One of the most common questions I get is “what do you use for _____.”
I wanted to write up this post so you could easily find what I use for almost anything I do for my website and in my business.
Web Hosting
HostGator wins for me on this. I’ve used dozens of hosts in the past, and their WordPress speed is spectacular for a shared host, and reliability is great. I use them for several smaller sites.
If you’re looking for the powerful and professional WordPress hosting that I use, I recommend WP Engine
Getting Leads
There’s only one tool I’m now recommending for building an easy online system to get leads and turn them into customers/buyers, and that’s Click Funnels.You can take a 14-day free trial of it by using this link.
SEO - Social Media Links
When you want a solid, simple-to-use service to build social media backlinks, SociSynd is my tool of choice. I’ve been using it over a year with great success.
SEO - Keyword Research
The key to any successful website SEO lies in keyword research. I’ve used a lot of different tools over the years (Market Samurai, Niche Finder, SEOcockpit, and others) and the one tool that makes it super easy for bloggers to find great keywords to target for their posts is Long Tail Pro. If you’re not starting with easy-to-rank-for keywords, you’re wasting your time!
Please note – I highly recommend (and use) the platinum version so you have access to the competition numbers. That’s where the real value is at.
Email Autoresponder
I’ve used a few different systems to collect leads and build my list (Aweber, MailChimp, GVO) but finally settled on GetResponse. The interface is beautiful and easy to use and they have great responsive emails (auto-sizes for mobile). Click here to check out GetResponse.
But if what you’re really looking for is a system to turn people into buyers with fully-build online funnel systems, you can try a 14-day free trial of Click Funnels.
SEO - High Authority Links
[vc_column_text]One of my top strategies for ranking a web page is to make sure it has high quality, high authority links pointing to it. If you don’t know how to get your own high authority links, you can cheat… use Links Management.
WordPress Themes
I’ve spend thousands of hours and dollars on theme development in my life, but I finally found a better way…
No matter what theme is on my site right now, you can bet it came from ThemeForest.
Blog Post Images
You can find free images out there, but if you want your website and blog posts to look professional, you can get high quality images for around $1 each.
Almost every post I write gets an image from PhotoDune.
Affiliate Link Cloaking
Not only does LinkTrackr give you the ability to use several domains to cloak your links and have them redirect to affiliate products, but you have access to full tracking and campaign management as well.
If you want to do ANYTHING with affiliate product sales, you need a tool that can track the links… LinkTrackr is the tool I use.