Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade is a section about all the services, products and everything I have used and still continue to use. It is a great place to start for beginners and even for experienced veterans there will still be a gem or two below. This is a completely free growing list, so if you have any suggestions at all then please comment below and they will be added in due course.

Sites you need to look at!

Feed the Bot

Content Management Systems

WordPress – More websites are built on WordPress than any other CMS.

NationBuilder – I absolutely love this online activism CMS.

Domain Registration

Hostroute – Over 85 domain extensions available from £4.26 per year.

Tsohost – 2 year registration discounts on domains from £3.35 per year.

Vidahost – Cheap as chips domains from £2.79 per year.

Hosting

Hostroute – Free uber-basic hosting with any domain. Best for USA.

Tsohost – Hosting starting at £2.99 per month. Best for UK.

Vidahost – Hosting from £2.99 per month. Best for International.

WP Engine – Rated as the best WordPress host available.

Themes and Templates

Themeforest – Professional Themes and Templates from £10.00.

Genesis WordPress Theme – Probably the best WordPress theme framework ever.

_s – Want a free bare theme framework to start from? _s (Underscores) is the one you want.

Plugins and Extensions

Codecanyon – Professional Plugins and Extensions from £2.50.

Website Speed

Pingdom Website Speed Test – Review your website speed stats and server requests.

MaxCDN – MaxCDN will boost your websites speed from seconds to milliseconds.

Site Load Test – Free website speed reports – heads up to Pete for this one.

Compress PNG – Compresses PNG images – heads up to Pete again for this one.

Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools – Add your website to Google’s index and more.

Bing Webmaster Tools – Add your website to Bing’s index and more.

Alexa – Another top place to add your website for free.

DMOZ – A great place to add your website for free.

Analytics

Google Analytics – The enterprise analytics suite every website needs as standard.

Search Engine Optimisation

Traffic Travis – Improve your website’s search engine rankings.

Moz – A suite that crawls, monitors, compares and advises on your search rankings.

WooRank – The best website evaluator.

Quicksprout – Great free website evaluator.

Marketing Grader – Great for benchmarking your marketing.

Search Engine Marketing

AdWords – Google AdWords, the mainstay of all SEM and PPC.

A/B Testing

Optimizely – Want to boost your conversion rate then Optimizely is your tool.

Email Marketing

Mailchimp – The worlds greatest emailing system. You need Mailchimp.

Social Media Marketing

Hootsuite – A great toolkit for managing your social media presence.

Affiliate Marketing

Skimlinks – Hand’s down the best affiliate programs for the UK.

VigLink – Hand’s down the best affiliate programs for the US and the Rest of the World (Non-UK).

Affiliate Window – One of the best affiliate programs.

ShareASale – Great selection of merchants on ShareASale’s affiliate program.

Commission Junction – Great selection of merchants on Commission Junction’s affiliate program.

Logos and Branding

99 Designs – Crowdsource your logo and branding with 99 Designs.

Graphics, Images and Photographs

IconFinder – Make better sites with better icons.

Unsplash – Free Hi-Res photographs.

Freelancers

People Per Hour – Buy and sell services. Great for a bargain, great to make some dosh.

Freelance Advisor – Great advice for freelancers and the self-employed.

FreeAgent – Going it alone? Then you need FreeAgent. This accounting software will save your bacon time and time again whether your small time Soletrader or a growing Limited Company.

The Review Expert – Provides a reviews source. Great for businesses looking to boost consumer confidence.