Resources

I get many questions about which vendors and partners we use to run our online business. Everything on this page I have personally tested and highly recommend.

Please note that most links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that if you decide to purchase using my link I may receive an referral fee. Rest assured that this referral fee is never added on top of the price, in fact some of these links contain special discounts for the community. Also, everything that I recommend because the products are very helpful and are from companies that I trust, not because of the commissions that I may earn from you using these tools.

LEARN WORDPRESS

WPSessions
WPSessions is the best place I’ve found for video tutorials about WordPress. The site is run by my friend Brian Richards and he does a great job curating other WordPress experts and having them share their expertise.

Videos on WPSessions come in two flavors; Sessions and Courses. Sessions are live Google Hangouts usually made up of several experts talking about subjects like, Professional Workflows, How to Design for Developers, How to Create Great WordCamp Presentations, and more. Courses are short videos, produced by one person that breaks down a WordPress topic. Learn More Today!

EMAIL MARKETING


  • MailChimp
    I use MailChimp, mainly because their logo is a monkey. I kid, I kid. I have found that MailChimp is extra easy to use and you can create some great emails to mail to your clients, plus for small business you can use it for free. As long as you have less than 2,000 people on your list and send less than 12,000 messages per month, it’s free!

  • MailPoet
    MailPoet is a great way to manage your email list inside your WordPress dashboard. It’s great because you can manage everything in one place and if you’d like to send out your most recent post in a newsletter, you can drag the content in. The free version is good for up to 2000 address on your list and the premium version is approximately $99 a year. Use this with Elastic Email and there will be no fees for months when you don’t send out an email blast.

ConvertKit
ConvertKit is the email newsletter service that I am currently using. I enjoy the ability to tag my list and send messages to particular segments of my audience; like specific content to developers and specific content to beginners.

Another great feature is you can send a follow up email the all subscribers who haven’t open up the previous email. They are a forward thinking company and making big changes in the email space. Learn More Today!

Opt-In Captures

  • Optin Monster
    Optin Monster is a slick tool that I use to capture email addresses of my visitors. You can make them pop up when clicking on a link, they can auto appear or even slide up from the bottom. This plugin will integrate with all of the major email newsletter providers and really works well with MailPoet. Ever since I’ve switched to Optin Monster, the average number of subscribers has went up each day.

  • LeadPages
    LeadPages is another great way to capture email addresses. Unfortunately, LeadPages doesn’t work with MailPoet, but it does work with some of the other email marketing companies like MailChimp, Aweber, Infusionsoft, Office Auto Pilot and more! LeadPages creates full page optin forms and LeadBoxes creates pop-up windows for users to enter their email address.

Develop Locally

Desktop Server
I use Desktop Server nearly every day. This software allows me to create a local install of WordPress on my computer and work on my site offline. It gives me a great place to test changes before updating my live site. It speeds up development time as I don’t have to wait to upload files on to my server.

Here’s a video of how to duplicate your site from your server to a local environment. You can use Desktop Server for free for up to three sites.

WEB HOSTING

  • Flywheel
    In the past four years, this website has been on five different hosting companies. This is the best hosting that you can find for your WordPress site. The team at Flywheel are experts at WordPress and they will migrate your site to their servers for free! Their interface is awesome and allows you to create a site for a client, then give them ownership by letting them pay for their site themselves. Gone are the days of making your client jump thru hoops to sign up for a hosting company on their own. A++ highly recommend.

  • A2 Hosting
    If you are looking for fast, reliable, shared hosting for your WordPress site, then A2 Hosting is the perfect choice for you. Two things set them apart from other shared hosting sites. (1) – They use SSD drives in their servers which make your page load times faster and (2) – They have a specialized plugin that will help to optimize your website.

BACKUP

  • Backup Buddy
    How often to do you remember to backup your WordPress site? Every time it crashes? That’s when I remember. Now you don’t have to. Install Backup Buddy and have piece of mind that your website is safe, even if it gets hacked!

  • VaultPress
    VaultPress is a set it and forget it backup solution by Automattic. Once installed, there is no configuration or set up, everything just works.

    It connects to your WordPress.com account and all of the data is stored offsite on Automattic’s server. No need to manage where to store backups again!

DOMAIN NAMES

Hover
I use Hover because they make purchasing a domain super easy. There are other domain registering sites that make it extra confusing to know what to buy, but not with Hover. You search for your domain, select how many email accounts you’d like with that domain and purchase. It’s as easy as that. Each domain comes with Whois Privacy, so that helps to keep your personal information secret.

Use this link and save $2!

WORDPRESS THEMES

  • ThemeForest.net
    Who wants to create their own theme from scratch? I certainly don’t, because it takes lots of time. Uses these places to find great themes for the fraction of the price of hiring someone to make a custom theme. Don’t worry, once you own the theme you can make customizations to make the theme your very own.

  • TeslaThemes
    Customizing themes are hard; especially if you are customizing themes from different authors each time you build a site. I like TeslaThemes because all of their themes are built exactly the same way, so once you know how to configure one, you can configure them all. For $49 a year, you can have access to all their themes to use on as many projects as you’d like.

BLOGGING/CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

  • WordPress.org
    Self-hosted WordPress, sometimes called WordPress.org, is running a version of the WordPress software on your computer. It’s the most popular way to use WordPress, since it gives you complete control over your site and you can add custom functionality with plugins and custom code. In order to use self-hosted WordPress, you will need to purchase hosting (preferably from one of the two companies I mention above) and install the WordPress software.

  • WordPress.com
    WordPress.com is the way to start using WordPress quickly and easily. When you register for a free account, the hosting is provided for you (for free) and you can start building a site. Since the site is hosted on your behalf, there are some limitations. You can’t add plugins or custom themes, but you will have access to Happiness Engineers who can help you with your site. It’s a great place to get started and if you ever want to switch to self-hosted it’s easy to export your content to the other version.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION

GMR Transcription is the company that I use to transcribe each podcast into text. They are a leading provider of high quality transcription and translation services.

All GMR transcribers are US based to ensure the quality of transcripts with a 98% accuracy guarantee.

CONTACT FORMS

  • Gravity Forms
    Gravity Forms is a great plugin for WordPress that allows you to create complex, custom forms. This is a great product that I am proud to support and well worth the premium price.
  • Contact Form 7
    If you are looking for a free solution to build a contact form for your site, then Contact Form 7 is for you. It’s not nearly as robust as Gravity Forms, but it does a great job of allowing you to build a custom form and display it on your website.

FILE SHARING AND STORAGE

Dropbox Use this link and get extra storage for free!
Need somewhere to store files that you can get to them where ever you are in the world? Dropbox is your solution. Store contents on your hard drive and they will be sync’d with the cloud. If you away from your computer and need the files, log on to Dropbox.com and there they are, problem solved.

SHOPPING CART PLUGINS

  • WooCommerce
    WooCommerce is a free solution that you can use to create a fully functional eCommerce website. I’ve found that WooCommerce is highly customizable, so you can make your eCommerce site do exactly what you need it to. The plugin is free, but there are some premium add-ons if you need additional functionality.

  • Exchange by iThemes
    I love everything that iThemes creates. They are the makers of Backup Buddy and recently launched Exchange. I used it to set up a simple membership site that included a payment form and it worked great! Much like WooCommerce, the main plugin is free, but you need extra functionality, there are premium add-on plugins to add.

SCREENCAST VIDEOS

ScreenFlow
Ever need to show someone exactly how to do something on the computer? If you have a mac (and you all should:) ) you can use ScreenFlow. It records everything you do on the screens along with your voice. Publish to YouTube and someone can see exactly how to do something.

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