Digital Marketing Resources
So after over 15 years of creating online businesses, we have used almost every tool worth using on the market. We wanted to share some of the digital marketing tools that we could PERSONALLY recommend to you. These are some of the tools that we teach students about during our bootcamps and digital marketing classes. The links open up in a new tab. Note – some links are affiliate links that we may get compensated for.
Hardware
These are some of the physical tools we recommend you use to run your digital marketing business.
Apple Macbook Pro – Retina
I can’t even imagine what I would do without my 15 inch Retina Macbook Pro. It’s a well rounded workhorse computer that is critical to my business. The best laptop in the world!
Bose Quiet Comfort 35 Headphones
These headphones are unbelievable! The noise cancelling is so good that I can work from a coffee shop or crowded airport lounge and drown out background noise. Critical.
Blue Yeti Microphone
It’s always helpful to have a Microphone. Whether it’s for Webinars or Video conferencing, it’s hard to find a better, more reasonably priced microphone on the market.
Jam Plus Bluetooth Speaker
This is a really cool speaker. Sometimes your laptop volume isn’t loud enough and you need more volume. This Speaker is small enough to travel with and use for music, calls and video.
Canon 80D Camera
This is an industry leading camera that you can use for both photographs and video for your website. At over $1500 (with the lens), it’s a little pricey but it’s a really good high quality premium DSLR camera.
Essential Software
These are the PREMIUM tools that we think you simply can not work effectively without.
Adobe Photoshop
This shouldn’t need explaing – this is the graphic manipulation standard.
Pixelmator
If you’re not ready to handle Photoshop, this is the next best thing for editing graphics.
Filezilla
When you have to push or download files from your website via FTP or SFTP this is the best tool.
Sip Color Picker
When you need to find out what color something is, this is the tool to reveal it’s color code.
Snagit
This is the tool you use when you want to do screen grabs or video grabs. The best screenshot tool by far.
SlingTV
With Sling, you can watch TV anywhere you are on any device you want. A great way to stay current.
TextWrangler
This is a great text editor. I love the integration with other programs on my Mac like Filezilla.
Office 365
Do I need to even describe this? Microsoft’s juggernaut is even better in it’s new version.
Google Chrome
The ultimate browser period. The ability to use the inspector to see CSS on a live website – LIFE SAVER.
Evaluation and Research Tools
These are the tools and services you can use to research and evaluate new business ideas.
Answer The Public
This is a great tool for finding out what members of the public are looking for online.
Alexa
You’ll find all the tools you need to improve your SEO and PPC strategy for your website.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs helps you learn why your competitors rank so high and what you need to do to outrank them.
SEMRush
Find the most profitable keywords for your website and Uncover your competitors’ organic and paid search strategies
LongTailPro
Use Long Tail Pro’s step-by-step system to discover thousands of profitable, targeted keywords and calculate Keyword Competitiveness for any niche.
Google Trends
Google Trends is based on Google Search and shows how often a search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across regions and languages
Google Keyword Planner
Be seen by customers at the very moment that they’re searching on Google for the things you offer. And only pay when they click to visit your website.
Web Design Tools and Services
These are some of the tools and services we recommend that you use to get your websites designed.
99 Designs
Find and work with talented freelance designers online.
DesignCrowd
Get a really custom design every time With a really great custom design marketplace
The Envato Marketplace
Over 9 million digital products created by a global community of designers, developers and more.
Behance
A really great platform where you can showcase & discover creative work
Fiverr
Fiverr is a really awesome low cost marketplace – best for smaller projects…
StockFresh
A fantastic marketplace that enables you to find millions of vectors and stock photos.
123RF
Over 80 Million Stock Images, Vectors, Footage and Audio Clips At Stunningly Low Prices.
Web Development Tools and Services
These are some of the tools and services you can use to actually get your websites built.
Upwork
My favorite online marketplace where you can find talent for your projects.
Freelancer
Hire expert freelancers for your job and use millions of Freelancers to turn your ideas into reality.
TopTotal
Toptal is an exclusive network of the top freelance software developers, designers, and finance experts.
Web Hosting Companies
These are some of premium companies we recommend for website hosting.
WPEngine
WPEngine offers a suite of Performance and Intelligence solutions that deliver front-end, back-end, and content performance insights to optimize your WordPress digital experience delivery.
