Recommendations
I’m often asked how I made $35,000 a month blogging with my full-time job in my first year of business?
So I’ve put together this recommendations page for you.
Here you will find the BEST blogging and business resources starting from courses, books, products and other tools that took me from $0 to over $20,000 blogging per month, then $35,000 a month blogging, then $44,000 a month blogging and now I make over $60,000 a month using these tools and resources! (all while working full-time as a lawyer)
These are ALL investments I made in my business to make money in my first month of blogging! I’ve invested in hundreds of courses and tools but I only recommend a handful of products that have truly moved the needle for me!
These recommendations will work for you whether you are a beginner or advanced blogger as long as you put in the work.
This page may contain affiliate links. Read the Disclosure for more information. Did you know 10% of my earnings go toward feeding the ORPHAN KIDS AROUND THE WORLD? So just know that every time you make a purchase through me, you are making some kid SMILE around the world. We are so grateful for your love and support!
bestselling Legal Template Bundles for your business
Here are my 3 best selling Legal Bundles trusted by over 10,000 entrepreneurs and clients I’ve helped as a lawyer for 10 years now.
Whether you are looking to make your website legally compliant in just 30 minutes, avoid GDPR and CCPA fines or protect yourself and your online business legally, or get contracts you need to run your business legally, grab any ONE of these comprehensive legal bundles to take away the legal overwhelm! (Plus did I mention you can get 16 cool bonuses?)
BEST HOSTING FOR YOUR WEBSITE
Bluehost is a great web hosting company for beginner bloggers and this is what I used when I started my blog!
They are super affordable and I’ve never had any issues with them. Their customer service is excellent as well.
Start your blog or online business with Bluehost here.
Bigscoots is the fastest WordPress hosting you’ll need once your website starts to gain traffic and if you want your site to run fast.
Their customer support is great and you actually get a response within 5 minutes!
They offer a 45-day guarantee to show you why they are the best or you get your money back!
Best Blogging Courses
This is the perfect blogging course to launch your blog and take your blog from $0 to $1,000 a month quickly.
This course helped me launch my blog within 7 days while working full-time as a lawyer (imagine how much time and headache I saved!). It also helped me make money blogging in my first month. I made $3700 in just 2 months of blogging.
Learn all about affiliate marketing, the best affiliate programs to join, sponsored posts, guest posts, ads, and much more to monetize your online business!
It is taught by two six figure bloggers who walk you through everything. Read my full review of this course here.
I knew nothing about Pinterest before taking this course but within weeks, I became a PRO and learned everything about how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog.
This course is quite comprehensive – it taught me everything from how to setup a Pinterest profile, how to automate blog traffic with pin scheduling, how to design your custom beautiful pins, collaborate on group boards, how to use Pinterest for email collection, how to use Tailwind to save tons of time, and much more!
I used this course the most! This is the ultimate course which takes you through all the steps and strategies to make a six figure income and live your dream life! So many people have taken this course and started making six figures which allowed them to quit their 9 to 5 jobs! This is what motivated me to buy this course!
Because of this awesome course, I was able to create my own legal templates here within 2 weeks after launching my blog. It taught me everything from creating sales pages, creating products, designs, sales funnels, getting testimonials, etc (it’s a very comprehensive course that teaches you everything you need to know!)
This course helped me monetize my blog within the first month of blogging because I learned how to create and launch my own products! Not only was I able to create my own products so quickly, in just two months of blogging, I made $3,700 with only 13 blog posts published, 55 subscribers at the time and $0 spent on advertising my products at the time. Highly recommend this course if you want to make money from your own products!
This Pro Blogger Bundle includes all 3 courses listed above at a huge discount:
- Launch Your Blog Biz
- Pinterest Traffic Avalanche
- Six Figure Blogger
I purchased this bundle because it provided the best value for the money.
Because of this awesome course, I was able to create my own legal templates. It taught me everything from creating sales pages, creating products, designs, sales funnels, getting testimonials, etc (it’s a very comprehensive course that teaches you everything you need to know!)
This course walks you through the complete ABC of blogging and helped me go from 0 to $60,000 a month blogging with my full-time job!
Becoming A Blogger
Becoming a Blogger is an awesome course that teaches you everything you need to know about becoming a successful blogger as quickly as six months or less! It is packed with tons of valuable information and is taught by Cate Rosales, the founder of SweetandSimpleLife.com.
Cate is a well-respected experienced blogger who is super approachable and passionate about teaching others reach their full potential!
