Over the years, I’ve tried dozens of ways to make blogging easier, and while I’m not an expert, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. To save you time and money, I thought it would be helpful to create a resource for other gluten free bloggers to see the products and services that I use to blog everyday. This list is constantly being updates as more and more services are added and changed.
Disclaimer: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links. I use all of the products listed below and recommend them because they are companies that I have found helpful and trustworthy. Please let me know if you have any questions about anything listed below!
Starting Your Own Gluten Free Blog
Bluehost – Bluehost has been my hosting company since I started blogging online in 2009 with JennaDrew.com. They offer a quick and easy way to get up and running with your blog on WordPress using your own domain name (no more .blogspot.com in your domain). Bluehost has free domain name registration, is amazingly affordable, and is the perfect place to start. The whole hosting-domain-language can be kind of frustrating, but Bluehost has an awesome support staff and easy one-click installation of WordPress. Check out the How to Start a Gluten Free Blog page if you want a step-by-step run down of how to start your own blog using Bluehost.
The Genesis Framework – The Genesis Framework is what is currently running on Gluten Free Meal Plan as well as Gluten Free Jenna AND JennaDrew.com. You could say I’m a big fan of the StudioPress team and their WordPress themes! Genesis is the framework used by some of the web’s most popular bloggers, like Darren Rowse of problogger.net and Chris Brogan of chrisbrogan.com. With Genesis, you’re going to want to purchase the Framework ($59.95) along with a child theme (prices vary).
AWeber – AWeber is the email marketing software I use to distribute my “Gluten Free Tips & Recipes” newsletter (you can see the sign up form in the sidebar to the right) as well as the subscriptions to my weekly Gluten Free Meal Plan service. We use AWeber’s “follow up” functionality, which allows us to create a queue of emails that are delivered to subscribers at certain intervals. As a blogger it’s important to connect with your readers through all different avenues, including email, and we think AWeber does a great job of making that really easy.
CrashPlan Plus – It started like any other day, then my world came crashing down when my HP decided to bite the dust after only one year of service. I lost everything on it from meal plans, ebook outlines and all of my photos. Today, I make sure to keep everything backed up, so it never happens again. CrashPlan is an awesome program that runs in the background of my computer and creates a backup every 15 minutes. Now, if my computer ever decides to no longer work or ends up in flood, I’ll still have access to all of my important documents, files and photos.
Food Blogger Pro – Food Blogger Pro is a central location for people that want to learn how to start and grow a food blog. There are two primary parts of site, the video training and the community forum. The videos provide easy-to-understands tips for getting started with your food blog and step-by-step instructions for how to do things like install advertising code, create a branded email address, or use the manual settings on your DSLR camera. The community forum is a place where you can go to get questions answered by other food bloggers. The founders Lindsay and Bjork have been instrumental in the success of my blogs.
Tasty Food Photography – The hardest part of starting a gluten free blog is capturing great photos of your food! Photography is an incredible tool that can have a profound impact on the life of your blog or website. My friend, Lindsay, is sharing all that she has learned about food photography with you. Her tips and tricks in this book are practical, easy to read, and will ultimately help you take food photos that make people say, “I am dying to eat that right now!” To date, over 1,409 people have purchased Tasty Food Photography and used it to help improve their food photography. It’s personally changed the way that I photograph my creations! You can learn more about the book and read some testimonials on this page.
Getting Traffic To Your Gluten Free Blog
HootSuite – Social media is my biggest traffic generator and constantly sends new readers to my site which leads to more earnings potential. If you’re not careful, it can take up a lot of your time. I use HootSuite to schedule my social media posts so I can set my updates for the day and then go about the other important business building activities behind the scenes. Not only are they awesome for taking Facebook posting and Tweeting off your schedule, but they also have a ‘university’ that teaches you everything you could want to know about social media – meaning more results for you.
How to Monetize Your Gluten Free Blog
How to Monetize Your Food Blog – We all start blogging as a passion to share our gluten free journeys, but along the way we wonder if this could be an income source and a lifestyle that we live full-time. My friend, Kiersten Frase, taught me how to go from struggling ‘writer’ to earning an income with my gluten free blog, and she can show you too! Kiersten has a great guide to show you step-by-step what it takes to go from spending money on your blog to making money from it and all of the terminology in between.
WordPress Plugins
Easy Recipe – This is the WordPress Plugin I use to enter in my recipes. The name says it all, it’s an easy plugin to showcase your recipes!
Akismet – Spam comments stink! Akismet is a like a comment guard, making sure that no spamming comments get through to your site.
WP to Twitter – A slick little plugin that automatically tweets whenever I put a new post up.
Limit Login Attempts – A simple but important plugin to increase the security on your WordPress blog. This plugin limits the number of times that someone can enter in an incorrect password. It’s amazing how many people try to hack into Gluten Free Meal Plan every day.
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