Curious to find out which tools and services I am using on this website? Here is a list of all my favorite tools and services that I use on my website and some of my clients’ sites – most of which are powered by WordPress.
Table of Contents
Web Hosting
Every website owner needs a good web hosting platform to host their websites. Here are some web hosts that I trust and recommend to my readers.
- Bluehost – Affordable hosting for bloggers who are just starting out
- Cloudways – Managed cloud hosting for large websites
- WordPress.com Business Plan – Best for small business owners
WordPress Themes
Providing your readers with a clean, user-friendly, and intuitive user interface can help extend the time your readers spend on your blog and can greatly reduce your bounce rate. Moreover, a well-coded and fast-loading theme is essential for your blog’s SEO. Here are my top picks.
- OceanWP (Free) – Multipurpose WordPress theme
- WP Astra (Free) – Fast, lightweight, and customizable
- GeneratePress (Free) – Simple, lightweight, and responsive
- Elegant Themes – WordPress themes loved by over 500k customers
- StudioPress Genesis – Premium WordPress themes
WordPress Plugins
Every WordPress site owner uses plugins to add extra functionality to their site. Here are some of the must-have WordPress plugins you need to have on your site to take it to the next level.
- Jetpack – Hassle-free design, marketing, and security
- Akismet – Protect your WordPress site from spam
- Yoast SEO – All in One SEO solution for your WordPress site
- Autoptimize – Optimizes your site’s CSS and JavaScript files
- WP-Optimize – Keeps your WordPress database fast and efficient
- W3 Total Cache – #1 caching plugin for WordPress
- ShortPixel Image Optimizer – Compresses your images to make them load faster
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Using a good content delivery network can help speed up the delivery of static content on your website (such as CSS, JavaScript, and image files) to your site’s visitors be it whichever part of the globe they are loading your site from.
- KeyCDN – A simple, fast, and reliable CDN
- Cloudflare (Free) – Make your site faster and safer
WordPress Security
Protecting your website from malicious hackers is important if you don’t want to lose your content and hard-earned money to some unknown creep on the internet. These website security providers protect your website from all bad bots and hackers looking for loopholes in your website’s security and cleaning up malware from your existing site.
- Sucuri – Complete website security
- Wordfence – Most downloaded security plugin for WordPress websites
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the oldest methods of internet marketing and it is not dead yet. Unlike other marketing platforms where you don’t own your subscribers’ email addresses, over here they have entrusted you with their personal email addresses so that they can receive the best content from you directly to their inboxes. Here are a few platforms that I recommend to effortlessly collect leads and manage your email lists.
- AWeber (Free) – Affordable and easy-to-use email marketing tools
- ConvertKit – Automation, and email marketing tools you need to grow your blog and business
- GetResponse (Free Trial) – Simple and easy interface to send email newsletters, campaigns, online surveys, and follow-up autoresponders
Social Media Marketing
What’s the use of just publishing content on your blog without getting it in front of as many eyeballs as you can? Use this software to promote your blog posts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
- Buffer – Effortlessly share your blog posts on social media networks
Stock Images
Why spend more than $200 per month for stock images when you can get them for free? Here are some trusted websites from where you can download high-resolution images for free. Feel free to use them anywhere – on your blog, social media, apps, websites, etc.
- Pexels – Free stock photos
- Pixabay – Free stunning images
- Unsplash – Free beautiful images
- Burst by Shopify – Free high-resolution stock photos
Video Editing
Video marketing is the future if you haven’t heard it already yet. Make sure all your blog posts are accompanied by a video to increase their exposure. YouTube is your friend.
- Lumen5 – Create videos from your blog post content
- Camtasia – Screen recording and video editing software
Photo Editing
Don’t know how to use Adobe Photoshop and other complex graphics software to create custom designs for your blog posts? Worry not, here is an app that you can use to create such designs for free.
- Canva – Create amazing graphic designs for free
Sending & Receiving International Payments
Once you step into the world of blogging and you start purchasing domain names, web hosting plans, themes, and plugins from any marketplace, you will realize the need for an easier payment method than debit and credit cards. Also, you need protection when you buy and sell something from businesses and clients respectively. This can be achieved by using the below-mentioned platform.
- PayPal – Safe way to send and receive payments globally
Free Cloud Storage Solution
When you are busy managing your website, you can’t always keep track of all the themes and plugins you downloaded, the images you have used on your blog, etc. All this can be set to automatically backed up to your cloud storage so that they are not lost in case your system fails or your site gets taken down due to an unrecoverable malware attack.
- Dropbox – Secure file sharing and storage solution
- Google Drive – A safe place for all your files
Business Suite
Once you become a freelancer or start your own online business, you will need an extra set of hands to keep everything organized. You can use Google Cloud’s latest offering, G Suite to easily manage your day-to-day business activities.
- G Suite (Inbox me for promo codes)
Website Performance, Uptime, and Speed Testing
We all know how important it is to have a quick-loading website. It is good for SEO and your readers will love you for providing them with a good experience. You can use these testing tools to see where your site is lacking in terms of performance and you can start working on it to improve your PageSpeed and YSlow scores.
WordPress Tutorials And Guides
Everyone likes good tutorials when they are stuck with something. Here are my favorite go-to sites to learn anything about fixing stuff with WordPress.