I had the pleasure of working with Cate recently where I wrote a guest post for her blog and she was a delight to collaborate with! I can personally vouch for her product because she’s that good! So if you are low on budget and need a course you can rely on to succeed quickly then check out Becoming a Blogger here.
affiliate marketing, simplified!
Affiliate Marketing, Simplified is another awesome course by Cate Rosales that teaches you everything you need to know about making thousands in affiliate income! BUT it is sooo reasonably priced as compared to other courses I’ve taken, so definitely take advantage of this special price before it goes up!
HOW TO MASTER WORDPRESS
Wicked at WordPress is the course you need to master WordPress and design a beautiful looking website!
Wicked At WordPress to be the DIY solution for bloggers and creative entrepreneurs who don’t have thousands to spend on a professional developer and who want to empower themselves.
FACEBOOK ADS
Organic traffic is great but as your business starts to grow and make money, you want to start using FB ads to scale!
This is the course I used to get started with FB ads and it’s totally worth it.
EMAIL MARKETING TOOLS AND COURSES
EMAIL MARKETING AND LIST BUILDING
Grow your List with this awesome email marketing and list building course at a very reasonable price!
Struggling with email marketing? Learn how to nurture and surge your email list from a professional marketing strategist and blogger for over a decade. Grow your email subscribers from 0 to 1000 in one month!
Second Best Email Marketing Service
Convertkit is the second best email marketing service for your business, in my opinion. I started with them but I switched to Kartra because it’s a one stop shop for all your online business needs!
But I loved how easy it was to use ConvertKit. It is very user friendly. It works seamlessly with WordPress and is very easy to integrate the forms on your site. I didn’t have any prior experience with Convertkit or WordPress yet I was able to create multiple forms and landing pages within minutes and post them on my site.
I love the automation features it offers and how easy it is to customize your email sequences. Convertkit is currently offering a great 30 day free trial, so check it out because there’s no risk in getting started and seeing how you like it!
Best All-In-One Business Platform
Kartra is by far the best all in one business platform for everything you need! It is super powerful and you can do everything from creating email opt in forms, sales pages, landing pages to creating your own products and selling your products, membership sites, setting up an affiliate program, and much more all through one platform- Kartra!
This means no need for separate platforms such as Convertkit, Clickfunnels, Lead Pages, etc. Everything can be done now in Kartra for half of the price! I started with Convertkit because at the time, I did not know about Kartra but once I learned all about what Kartra can do, it was a no-brainer to switch from Convertkit to Kartra. Try it for 14 days for just $1.00! Read my detailed review of Kartra here.
pinterest MARKETING COURSE
Struggling with Pinterest? Pinterest takes months to master but you don’t have to wait that long.
Learn to pin like a pro and Pinterest SEO, keyword research, how to create viral pins and a lot more! Check out this awesome course here.
Here are all the awesome courses by HerPaperRoute that you’ll love!
Beautiful SOCIAL MEDIA GRAPHICS
60 DONE FOR YOU CANVA GRAPHICS KIT
This one is a very unique and beautiful kit of all kinds of Canva graphics you can think of starting from Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, ebook and others!
If you are tired of struggling with designing social media marketing graphics for your business and want to get on the “fast track” to cranking out EPIC graphics to promote your business on social media then check out this amazing kit.
If you are looking for a DIY design course to create professional graphics, visual designs, workbooks, printables and more in Canva then check out this amazing course.
CANVA COURSE to design graphics, printables, ebooks and more!
After perusing through Pinterest and looking at some of the images and designs that were getting the most re-pins, shares, likes and comments, I noticed that all of these designs had one thing in common:
There was a consistent look and feel to their designs!
This my friend, was a hugeeee game changer for me and the way that I moved forward with designing graphics for my brand and it inspired me to snag a DIY design course that teaches you how to use Canva in ways you never imagined you could. You can learn more about it here.
CANVA PRO
I can’t live without Canva! It’s one business tool that I use every day for different things and you can do so much with it such as:
Creating a logo, branding kit, resizing images, and you also get thousands of free templates at your fingertips.
It comes with 75+ million premium stock images, photos, videos, and graphics too!
Try it for free here.
Just like Canva, Grammarly is a must for your blog and online business to correct all grammar errors and enhance your writing!
You can also check for plagiarism, which is super helpful if you accept guest posts on your blog and want to make sure that the content is 100% original.
It’s one business tool that I use every day and try it for free here.
100+ pinterest templates
This Pin template starter kit has the most beautiful templates I’ve ever seen! It comes with 20 click-worthy Pinterest templates for Canva in 600 x 900 pixels and 1260 x 600 pixels.
