap out the image and title.

Want to learn more about designing in Canva? 

Click here to enroll in our FREE Canva 101 workshop!

Renderforest

Helps me make cool text videos to promote blog posts and my freebies. Another awesome tool is Lumen5. We all know that video is the way the world is headed, but I don’t know about you, I don’t always feel up to doing a live sesh, so this is a super quick way to create an interesting video for your social media platforms.

Depositphotos

I have officially been turned OFF from those free sites like Pexels and Pixabay. If you haven’t heard, people are putting their images on these sites then taking them off and suing people that use them for copyright infringement. No thanks. I definitely knew I wanted to purchase my stock photos, and DepositPhoto was the best for my buck.

I tried other similarly priced sites, and the quality of photos just didn’t click for me. I’m extremely happy with the photos available on Depositphoto.

Creative Market

I. LOVE. Creative Market. Seriously! They have weekly freebies (like free fonts, graphics, etc.). They also have awesome bundles (like 700 fonts for $20 and other crazy awesome deals). Personally, I like to find deals on graphic clipart, so I don’t have to worry about purchasing the licensing for individual Canva design elements.

Ecover Maker

I use this to make all my 3D images of books, binders, and gadgets for my product and freebie promotional photos. These make the digital products look professional and eye-catching.

If you want to learn more about creating product photos, click here.

Pixistock

These are styled stock photos that are just beautiful. She sends also sends out free stock images each month. She has a great resource library with a TON of free, beautiful stock photos.

Here’s my full disclosure. Blogging is hard.

I did not start with “no knowledge of blogging” when I started this site. I had already been blogging on my other site and learning. It’s true I started with zero subscribers and zero income.

Less than 3 months after I launched, I had reached 500 subscribers and earned over $1500 in a one-month span.

But again, I had a strategy, I had learned and spent time building a foundation for my blog before officially launching. But I also knew when to say good enough, let’s click that button and launch it!

I was also willing to invest, despite our tight budget. I had to be careful and make smart investments. In addition, I also had to measure whether or not a tool was working fairly quickly to determine if I could afford to keep it paying for it.

There are so many tools out there it is easy to think you need to buy yet another thing.

You start to feel overwhelmed. You start getting FOMO.

Start small. Start with a foundation and work up from there.

This is a big list- you by no means need to go buy everything on this list your first week of blogging. This is not an all-inclusive list either; it’s simply the tools I use for my blog.

Start your blog, start writing, and set up an email list.

Then start weighing your investments: Do you really need ANOTHER course or would your money be better spent on hiring a designer to create you a product that you can SELL over and over?

Do you need another tool or maybe you could hire a VA to take care of social media for you? Do you really need a new outfit or can you get some templates created for your brand? You get the idea.

Everyone’s business is different. And you will start learning what you can really afford as you go. Most of the tools on this list are free, so why not give them a shot? REALLY try it for at least a month and see if it’s made an impact.z

Everything else will come with time as you grow your blog into an actual business.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

• FREE Design Vault
• The Easy Way to Create and Sell Printable Products
• FREE Product Creators QuickStart Kit (including eBook)
• 5 Easy Ways to Create Worksheets to Grow Your Blog Fast
• FREE Product Creation Training
• 5 Ways to Build Your List by Repurposing Blog Content
• FREE Product Design Planner

Want our FREE Ebook (includes worksheet pages) for Canva OR InDesign? It’s available in our evergrowing Design Vault! Get that product made, out there, and generate income in no time at all!

TRY CANVA PRO FREE FOR 30 DAYS

Start your FREE Canva Pro trial today and unlock ALL of their incredible time-saving features that’ll cut your design time down to just minutes.

To be honest? It’s the best $12.99/mo OR $119/yr we spend on our business because that time we save with every single design is put back into making MORE money in your business!

WANT TO SAVE THIS FOR LATER? PIN IT TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD!⬇