MY TOP RECOMMENDATIONS
As a guy who has been in this business for over 19 years, I'm constantly amazed at how the technology and tools have evolved. What used to have to be done manually (if at all) can now be built with a few mouse clicks! It has never been easier to build a truly professional website.
As awesome as it is, it can also be confusing to wade through all the products, tools and services which are available.
This page is a fully curated and tested list of those tools and resources which I personally recommend. Every single item on this page is something I have personally used in my own business.
Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission should you purchase. There is no additional cost to you. My promise to you, however, is that I only recommend those products that I use personally and have fully vetted. I also encourage you to do your homework and not make a purchase until you feel that solution is what you need and will help you grow your business. You can read my full disclaimer here.
The Essentials
Thrive Themes is the best game in town now for marketing-focused themes. Their Content Builder provides infinite flexibility to create any kind of page you want. Their landing pages are conversion-focused. I now recommend Thrive Themes as the "best bang for your buck" in terms of both themes and landing pages.
Email Marketing
I have been using Aweber for over a decade. They are tried and true, integrate with pretty much everything, and they are a great home for your valuable email list. While I no longer use Aweber for the Blog Marketing Academy (you'll see what I use below), I still use Aweber for another project and continue to recommend them to people first starting out.
Drip Email Marketing
Drip is an email marketing automation platform owned and operated by the folks at LeadPages. It is incredibly powerful and highly cost effective for business owners who need more than a standard email broadcast service like Aweber. You can build full, custom workflows with Drip in a very user-friendly interface.
Web Hosting
Siteground Web Hosting
Lots of "gurus" out there recommend Bluehost. And they're OK. But trust me when I say Siteground is better. I personally had a site hacked on Bluehost and their support was lackluster. Siteground is a better run operation, their support is stellar, and it is a higher value for your dollar.
WPEngine - Managed Wordpress Hosting
WPEngine is my primary web host and while they're not the cheapest game in town I find their feature set to be totally worth it for something as fundamental to my business as hosting. Simply put, WPEngine makes my life much easier and they've removed a lot of the technical hassles of dealing with Wordpress installs, performance and more.
NOTE: For people just starting out, WPEngine may be priced too high. For that reason, I recommend Siteground for people just starting. Plus, you can grow with Siteground and they have WP hosting, too.
Membership Site
MemberMouse
The entire membership portion of Blog Marketing Academy is built on top of the MemberMouse platform. This is simply the most robust membership plug-in for Wordpress I've seen and used.
Wordpress Plug-ins
- Social Warfare - A very robust social media sharing buttons plug-in for Wordpress. Highly recommended.
- Advanced Custom Fields Pro - I use custom fields for various internal things and the ACF plug-in allows me to take total control. This plug-in has functionality that I was giddy when I discovered it.
- Gravity Forms - All the various forms used on this website are built with Gravity Forms. This is Wordpress forms perfected.
- Nested Pages - If you use a lot of pages (not posts) in Wordpress, this plug-in allows you to easily drag and drop pages to change ordering. Really handy for organizing course content.
Podcasting
- Blubrry PowerPress
- Smart Podcast Player - I use SPP to display podcast episodes here on the blog. Nice and clean in how it works.
- Libsyn - I host all podcast episodes on Libsyn.
- Heil PR40 Microphone - Truly the best mic I've ever used.
- Heil PL-2T Mic Stand. The boom arm which holds my mic up at the desk.
- Xenyx 1002 Mixer.
Videos
- Vimeo Pro - All of my training videos are hosted with Vimeo Pro. It's like Wistia, only reasonably priced.
- Canon T4i DSLR - My fancy videos are recorded with this.
- FancierStudio 3-piece Lighting Kit. These lights are always up in my office.
- Logitech c920 Webcam. Many times, I simply don't need the fancy camera. This is one of the best webcams around.
- Screenflow.
- Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet
- Sennheiser EW100 Wireless Lapel Mic System
- Canon EF 18-135mm IS STM Lens - Great lens for video.
Backend Operations
- Quickbooks Online - For accounting. A necessary evil.
- Helpscout - Customer support desk.
- Dynalist - My favorite productivity tool. I'm in it every single day and even coordinate tasks with my VA with it.
- Google Apps
- Manychat - For Facebook Messenger marketing and management
- Chatroll - Use this for our private chatroom inside The Lab.
- ScheduleOnce - The online scheduler for bookings
- Cyfe - I use this for a centralized dashboard of the business metrics.