Customize them easily to fit your branding and begin using them right away! This is the secret to making my pins go viral on Pinterest.
90 pinterest templateS bundle (best value)
Ever wondered how some people’s Pinterest pins look so attractive? Look into these 90 Pinterest unique design templates!
This is a great bundle of Pinterest templates that you can easily edit in Canva to match your branding and save valuable time. These templates also come with awesome bonuses!
30 pinterest templates (great value)
This Pinterest Templates bundle comes with 30 Pinterest templates that are easily editable in Canva. You only need the free version of Canva to work with these templates.
Note: If you want to experiment, you can also design pins here along with Canva.
These Pinterest templates come in 3 different sizes below:
- (10) 600px – 900px
- (10) 1,000px – 1,500px
- (10) 600px – 1,250px
86 pinterest templates for only $29
This Pinterest Templates bundle comes with 86 beautiful Pinterest templates that you can use in Canva to create click worthy pins and increase traffic to your site!
Making Sense of Sponsored Posts
Making Sense of Sponsored Posts is a great course I took to learn all about making money from sponsored posts. Blogging can be really difficult but with this course, you will learn a new way to make six figures without millions of visitors to your blog.
The creators of this course, Michelle and Alexis, earn more $10,000 from sponsored posts EVERY month! And in this course, they both share their best tips to help you earn that first $1K or $10K from sponsored posts too!
I loved the course especially the 5 modules and bonus lessons including a list of all the networks where you can sign up for sponsored posts. I wasted a lot of time trying to find this information for free, and I know I’d have wasted some more MONTHS if I didn’t take the course. Even then I doubt I would have gotten everything I did from this course!
Some of my favorite parts of the course include:
- What are sponsored posts and how they work
- Why sponsored posts are a fantastic source of blogging income
- How to pitch brands
- How to build trust and not lose followers
- Required disclosures that you need to know about
Sponsored success by tracie fobes
Tracie‘s Sponsored Success course has everything you need to work with brands like a pro! It is so reasonably priced and easy to follow. If you are new to sponsored posts, read this post to find out how to make $10K with sponsored posts.
I love how organized the content is and she teaches you how to pitch yourself to brands, how to determine your sponsored post rates, how to write and finalize your sponsored posts and most importantly, she even covers the legal issues you need to know when working with brands such as having a sponsored posts legal contract and providing proper disclosures in your posts!
As a lawyer, I look at everything from the beginning till the end, so for me, this course is a complete resource you NEED to start making money from sponsored posts.
I’m also getting approached by brands to produce sponsored content, so the bonuses included in the course such as the media kit templates, invoice template, sponsored posts rate calculator have been extremely helpful for me and have saved me tons of time. I don’t have to worry about creating any of this on my own because Tracie has professionally done this for us already!
I highly recommend you check out this course if you are serious about making money from sponsored content!
*As an added bonus: You get my Sponsored Posts Contract template extra $25 OFF when you enroll in this course (total savings of $50 off for you from the original price)
get paid to be an influencer
With this awesome course, you will learn how to build a strong social media following, create a big impact and make a living as an influencer! Become a micro influencer in no time with the proper training and tools you need to succeed.
Learn how to work with brands, create high converting content, advertising and successfully monetize your online presence.
BEST SEO Books
Best SEO book you need to rank #1 on Google and increase your organic traffic from search engines! This book takes out all the guesswork and simplifies SEO in easy terms anyone can understand + I loved the SEO blog writing checklist as part of the book that I use every time I write a blog post now. Get the bundle deal here
Save $20 off on this bundle now
Save $20 off and grab this bundle of the two most popular SEO books to rank on the first page of Google and increase your pageviews!
Check it out here.
Best SEO COURSE
The best SEO course I took to increase my Google ranking, domain authority and gain more organic traffic from Google. This course is for beginner and advanced bloggers!
SEO TOOLS
MASTER THE ART OF VIDEO & BE CONFIDENT ON CAMERA
This Confidence on Camera course was created for people who want to do videos to promote their business, create online courses, host webinars and produce video presentations.
There are 40 lessons filled with actionable tips and techniques and 8 downloadable crib sheets. We tackle topics like on-camera nerves and fears, scripting, storytelling, set, lighting, audio, talking to the camera and accents.
if you want to stop listening to all the useless advice about video and actually listen to someone who knows what works and gets permanent results then you must learn from these professionals with 25 years of television, radio and video production experience!
