Resources

Comprehensive resource collection for bloggers and Internet marketers. To this page I have collected the best resources and tools, most of which I use personally as well. Make sure you bookmark the page, so you can come back here when needed.

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Resource List Table of Contents (T.O.C)

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Forums


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Blogging Forums


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Internet Marketing Forums


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Domain Registrations

  • Register your domains on a reliable domain registrar.
  • You do not have to register domains with the same service provider you get hosting from, and
  • I recommend for you to get domains from separate domain registrar.

This will make possible selling of the domain and/or blog much easier, which you should prepare even if you have no plans to sell when you start. Think of it as "not putting all eggs in the same basket", if you will.

For domain name registration, there are three services I recommend:

Moniker

Domainers use Moniker for reliability and great service - and since people making a living with domains use it, Moniker is amazingly good for the average domain registrar too. Moniker is among the cheapest options when you count the additional services, e.g. WHOIS privacy, domain transfers, etc.

  • Moniker - trusted domain registrar
    • .com $8.02 / year
    • .net $6.64 / year
    • .org $8.02 / year

Namecheap

  • Namecheap - another great domain registrar
    • .com, .net & .org all cost $9.69 / year

DreamHost

At the beginning, I registered my domains with my web hosting provider (convenient, but not necessary the smartest thing), which is DreamHost. Domain registrations cost a bit more than from other registrars, but taking the WHOIS privacy into account, it's quite even. By having my main domains on the same account, the billing is simple, and DreamHost offers WHOIS privacy for free and automatically renews my domains too.

Aged Domain Names

In addition to registering a new domain name for yourself, it is possible to get aged domain names. Aged domains have been in use at some point, but are now available either because the owner is selling / auctioning the site, or the domain registration is about to expire and the domain name will be dropped and released into the open again.

If you're interested in buying aged domains (with history, possibly backlinks, etc.) you can use a service called Domainface to search for the domain names. The Domainface is usable as a standalone service, or the "Domain Samurai" which is integrated into the Market Samurai and its domain search feature.

To use both these, you should register for the free account at Domainface (there are premium, paid options too), and if you like, get the free trial of Market Samurai as well:


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Hosting

When getting shared hosting, I think you shouldn't have to worry about bandwidth, disk space, or be too limited on how many sites you can set up on your account. In addition to these, not all hosting are good for WordPress and some providers put their customers on a leash when it comes to speed. I don't want you to have anything of that.

The hosting services I recommend offer: Unlimited domains, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space and great customer service when you need it. And they all have proven to work well with WordPress, keep their servers and services up to date (PHP and MySQL) and understand the importance of site speed. And here they are:

  • DreamHost. This blog is hosted on DH. DreamHost is well optimized for WordPress and they offer all the site speed related goodies.
  • BlueHost. For it's price, it's hard to beat BlueHost. Affordable and reliable service.
  • Host Gator. Another very affordable with its pricing. Don't take the cheapest (hatchling) plan thou, as it only allows one domain.

Cloud Hosting

For a long-term, scalable solution, look into VPS.net and their cloud hosting option. It costs a bit more than shared hosting (but still only $20 a month) to start with, but you'll have the option to add more capacity in an instant when needed, without transferring and setting up new servers. Plus, it's the fastest possible hosting option.


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eBooks and Coaching

Here are some eBooks (or eCourses, where materials are delivered via email) that have tremendously helped me to improve my blog and blogging skills, in addition to learning about marketing and Internet business. I think the free eBooks are excellent resources for any bloggers and Internet business owner, so I recommend you read them as you will learn a lot.

Most of the free eBooks have been released to promote a coaching course or another product by the authors. You can get the free information and you don't have to pay or buy anything unless you so choose to. However, if after reading the free information you feel like you could benefit learning more, the coaching courses are great, I've taken a couple of them...

I have personally been a student in Become a Blogger, Blog Mastermind and Blog Masters Club, and my blog wouldn't be the same as it is now if I hadn't had the chance to learn from the experts like Yaro Starak, Gideon Shalwick and David Risley. Because of that, I am proud to recommend their courses to you (and use my affiliate link).

You can find more great (free) eBooks here:


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Free WordPress Themes

There are thousands of free WordPress themes, available at WordPress.org, which is a great starting point for you and your blog. Or you can take a look at these free themes not available on the WordPress.org:


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Premium WordPress Themes

If you want more unique and more customizable design, take a look at these premium WordPress themes:

WooThemes

  • One of the most popular, and highest quality premium themes/li>
  • WooThemes are quality themes that look great and make visitors go "Woo" :)
  • New themes are published regularly, so there's plenty to choose from
  • They also have a theme club, which gives an access to all their themes

StudioPress WordPress Themes

  • StudioPress has loads of well designed and optimized themes for you to choose from.
  • After creating the Genesis, and porting all their "normal" themes to use the framework, in addition to offering the "plain" framework, StudioPress themes went from A-class to AAA.
  • For the ultimate customization, I recommended you get their theme framework, Genesis.
  • For "out of the box" theme, choose one of the ready-made options (or get Genesis AND buy a look as a child theme!)

Headway

  • Headway is highly, and easily, customizable theme with good search engine optimization.
  • Headway comes with "visual layout editor", so you can create the look you want without touching any code.
  • The personal edition is $87 (2 sites) and the developer edition $164 (unlimited + developer access). Personal edition has the update option to dev ed.
  • 30-day money back guarantee and free updates for life.
  • Click here to learn more and get Headway

Thesis

  • Very versatile and highly customizable Theme Framework
  • Pros: High customization, wide user community, good support
  • Cons: Although usable "out of the box", without work and customization it's quite plain.

Elegant Themes

  • ElegantThemes offers a subscription for $19.95 which gives you unlimited access all the themes there.