Bluehost
Bluehost is a leading web solutions services provider. Based in Orem, Utah,they provide comprehensive tools to millions of users throughout the world so anyone, novice or pro, can get on the web and thrive.
Liquidweb
Liquidweb offers simple managed WordPress hosting backed by a helpful and friendly staff. They’ve built an intuitive dashboard that enables you to launch WordPress sites quickly and easily.
Website Themes and Templates
These are tools we recommend for you to shape the look and feel of your websites.
Themeforest
35,283 Website Templates and Themes From $2 WordPress themes, web templates and more. Brought to you by a large community of creatives.
Thrive Themes
Themes & plugins, built from the ground up to make your entire website convert more of your visitors into subscribers, customers & clients!
MyThemeshop
The best looking, most affordable and most reliabl WordPress themes on the web today. I LOVE this theme shop!
DIYThemes
One of the old timers but fast and powerful. Control every last detail of your site and design with three revolutionary features you won’t find elsewhere.
StudioPress
Your StudioPress Site gives you a complete hosted solution that makes WordPress fast, secure, and easy … without sacrificing power or flexibility.
Content Creation Tools and Services
These are tools and services we recommend for the creation and refining of website content.
Teachable
Teachable helps you create & sell your online course. With their easy-to-use online course creation platform, you can create courses without ever having to worry about tech, hosting, design, or marketing integrations.
Wishlist Member
Quickly protect Your core content With WishList Member™. Trusted by over 80,029 membership sites and online communities.
Upwork
My favorite online marketplace where you can find talent for your projects.
Online Business Continuous Education
These are tools and services you can use to learn tools like Photoshop, WordPress, web design etc.
Udemy
The world’s most comprehensive skill education site. Udemy is amazing – you can read up on some cool skills or actually sell some.
Teachable
Teachable also has tons of online courses where you can learn about all facets of online business skills..
Email Marketing
These are tools and services we use to communicate with our readers and audience via email.
Aweber
Aweber is a community where email automation begins and you get access to great features and a team that’s 100% devoted to your success.
Mailchimp
Advertising to grow your business can often feel like you’re throwing money into a black hole. MailChimp gives you the power to see what’s working.
ConvertKit
A simple, elegant, email solution built for bloggers. A tool that makes it easy and obvious to grow your business through email marketing.
Website Maintenance
These are tools and services we use to keep our sites running at 100%.
bbPress
bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress. Easily setup discussion forums inside your WordPress.org powered site.
VBulletin
Build your site on the world’s leading community software – vBulletin 5 Connect™ and vBulletin Cloud™.
SimplePress
Simple:Press is a forum plugin that integrates seamlessly into your WordPress website whether you need a small private forum or a large public arena.
Wishlist Member
Quickly protect Your core content With WishList Member™. Trusted by over 80,029 membership sites and online communities.
Amember Professional
Flexible, user-friendly membership software
Accept subscription payments, manage customer profiles, deliver digital content, integrate with your blog.
Easy Digital Downloads
The most comprehensive plugin that allows you to sell digital products with WordPress. This plugin will CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
Clicky
Over one million web sites depend on Clicky to monitor, analyze, and react to their traffic in real time.
CyberDuck
Cyberduck is an FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, OpenStack Swift, Backblaze B2, Microsoft Azure & OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox browser.
HelpDesk
This incredibly easy-to-use Support Ticket System will keep your customers happy.
Cognito Forms
Create unlimited forms with more free features than any other form builder.
Montastic
Get an email when your website goes down Montastic monitors websites and sends alerts when there is a problem.
Vaultpress
Vaultpress is an amazing service that offer world-class backups & security for WordPress.
Buddypress
Fun & flexible software for online communities, teams, and groupsBuddyPress helps you build any type of community website using WordPress, with member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and more.
Buying and Selling Websites
These are services we recommend that you use to purchase online businesses when it’s more convenient to do so.
Flippa
Flippa is the entrepreneur’s marketplace where you can buy and sell websites, domains and apps
Sedo
Get the best domains. Find the perfect web address on the world’s largest domain name marketplace!
Escrow.com
With Escrow.com you can buy and sell anything safely without the risk of chargebacks or fraud.
