Graphic Creation, Logos and More
This tool is perfect for adding text to existing photos. Great for Pinterest, blog post images, and more. Free and paid options.
Gimp.org
A decent, free alternative to Photoshop. Not as many features but it gets the job done if you need to create fairly simple graphics.
CrowdSpring
Looking for a custom graphic? Name your price, work with dozens of talented creatives and choose from an average of 100+ custom designs.
Custom Fan Page Designs
Need an eye-catching Facebook cover design? This is the place to go!
LogoMyWay
Does your site need a professional logo? Run a contest for your design. Set the prize amount
(minimum $200), rank the entries and select the winner.
PiktoChart
Create amazing infographics and share content in fun, creative ways.
Easel.ly
Create visual themes and infographics to share with your audience. Uses drag and drop to make creation a breeze.
Infogr.am
Create charts and graphs to illustrate data and share them with your followers. You can even
embed the images into your content.
MorgueFile
A nice collection of royalty-free images that can be used on commercial sites.
Stock.Xchng
Another site that provides free images for commercial use.
Landing Pages
A great tool to create and split test landing pages.
Optimizely
Another landing page solution that lets you track engagement, clicks, conversions, sign ups, etc.
OptimizePress
A popular WordPress plugin for creating landing pages that convert. Also includes a membership funnel.
Premise
StudioPress’ landing page and membership software.
Hubspot
Create custom, personalized landing pages to increase conversions.
Formstack
Build landing pages in a flash–no HTML knowledge required.
Screen Recording Software
A premium screen recording software that produces HD output.
Camstudio
This software doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Camtasia, but it’s still a great tool, especially for the price. It’s free!
Jing
Share images and short videos with this free screen capture tool. It’s also free.
Screenr
This is a free, screen recording tool that can be used directly from the web. No software to download.
Screenflow
A screen recording tool for Macs.
Email Newsletters
One of the oldest and most reputable email marketing software services. Starts at $19/month. You can sign up for a one month trial for $1.
MailChimp
Another popular email newsletter service. It’s free for up to the first 2,000 subscribers, but cannot be used with affiliate marketing.
Constant Contact
A pretty user-friendly interface with a reasonable price.
GetResponse
In addition to offering a free trial , their service comes with a landing page creator to help you obtain more leads.
InfusionSoft
Unlike the other options, this service also integrates ecommerce solutions into your email marketing strategy. It’s like an all-in-one sales machine.
Feedburner
This free, Google-owned tool sends out your new blog content to email subscribers on schedule. However, you cannot use the service for any other email campaigns.
FeedBlitz
With rumors of Feedburner losing support from Google, many have switched to Feedblitz. This service is not free like Feedburner, but it seems to provide more stability for the long run.
Online Contests
A fairly simple tool that allows you to run your contest on social media and your website all at once.
Contest Domination
The biggest perk with this tool is there is a viral component that rewards your participants for sharing the contest with their followers.
PunchTab
Create rewards and loyalty by letting your visitors redeem points for prizes.
ShortStack
An excellent tool for running contests on your Facebook page.
FanAppz
Grow your following and turn them into customers. FanAppz helps you use social data in sights to address your fans as individuals to improve the targeting.
Forum Software
A premium forum script with a plethora of customization features.
Invision Power Board
Probably vBulletin’s closest competitor. It has a mobile-friendly layout and wonderful support.
phpBB
A free forum script that often comes free with hosting plans. Installs with one click from your hosting control panel.
SMF
Another free forum script you can setup easily through most hosting control panels.
bbPress
Created by WordPress, this is a great option if you’re looking to integrate your forum with your WP site.
Social Media & Promotion
Schedule and manage all your social media promotions from this one tool. Free and paid versions.
Buffer
Post to all your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and track the results.
Commun.it
This Twitter-related service is not just about tweeting, but building actual relationships with those who follow you.
Blog Engage
A social community for bloggers that helps build relationships and traffic.
My Blog Guest
A community for guest bloggers and site owners to connect.
Viral Content Buzz
Earn credits for sharing other’s content and get your content shared in return.
TweetAdder
Automate your Tweets, locate Twitter users who are relevant to your site and manage more than one profile with one account.
Click To Tweet
A cool Twitter app that makes it easy for people to tweet pre-created text about your content.
