I get asked for recommendations all the time — for everything from web hosting & domain purchase, to stock photos & how to research key words, and more. Here are my favorite & most recommended tools & services:
Web Hosting & Domain Purchase*
I recommend that whenever possible you purchase your domain along with your hosting. You can own as many domain names as you want, but one will have to be associated with your hosting account & it’ll be easier for you to manage if both are with the same company:
WordPress Themes*
There are SO MANY WordPress themes out there, but few places that let you narrow down your choices better than ThemeForest. You can filter by rating, date of release, features, and numerous other criteria.
Stock Photos
Helen Sedwick wrote a great blog post with legal advice for using images on your website/blog, and also about creative commons and public domain images. Once you understand the differences and what they mean, you can use any of these options:
- iStockPhoto
- Creative Commons Search
- Public Domain Image Search
- Pexels (royalty free images)
- Unsplash (royalty free images)
Sharable Image Generation
Sites like Pinterest & Instagram are designed for sharing images, and Facebook & Twitter allow you to also. But how do folks generate super sharable image-based content when they’re not a designer?:
Keyword Research
It’s important that you have data to help you know just how many people are searching for your keywords and how much competition there is for them. Sometimes just changing one word slightly can improve searchability many times over. You’re always looking for that sweet spot between enough people searching to make it worth your while, and not so much competition that you’ll never rank:
Email Marking (ie: Mailing List Subscription)
If you want to build an email list by having a subscribe form on your blog/website (and most folks do), this allows you to easily build that list by adding the simple embed code they provide:
Social Media Marketing
If you’re looking for a simple way to update multiple social media profiles at once, and schedule them out for when your updates will have the most impact, this is for you:
Copywriting
If you don’t feel confident coming up with your own website copy to meet your strategic goals and to leverage your keywords properly, here’s someone who will knock it out of the park:
Disclosure: The links to Bluehost, SiteGround & ThemeForest in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click the links and purchase something from either company, I will receive an affiliate commission. Despite this, I only recommend them because I use them personally for myself and my clients and I believe they will be great solutions for you.
