Resources

I thought it would be helpful to create a resource page that you can always come to for all of your passive income needs. I’ll add to it as I learn more, but you’ll notice that in the future I will reference this page quite often. I recommend bookmarking it for your reference and convenience. Enjoy!

Get Your First Site

• Tumblr.com – 

Get a Pro Level Site/Blog

• WordPress: The #1 Blog Publishing Platform. Free and easily customizable with wonderful support. All of my blogs use WordPress.
  
  

Get a great looking Theme

• ThemeForest

Get a Dependable WebHost

• HostGator
• Total Server Solutions

Hire Great People to Help You Out

• Tugboat
• Odesk
• Elance
• Quora

Create Excellent Content

• Guide to creating great content

Images & Photos

• The Ultimate Guide to Finding and Using Images on Your Blog: This is a post I wrote with everything you need to know about using images on your website. You can’t just pull any ol’ image from the internet and use it – you could get in trouble! Read this to stay safe and worry free.
• iStockPhoto: This is where I purchase royalty-free images that I use on my sites.
• Flickr Creative Commons: This is where you can get free images for your website, but there are some rules that go along with it. Read the post in the first image & photo resource above to make sure you know how it all works.

Hosting

• Bluehost: 99% of my websites are hosted on Bluehost. Easy to use, 1-click automatic WordPress installation, and excellent customer service. Highly recommended for your first site. (special discounted rate  )
• Servint: This is where The Smart Passive Income Blog is now hosted, since it outgrew bluehost. I have a dedicated server package which can better handle the amount of traffic and activity on my blog. Great customer service, and they walked me through the entire migration process from Bluehost.

Product Distribution & Shopping Carts

• E-Junkie: The shopping cart I use to sell my eBook. It’s compatible with Paypal Standard, Paypal Pro, Google Checkout, Authorize.net, TrialPay, Clickbank & 2CheckOut. Works like a charm, very low price to use. Comes with a decent affiliate program for your products.
• Clickbank: Another digital products retailer. Probably the most popular. Decently priced, but comes with an amazing affiliate program for your products.
• Paypal.com: Paypal is just ok for selling your own products through them, but you’ll need an account anyways to configure with and accept payments from the above shopping carts.

Keyword Research

• Market Samurai: The number one tool for keyword research available, hands down. You can view my tutorial videos about Market Samurai here.
• Long Tail Pro: Another FANTSTIC keyword research and SEO analysis tool I’ve only recently discovered, but tested and highly recommend. This is more geared toward the beginner, so if you feel Market Samuari may be too complicated, this is the software to use when scoping out niches for possible websites.
• WordTracker Free Keywords Tool: Spits out a number for the popularity of a keyword of your choice. Search volume numbers can be compared to find the perfect niche, or to choose keywords for your blog posts.
• Google Adwords Tool: A tool to help you decide what keywords to use for your Adwords campaigns. You can also check to see the popularity of certain keywords and the competition for ads for those keywords as well.
• Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool: Another fantastic keyword research tool, with even more information and numbers to compare and select the perfect keywords.
• Seo Keyword Ranking: An excellent tool to keep track of the keywords you’re working on. Excellent interface and really easy to use.

Email Subscriptions & Marketing

• Aweber: The internet’s most powerful email opt-in service and email marketing/broadcasting tool. This is what I use to build my email list and newsletter. For a free step-by-step tutorial, check out The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Newsletter.

Advertising Stuff

• Google Adsense: Make money by placing relevant ads on your website that are generated from advertisers using Google Adwords. This is free to use, but you have to register for an account.
• Google Adwords: If you want to begin advertising on Google, you can select keywords and locations and you pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement.

Getting Results

• Google Analytics: Google’s free website tracking and analytical tool. A must have for anyone with any type of website.
• Clicky: Clicky is just like Google Analytics, except it’s easier to use, and you can view how many people are on your site (and what they are doing) in real time! Your first site is free.
• Google Optimizer: This is another free tool from google where you can test different webpages of the same content, only changing one or two things, so you can see which one works/converts best. It’s basically a website optimizer testing tool.

Site Optimization

• Matthew Horne from DIYWPBlog: If you have a WordPress site and want to make it as fast as possible, Matthew is the guy to go to. I thought my site was fast until he got it loading in under 2 seconds, which is crazy.

Site Protection

• Sucuri:  My websites are my business…and my livelihood! I don’t want any intruders, so I pay a yearly fee to make sure that if anyone tampers with my sites, it’ll be taken care of right away, with alerts/notifications letting me know what’s up. Sucuri is definitely great for peace of mind, if anything.

Outsourcing Work

• Elance: Hired service for just about anything you can think of.
• Odesk: Another outsource website for freelancers, IT companies, programmers and web designers from abroad.
• 99Designs: This is a unique website that you can use if you need a logo design. It’s in a contest format. You submit the description of what you want, and designers will compete against each other to win money.
• SpeechPad: This is the service I use to get transcripts done for my podcasts and videos.
  

Legal Stuff

• LegalZoom: Easy online incorporation or LLC creation.

Business and Startup Books

• The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich: Pretty much the most awesome book in the entire world. I reference this quite a bit in my posts.
• ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse: The best book about blogging from the number one online blogger, Darren Rowse.
• Moonlighting on the Internet by Yanik Silver: I also own this book and it’s really what inspired me to go full time working online. I finished it in 1 day because it’s so good.
• Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson: I reference this book a lot here on the Smart Passive Income Blog because there are so many gems in this book that I model my business from.
• The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau: My latest book edition to my resource page, and for good reason – this book rocks! It’s a sweet blend of The 4-Hour Work Week (but more realistic), and Rework (but more actionable).

Video

• ScreenFlow (for Mac users) – the screen capture software I’m currently using.
• Camtasia for PC (Camtasia Studio) – for screen captures
• Omnidazzle – to draw on your screen (free)
• Bamboo Pen and Tablet – This is the pen and tablet I use to make drawing on the screen extremely easy.
• SplashEO (for Awesome Intro and Outro Graphics): If you want professional looking intros and outros for your videos, this is the place to go. Gideon Shalwick, the owner, is a good friend and I was totally blown away from the quality and turnaround time. Check it out!

Disclosure:  Please note that some of the links are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.  Please understand that I have experience with all of these companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions I make if you decide to buy something.  Please do not spend any money on these products unless you feel you need them or that they will help you achieve your goals.