Organic Themes

  • A lot of nice looking, functional themes to choose from
  • One theme for $69 and "All Themes" package for $249.

Unique Blog Designs

  • Unique Blog Designs does, as it name states, unique blog designs on hire.
  • They also offer a free guide and free theme on signup (at least check that out)
  • UDB also has a site called Theme Wars, where two theme designs battle out and the winner is put on sale.

UBD also sells out-of-the-box themes, specifically designed for Internet marketing, Squeeze Theme and Affiliate Theme. These themes have spesific purpose, help you set up landing pages, sales pages and product pages. They are not made for normal blogging, but for special marketing needs, so I wouldn't go buying these if you're new to blogging and looking for your first theme.

Squeeze Theme

  • DO NOT BUILD A "NORMAL" BLOG WITH SQUEEZE THEME
  • Squeeze Theme is a theme designed to make opt-in pages (and only that!)
  • Squeeze pages are used most commonly to grow an email list
    • "squeezing" email addresses from the visitors.

Affiliate Theme

  • DO NOT BUILD A "NORMAL" BLOG WITH AFFILIATE THEME
  • Affiliate Theme is spesifically designed for affiliate marketing and setting up sales pages and product pages
  • if you're running Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns and need to quickly set up sites, or
  • if you're building product based affiliate sites, you might want to test this one.
  • I've run it on several blogs, and it works OK, but Affiliate Theme is quite restricting on what you can do with it. Also, Affiliate Theme is quite costly compared to the alternatives. The interviews, guides and bonuses were great - theme itself, mediocre, especially for its price.


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Recommended WordPress Plugins

Most of the WordPress plugins are free, available through WordPress Plugins Directory.

Quick and easy install directly from WordPress Dashboard: Plugins --> Add New.

Must-have / Essential WordPress Plugins

Here are the most essential plugins for WordPress I use and recommended:

  1. Akismet
    • Default spam filter (and a good one!)
    • Protects your blog from most blog comment spam
  2. Google XML Sitemaps
    • Generates and submits XML sitemap for search engines
    • Great for SEO
    • Lots of options
    • Easy to use
    • Updated regularly
  3. W3 Total Cache
    • The ultimate caching solution for WordPress
    • Yes, forget WP Super-Cache, this is way better.
    • Bit technical and difficult to get running, but once you do, this one
      • caches the pages
      • caches the database connection
      • minifies and caches javascript and CSS
      • automatically manages the media library with content delivery network (CDN), like Amazon S3
      • allows caching via Memcache and APC (advanced, not for shared hosting)
    • Read my detailed step-by-step W3 Total Cache guide to learn how to install and configure the plugin for ultimate caching solution.
  4. WP-DBManager
  5. WP Smush.it
    • Automatically optimize the images you upload for web
    • Install once and you don't have to do anything afterwards,
    • this one compresses and optimizes the images while you upload as normal
  6. WordPress SEO -plugin
    • True "all in one" search engine optimization -plugin
    • Even if you have SEO-friendly theme, this will help you maintain the settings easier
    • I used All in One SEO Pack until this was released
    • Has tons of features, including the functionality of my old plugin favorites:
      • Robots Meta
      • RSS Footer
      • Yoast breadcrumbs
  7. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
    • Great for SEO
    • Users can see related content that they may like = very "relevant" to the page
  8. Redirection
    • Manage 301 redirects.
    • Track the number of clicks
    • Use for affiliate links
    • Automatically monitor changing post URLs and set 301 redirects
    • Manually set 301's for easy affiliate link management and tracking
    • Monitors and logs 404 errors

Each and every blog I setup and install has the above plugins installed, for a reason, I have tried and tested the alternatives, and found that the above have worked the best for me. I keep the list of recommended list of WP plugins short for a reason, because I think one should only use what is really needed for both performance and maintenance reasons, but I also add great plugins to the list if I choose to use them myself after testing them out.

More Great WordPress plugins

Here are more recommended plugins, which are all great, but not needed on each and every blog I run...

In addition to the above, I also use Limit Login Attemps to secure the admin area, Contact Form 7 on my contact page, WP-Pagenavi for improved page navigation and Sociable for social bookmarking (uses CSS-Sprites!).

In addition to those, I was using RSS Footer, Yoast Breadcrumbs, and Robots Meta before, but none of these are no longer needed, as they've been integrated into the WordPress SEO -plugin.

  • Robots Meta
    • Micromanage how search engine robots index your site, setting nofollow and noindex tags on individual pages if needed.
    • Easily set nofollow links on front page for PageRank sculpting for the home page
    • Edit and handle the WordPress htaccess and robots.txt from the WP Dashboard


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Tools

Useful tools for blogging and Internet business activities.


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RSS Feed Distribution Services

Check these links for the list of RSS distribution sites:


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Directories of Web Directories


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Blog and Website Directories


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Directory Submission Services

  • To be updated when I find a good, non-spammy one.


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The Automatic Ping List for Blogs

Consider installing MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer -plugin (plugin is free, but requires a registration.) to

  • make pinging as efficient as possible and
  • to ensure that your blog is not labeled for spamming the pings

Copy and paste this list to the

  • Settings >> Writing -- Update Services -field
  • or in the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer settings

The Short and Optimized Ping List

This is the ping list I use and recommend you use too. It contains the most essential ping services, nothing more, nothing less.

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

Reference: Vladimir's WordPress Ping List

The Massive Ping List

If you want to make sure you ping each and every service out there, you might want to use this list instead.

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc..php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Reference: XML-RPC Ping Services (for English Blogs) at WordPress Codex


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Multipinging Services

..remember that WordPress does this automatically, and you can set service like FeedBurner to do this too (if you are burning your RSS feed there as you should). Just check the "PingShot" inside the FeedBurner control area.

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