Below, you’ll find links to apps I use to power the businesses in our household as well as other pieces of software that I think are the best in their cattegory.
Full disclosure: There are some affiliate links on this page, which means if you click on some of these links below and sign up for any of these products, I’ll get a small commission. It’s a win for you, for the software companies, and for me. You get free recommendations to the best software, the software companies get exposure, and I get small commissions that allow us to keep putting out free, useful content for you. Wins all around.
Software Tech Tools
Best All-In-One Website and Membership Platform
Kajabi does two things amazingly well: 1) It makes running a video-based product launch a synch, and 2) it allows you to create a full featured membership site for people who buy your online program after they go through your product launch series of free content. Using Kajabi and Infusionsoft, I launched an online program that made 6 figures in 11 months. Kajabi is incredibly solid, and their support staff are extremely helpful (and available 24/7).
Best Stand Alone Email Marketing App
My wife and I have been using ConvertKit for a while now and I LOVE it. I’ve used almost all of the major email marketing platforms out there, and since switching to Convertkit, I was left wondering why I didn’t switch sooner. If you have an online business, you’ll need to build an email list of interested people that you can deliver valuable free content to, and once in a while market your products or service to. Convertkit makes all that super easy.
Best Customer Support App
If you sell anything online, you are going to see a good amount of customer support emails come in. I’m pretty sure this is now a fundamental law of the universe. There’s just no way around it. The one thing you don’t want to do is try to handle them all in your Gmail account. What you need is a simple, easy-to-use, shared inbox that you and your customer support team can use to collaborate on taking care of your customers. Help Scout does just that, and it gives your customers the simplest experience of getting help that we’ve ever seen any help desk software create. Read our in-depth review of Help Scout here.
Best Password Manager
I’ve been using 1 Password, which is a password manager app, every single day for the last 5 or 6 years. It’s invaluable. It saves all your passwords for any site you need to login to, then allows you to login to any of those sites with just two clicks. No more memorizing the same password and using it for every single site (which is really unsafe to do.) Manage all your passwords and easily create super strong, iron-clad new passwords for each new site you need an account for, with 1Password. You’ll be happier for it.
Website Hosting
Best Inexpensive Webhost
There are literally dozens upon dozens of web hosts out there. I’ve used many of them myself for various sites and businesses over the years. For inexpensive, solid website hosting for self-hosted WordPress sites, Bluehost is our #1 recommendation. They’ve got great support, a great server environment for WordPress, and have a handy one-click installation process to get a WordPress website up and running in about 10 minutes. You can read our in-depth review of Bluehost and get a detailed, easy-t0-follow, step-by-step tutorial on how to install WordPress on a Bluehost account in 10 minutes, right over here.
Best Managed WordPress Webhost
Looking for a bit more power, speed, and dedication to running a WordPress website? WP Engine is my favorite managed Wordpress host. It’s a little more expensive than Bluehost, but you get a lot more for the extra dollars per month. I built my wife’s business site on WP Engine, and in all the speed tests I’ve done, it comes out with amazing scores, meaning, it loads incredibly fast. Their live chat support is stellar, with near instant response times, and sharp, friendly support agents.
Writing Tools
Best Grammar Checker
I can’t live without Grammarly. Every piece of content I write for this site, and every email that goes out, gets analyzed by Grammarly. I then make changes to my writing based on its suggestions, and my writing ends up at a whole new level. It’s like having a personal editor and proofreader (and it makes me look smarter.)
WordPress Themes
Best Premium WordPress Themes
I’ve built a number of websites for clients over the years (including my wife) and the first place I always go to look for a gorgeous, well-coded WordPress theme is Elegant Themes. For $69 a year, you get access to ALL of their themes, which is great for folks like me who take a long time to decide which theme to use for a new website. Their support is fantastic and their themes are some of the most bug free themes I’ve ever seen (and did I mention that they’re designs are gorgeous?)