Have the right tools for the job?
Resources & tools to help create, design, host, and optimize your website.
Our top picks and favorite resources for your website.
Recommended resources we love.
Here’s our handpicked list of the top resources for your website. We cover everything from WordPress hosting to Themes and Page Builders. Just choose a category you are interested in and see our best picks. All of our recommendations are based on resources we have personally put to the test and can confidently stand behind.
Some of the recommendations we make may contain affiliate links. This means if you sign up using our link, we might earn a little commission on our referral that will help us continue dishing out great content.
best WordPress Page Builders.
Top pick: Elementor
Elementor is a drag and drop website builder plugin for WordPress, that works on any theme and allows you to create and edit pages without code via a visual editor. It’s by far our favorite page builder out of the dozen or so that we’ve used over the years. In fact, we love it so much that 100% of the sites we design run exclusively on Elementor.
best WordPress Hosting.
Top pick: Cloudways
Focus on your business and avoid all the web hosting hassles. Cloudways managed hosting provides unmatched performance, reliability and choice with 24/7 support that acts as your extended team. After going through so many unreliable and slow hosts, Cloudways is now our preferred choice for every website online. The best part is you can start small (i.e. affordable), and upgrade as your site grows. With tools like one click site staging, Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates, and a built-in caching plugin, they have everything your new WordPress site needs.
budget hosting: Bluehost
Bluehost is the best option for small sites and those just getting started without a big budget to spend on monthly managed hosting. With pricing that starts at $3.95/mo, they literally can’t be beat. And, if you decide you want to upgrade later, their support is great at helping take care of anything that’s needed on your account.
best WordPress themes.
Top pick: Astra Pro
There are so many options when it comes to themes on WordPress, but none of them work as well out-of-the box as Astra Pro. Part of the beauty of this theme is in its simplicity. Astra works perfectly alongside Elementor, and is built for speed, meaning you won’t have unnecessary or large files loading and bogging down your user-experience. Astra starter sites give you a way to import pre-designed site layouts to make it stupid-easy to make a beautiful website. In fact, this site was made with Astra starter theme and Elementor. Pretty neat, huh?
Other themes: Envato Marketplace
Envato Marketplace is arguably the best place to find high-quality WordPress themes. If Astra is not your cup of tea, and you’d rather start with a pre-built site that is loaded with goodies, Envato Marketplace (previously ThemeForest) is the way to go. One tip, we recommend browsing themes that have support for Elementor page builder. This way, you can get everything you love, with the ability to easily edit the content as needed.
best WordPress plugins.
Our favs
Millions of plugins (at least it seems like it). Which ones do you use? Here’s a list of our favorite and the ones we use with virtually every site we build.
Tip: If you are not 100% sure you need a plugin it’s best to avoid installing plugins unless absolutely necessary. They can bog down your site and too many will mean slow load times and potential security issues. Need a suggestion on which plugins to keep and delete? Shoot us a message!
best Domain name registrar.
Top Pick: Namecheap
The first step to starting any website is deciding on a domain name. And where better to search and choose your domain name than Namecheap? Namecheap takes our pick as the best overall domain name registrar for a number of reasons. First, they are the most affordable. Many times you’ll find a cheap domain, only to be hit with high annual renewal costs, and additional features that the registrar tries to nickel and dime you for. Not Namecheap. Get free identity site protection for life, with .com domain prices + renewals starting at around $9 a year. Use our link below to see current promos and lock in your new domain name today!
best email marketing & newsletters tool
Top Pick: Omnisend
After working with Active Campaign, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Send in Blue and others, we have found our very favorite email marketing and newsletter tool. Enter Omnisend. While their entry-level prices are certainly appealing, as you scale up you’ll continue to save, and will get performance from an email marketing tool that delivers results. Even better, it integrates directly with Woocommerce for easy cart conversion tracking to see which offers landed, and which didn’t.
Honorable Mention: Mailerlite
Packed with features but incredibly easy to use and one of the most affordable options to get started, without sacrifices. Mailerlite makes email campaigns and automations simple and their AI tools make writing emails a peace of cake.
Other Consideration: Constant Contact
For those who want a little more familiarity with their email marketing tool, check out Constant Contact. They’ve been in the biz a long time and have tons of integrations to boot along with a huge list of satisfied customers.