Recommended Products
On this page, you will find recommendations for products and services that I have used.
In order for me to recommend a product or service; I have to have used the product or service, I have to been thoroughly satisfied with it and it has to be backed with first rate support. I never recommend anything which does not live up to these standards.
Hosting
WPX Hosting
I have used a number of different hosting companies over the years and WPX Hosting is by far the best. They provide an excellenct balance between price and performance.
Before moving to WPX Hosting, I was paying 3 times the price for a VPS Server which could not meet the demands of my high traffic websites. WPX Hosting coped easily and continues to prove excellent as my traffic has grown even more.
In addition to the excellent product, the level of service and support is simply the best I have ever experienced from a hosting company.
- Siteground - If WPX Hosting is a little above your budget or you are just starting out; Sitegroud provide an excellent alternative. Hosting packages are very reasonable. The hosting itself is fast and and reliable and the customer support is very good.
Content Management System (C.M.S.)
WordPress
WordPress is by far the most popular content management system for building websites.
It is open source and free but more importantly it is a very flexible and robust system which you can use to do just about anything. With a wide range of plugins (free and paid) and themes (free and paid) you can quickly design and create the website you require.
I was never tech savvy so my favourite thing about WordPress is that it is very easy to learn. In addition to this, there are an endless amount of articles and video tutorials on the web to help you do all of the things you want to do.
Email Marketing / Autoresponders
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign does all of the things you would expect from a top quality email autoresponder.
However, with its built in automations, it allows you to do so much more. You can ensure that you send the right email, to the right person, at the right time; leading to happier subscribers and more sales.
With outstanding support, tutorials and educational materials, the sky is the limit with ActiveCampaign.
- GetResponse - GetResponse provides a very good alternative to ActiveCampaign. It has all the essentials of an Autoresponder / Email Marketing service. It also has some automation built in but I didn't find it as intuitive or flexible as ActiveCampaign.
Essential WordPress Plugins
Thrive Themes
It's all well and good having great content on your website but if the site doesn't look right; you can forget about building a tribe of passionate followers.
Thrive Themes are a range of premium WordPress Themes designed for conversion and sales. They look great and provide you wide a variety of 'easy to implement' options which can be used to add both style and substance.
As with all the products I recommend, the support is second to none.
Thrive Leads
When you first start out in the world of online business; you can be forgiven for thinking that it's all about traffic i.e. if you get more people to your site; every thing will be fine.
However, not everybody buys on their first visit. In fact, the vast majority of people won't. So, you need a way to get people to come back to your site. You need to add them to your autoresponder / email service. Thrive Leads is the perfect tool for doing just that.
With Thrive Leads, you can build beautiful, effective and elegant lead capture forms in a matter of minutes.
Thrive Content Builder
In the old days, if you wanted a web page, you would have to know code and code the entire page. WordPress has done a great job at allowing us to create pages quickly without knowing code.
However, WordPress pages aren't naturally beautiful, thus reducing their effectiveness.
Whether you want to build sales pages, information pages; opt-in pages or any other type of page; Thrive Content Builder enables you to build beautiful, effective pages in minutes.
eCommerce
WP eStore
If you are in the online business sector, you are probably going to want to sell some products to earn your income. If you specialise in digital products (e.g. eBooks, eLearning etc.) WP eStore is a perfect shopping cart to get you started.
WP eStore is very affordable with a one time fee of approx. $50. For this fee, you can sell unlimited products on and an unlimited number of personal websites i.e. websites you own.
Excellent support and outstanding tutorials allow you to get your products set up in a matter of minutes. If you are starting out, I highly recommend WP eStore.
Membership Sites
WP eMember
If you are producing valuable content, you want to be able to secure it so that only those who have paid for it get access. Membership Sites are a great way to do it.
Whether you charge a one time only fee or a recurring fee (e.g. $20 p.m) you can lock your content behind a membership wall, safe in the knowledge that only your customers will get access.
WP eMember can work as a stand alone product or with WP eStore. Again, you get a licence for unlimited use on personal websites and it comes with the same outstanding support and tutorials.