Here are some of our favourite website resources and tools for individuals looking to start their own website or blog. Whether you are looking at creating something for fun or earning an income from your efforts, these are the tools and resources that we love and use at Diabetes Advocacy!
Some of the links below are affiliate links meaning that we will receive a benefit if you opt to use them.
Preferred Web Hosting
We have used a variety of web hosting companies over the years. Last year we moved Diabetes Advocacy over to SiteGround and haven’t looked back.
Their interface is very user-friendly and if you get stuck, their support staff are fabulous and knowledgeable.
Check out their great product options.
WordPress theme options
If you are using a WordPress design we recommend looking through the many themes offered by on the StudioPress site.
The current Diabetes Advocacy website was designed using a responsive theme from Restored 316 Designs. Their support staff is incredibly helpful. They have an online community that offers continued support as well.
Blog coaching and SEO training
When it comes to SEO and blog coaching, in our opinion, there is no one better than Hope Hanson. Hope is down to earth and wonderful. She offers you great advice and has a large array of easy to follow courses that will get your blog or website on the right track.
You can check out Hope’s next course at the Purple Teacup or contact her directly for one-on-one coaching sessions.
Images for your website or blog
One of the most important parts of any web-based business today are quality images. You can take your own photos, use a free source, or purchase images from a reputable site. Do not simply Google and paste. Images are intellectual property and as such, you can find yourself in legal trouble if you do not have permission to use them. Here are a few web tools that we have found for professional, downloadable images.
Free images
Unsplash
Pexels
PinClipart
Pixabay
Ivory Mix Free Stock Photos
Paid images
For the most robust options of images, paid sites tend to be the way to go. You can usually purchase a subscription or pay per image.
Shutterstock
istock
123RF
IvoryMix
How to design images for your site and social presence
Once you have images, you want to be able to display them both on your site and across social media. Canva offers exceptional tools and templates in their free and paid sections.
IvoryMix is another site that offers templates that are easy to use and provide great results.
Protecting your web site health
Google ranking, SEO, site speed, web health. These are all important factors in having a successful blog or website.
Again, we recommend that if you are struggling with SEO, you take one of the Purple Teacup SEO courses.
Another important part of being found and searched organically through sites such as Google is site speed. You can make sure you are optimizing your site speed using a free tool called GT Metrix. It will give you your site’s speed and tell you what to do to improve your score.
Google also loves you to have links going to and from your site. As your site grows, it is not always possible to check some of your outbound links. Thankfully a tool like Broken Link Checker will do this for you.
If you find yourself having any technical issues or you find your site has been hacked in any way, we highly recommend the professionals at iMark Interactive.com They are knowledgeable, reasonably priced, and offer great advice on keeping your website safe and secured.
Tools for social sharing
We all have busy lives but social sharing is a huge part of owning an online business, blog or website. There are a variety of tools out there that allow you to batch and schedule posts at a later time so you are not tethered to your computer or phone.
Bulk.ly offers more great tips on scheduling your Instagram feed.
Later allows you to schedule posts to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.
Planoly is another great scheduling tool for both Instagram and Pinterest.
If you are looking to up your Pinterest game, in our opinion, Tailwind is a must. This tool allows you to schedule multiple pins at various optimized times throughout the day. They offer insights and give you a new spin on the idea of group boards–Tailwind tribes. Tribes are groups of individuals who will share your content and provide you with quality content to pin as well.
Tailwind offers you a trial period to see if this is the right fit for your website or brand. After you have used up all of your 100 free pins or 30 free Instagram posts, you can stop using the program or upgrade to their paid plan.
As a diabetes website, we do not find as much value in the Tailwind tribes as some do but tribes are growing and with over 1 million Pinterest viewers each month, we definitely feel that this scheduling tool is worth the investment for us. You can join our diabetes tribe here.
Read more about Pinterest for diabetes blog here.
Email lists and opt-ins
An email strategy can be a big part of any website. Being able to share important information with your readers is vital.
Products such as MailerLite, FloDesk, Convertkit, and Mailchimp offer you a platform to gather email addresses and send out quality messages to your readers.
Platforms like Podia allow you to grow your email list and provides you with a platform from which to share free and paid downloads.
Organization and planning
Content strategy is a huge part of promoting your website. Here are a few tools that we use.
- Milanote is an easy-to-use tool to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards.
- Google sheets overs a cloud-based way to share ideas and make plans.