These are the same tips and tricks I’m using in my videos these days.
and for a limited time, you get the course 50% off! What a steal because each lesson is only $1 for you!
My favorite lesson is by far #6 Going on Camera and check it out here.
WEBSITE / blog FLIPPING COURSE
Did you know you can flip a website or blog and make money as your side hustle? So even if you have a full-time job, learn how to flip websites in 30 days and make $2,500 or more per month. Learn how this mom makes six-figures flipping blogs here.
The Art of the Microflip is a 25+ text-based and video tutorial lesson course and has an active student community, tons of resources and more.
For a limited time, my readers get 20% off the course, The Art of the Microflip using coupon code – ASELFGURU at checkout.
another BLOG FLIPPING COURSE
This is another blog flipping course that’s pretty awesome where you learn everything you need to develop and sell your blog. You also learn affiliate marketing and SEO + social media marketing.
Click here to learn more!
Best Social Media Scheduler
I am going to be honest, when I first started using Pinterest, I did not like it! It was too much work for me – making pins, pinning, repining and that too on a daily basis! I would easily spend 4 HOURS in a day doing nothing but Pinterest. It got addictive and was a huge time suck.
Same thing when I started with Instagram! It was also time consuming and not easy to post through your phone worrying about saving the best hashtags, etc. Tailwind has really solved both of those problems for me! Now I can use my time wisely doing other things for my blog and business because all my pinning and posting is on auto-pilot!
Best photo/Graphic Editor
I love Picmonkey for all my creative work- photo editing, graphic designing, collage making, edits and touch ups! It’s great for making your Pinterest pins and editing all your images. I use it for both Pinterest and Instagram images. Try it for FREE here and let me know how you like it! I am sure you will be hooked.
EASY TO USE WordPress Theme
Divi, part of Elegant themes, is the most popular theme nowadays! I have used Elegant themes and started with Divi but then switched to their Extra theme which is perfect for bloggers! But honestly I love both Divi and Extra themes because they both are very easy to customize and use.
I did not have to spend more than a day creating my website layout and all my pages because there was no coding needed whatsoever. Everything was easily laid out for you, and I have not taken any training either. I also do not come from any technical background. So for all these reasons, I love this theme and highly recommend it for a beginner blogger.
Want some more options? Check out these themes too!
Best Business Accounting Software
Freshbooks is the best business accounting software. It is true to its name- FRESH and is very user friendly! It’s so easy to use and is the best accounting software for your business. You can automate your invoices, keep track of your expenses and time with just a click and the mobile app integrates perfectly with Stripe, Shopify, G suite and so many others to make accounting a breeze for your business!
Favorite Blogging Books
This is a good simple beginner guide for blogging. It is reasonably priced and provides you lots of value where you can quickly start blogging right away!
Great resource on how to make money from blogging with simple, easy to follow steps and real examples.
All Time Favorite Books
This short simple book by Louise L. Hay is my favorite to begin the day with! So many people I know including myself who read it first thing in the morning to set their positive intentions for the day. It’s really important how you begin your day and what mood you are in because that has a direct impact on how your day progresses. This little yet powerful book is a reminder to think happy thoughts and once you start getting in the habit of doing that, you will start to manifest those thoughts in reality.
Brian Tracy is well-known as an amazing motivator and writer. This book will truly transform you in ways you can’t imagine! You will learn some of the best-proven habits of millionaires and how to be one!
I found it easy to read and no matter what stage of your life you are at, you will benefit from the tips and action steps provided in the book to help you achieve the results you desire. In my experience, this book not only helped me so much with my business but also with my personal growth.
Everyone has some “bad habits” and often, we don’t even realize that we need to evolve and replace our “bad habits” with “good habits.” This book really helped me get rid of my “bad habits” and as a result, I am so productive and happy every day. Yes, your habits have a direct correlation with your happiness as well!
Tony Robbins is another successful self-made millionaire that teaches you how to take massive action. I have read his book – AWAKEN THE GIANT WITHIN– several times and every time, I learned something new! Now I keep an audio copy of the book in my library at home so whenever I need to refresh my mind, I read a passage that provides practical insight and techniques I can implement easily. You will love this book!
Wayne Dyer was one of my favorite writers! Your thoughts dictate your actions. If you are one of those people who views the “glass half empty” rather than viewing the “glass half full” then you MUST read this book and transform your thinking completely.
This book taught me how to completely stop thinking negatively and eliminate thoughts that were hindering my progress. Now I know what my erroneous zones are and how to find a positive in everything. This book will help you reach your true potential!
