Resources

I’m often asked what marketing software or tools I recommend for certain jobs so I thought it would be helpful to compile a list of them here. I will continue to expand to this list so check back often.

Web Hosting

I’ve been building websites since 2001 and I’ve worked with my share of web hosting companies. For years, I used GoDaddy, and I think they’re still an OK choice, but the two hosts that I highly recommend are Site5 and WP Engine.

  • Site5: Site5 has excellent tech support and are available via live chat which is very convenient as they can usually solve an issue very quickly. They offer a free, 30-day trial and a good reseller account if you need to manage multiple websites.
  • WP Engine: WP Engine has built a solid reputation for hosting WordPress websites. Their servers are highly optimized to run WordPress sites with quick load times and really strong security features.

Websites and Landing Pages

  • WordPress: I recommend using WordPress for virtually all websites. I do not recommend Wix, Squarespace or any of the other website builders out there. WordPress is the best platform for business websites, hands down. You’ll want to install WordPress through your hosting company on your own domain (not yourbusiness.wordpress.org).
  • LeadPages: LeadPages is billed as the simplest landing page builder in the industry. It allows marketers to build beautiful, high converting landing pages for your offers — from ebooks to webinars.
  • Sucuri: Website security and hacking has become commonplace today. Hackers employ sophisticated, automated attacks to exploit any opening they can in order to install malware or spam links on your website. Sucuri offers a free malware scan that can detect if your website has been compromised and they offer plans to clean up your site and protect it from future hacking.
  • Heyo: Heyo is a drag-and-drop campaign builder that helps you easily create Facebook contests, sweepstakes and mobile-optimized landing pages to help you drive traffic, leads and sales.
  • WPCurve: If you ever have a problem with your WordPress site, you can confidently reach out to WP Curve to help you no matter what time of the day, or night. Their efficient services ensure you’ll get your site fixed on the same day.

Ecommerce

  • Shopify: Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform that offers beautiful templates and great features for your online store. It’s easy for marketers to set up without needing to hire a web developer or agency (unless you want specific customization or a custom template).
  • WooCommerce: WooCommerce is the premier WordPress ecommerce plug-in that offers an extensive amount of extensions that can add great features to your store. Since it’s built on WordPress, it’s much more flexible to customize to meet your specific needs.

Social Media

  • Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a great tool to manage all of your social media platforms in one place. You can schedule tweets and posts and switch between accounts with ease. In addition, you can create lists of followers and keywords that allows you to keep up with customers, friends, influencers and topics.
  • CoSchedule: CoSchedule offers a great editorial calendar to help you plan your blog, content marketing, and social media. You can plan all of your content in one place, manage your workflow with one tool, and create content more efficiently. They also offer a Headline Analyzer tool, which is very useful for crafting catchy titles for your blog posts.

Marketing Automation

  • HubSpot: HubSpot is a powerful inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors to their website, generate leads, and close customers. Some of the things you can do in HubSpot include publishing content, building forms, landing pages and calls-to-action, managing social media platforms and building email drips.
  • Infusionsoft: Infusionsoft is a sales and marketing software built to help small businesses succeed. By integrating sales and marketing tools in one system, they help entrepreneurs get organized, grow sales and save time.
  • Convert Kit: ConvertKit is an email marketing platform for professional bloggers. It provides beautiful, responsive opt-in forms you can use to grow your subscribers list as quickly as possible. You can easily build email workflows, and the best part is that you can set powerful automation rules based on specific actions your visitors take.
  • AWeber: AWeber is an email marketing platform where you can quickly set up your emails using beautiful templates and check the performance of each of your campaigns. Automation is a key feature, so you’ll get to set autoresponders to simplify your work and save time.
  • Moz: You can use Moz research and analytics tools to track and improve your visibility in search engines as well as your social, branding, link building, and content marketing efforts.
  • Raven: If you regularly need to report on your marketing campaigns performance, Raven makes it easy for you. Its software instantly builds interactive, mobile-optimized reports by integrating more than 20 different data sources.

Webinars

  • Go to Webinar: GoToWebinar is an easy-to-use software that helps you host awesome webinars, promote attendance, and engage your audience. You don’t need to worry about the technical aspects. You should only focus on the content of the webinar you’ll be hosting.

Storage and file sharing

  • Dropbox: If you have a large file to send, email is no longer the option. With Dropbox, you can save your files in the cloud and easily share them from there on multiple platforms. The greatest advantage of keeping all your important files in Dropbox is that you have easy access to them anywhere you are.

Writing

  • Evernote: Evernote is a tool that can help you with your writing, from simple to-do lists to more complex papers. It allows you to easily collect web articles or take photos of whatever interests you, so you can later go back and take inspiration from them.

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase. Please understand that I only recommend products that I have experience with and recommend because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commission I make if you decide to buy something.