TweetDeck
My favorite desktop dashboard client for Twitter. Features multiple account management, scheduled tweets and more.
CommentLuv
Encourage more engagement and social shares by offering incentives to those who comment on your blog.
Statistics and Tracking
This is one of the most comprehensive, free website tracking tools on the web. Learn all about your visitor’s behaviors and set goals.
ClickTale
ClickTale doesn’t just track visitors but mouse moves, clicks, and keystrokes so you can fully analyze how people behave on your website.
Clicky
A solid, real-time tracking tool to help you analyze website performance.
CrazyEgg
A very sophisticated tracking tool that reveals where in your page people are likely to click and it gives you a heat map display.
Bitly
A URL shortening/redirection service that is perfect for posting links on social media. Track the performance of everything you share.
Reinvigorate
Their service offers many of the same features above, but their specialty is heat maps to help you understand more about visitor behavior.
Phone/Tablet Apps
A great free app for making quick content edits and approving moderated comments.
G-Whizz
This is the one-stop app for everything Google. Includes Gmail, Google+, Google Voice and more. It’s free!
HootSuite
This free app has a great user interface for managing all your social media accounts.
Analytics Pro
This app is worth every cent. Easily check out all your site’s stats thanks to this great user interface.
Evernote
Sync your notes across all your devices so you can access your data anywhere. Another great freebie.
SimpleMind+
Turn your tablet into an electronic brainstorming device. A nice free, tool to help you come up with ideas for your next blog post.
ForumRunner
If you run a forum (vBulletin, XenForo, myBB, and phpBB ), this app will allow your visitors to access a user-friendly, mobile version of your site. I’ve been using this for WebsiteBabble.com
on both my iPhone and iPad and I absolutely love it.
Garageband
Never worry about music copyrights again. Easily create your own background music with the provided loops. No music arrangement experience necessary. Great for creating video intros, jingles etc.
Instapaper Pro
This is a great app for when you’re going to be without Wi-Fi. Download web pages and read them offline at a later date.
Dropbox
Install Dropbox and share your files across multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, etc.)
Free and paid options
.
A free app that turns your social media news feed into an eye-catching magazine layout.
Blog Readers / RSS
Feedly
Since the death of Google Reader, Feedly has been noted as a great alternative. It also has a mobile
app .
NewsBlur
Another RSS tool to keep up with the latest news and your favorite blogs on the web.
NewsReader
A dashboard for all your apps, pics and tweets and a reader for all your real-time articles and posts.
Rolio
An RSS reader that also supports Twitter and Facebook. RSS Bot A no-frills reader for Mac users.
FlowBot
A simple RSS reader that also shows updates from Twitter and Facebook.
Ecommerce/ Shopping Cart
A free, user-friendly plugin that allows you to setup a self-hosted store. Integrates with PayPal.
iThemes Exchange
Another simple ecommerce plugin for selling goods from your site.
PayPal
One of the most popular payment processing services on the web. It’s super simple to setup and integrates nicely with most ecommerce WordPress plugins and software today.
Google Checkout/Wallet
Provides another payment option to offer your customers.
Shopify
A beginner-friendly option. Provides a secure shopping cart with PayPal integration.
Volusion
An all-in-one shopping cart solution that offers a free trial.
Amazon S3
Cloud storage/hosting for your digital files. A great choice if you are selling large files (video) and the customer needs to download them.
GumRoad
This is probably one of the easier options for selling digital goods. As soon as your customer submits their payment, they are sent a link to download their product.
eJunkie
A popular payment processor for digital goods. They also host your digital files and don’t charge for bandwidth. A nice option if you are selling larger files (video, etc.) They do have a 500 MB file size limit, however.
Clickbank
Another payment processing service for digital goods. They will direct customers to a download page,
but you have to host the files yourself.
WordPress Plugins–The Basics
There are literally thousands of WP plugins to choose from. It could make your heads pin! So I’ve
hand-picked some of the basics you may want to consider for starting out.Yoast SEO
An SEO plugin is not going to impact your search engine rankings much on its own, but it is great for making sure you have the basics covered in terms of markup. If your theme has SEO settings included (like StudioPress Themes), I suggest just using that instead, but if it doesn’t, this is one of the best
options if you feel you must have an SEO plugin.
Sharebar
Adds a vertical floating bar alongside your content that includes the most popular social media
sharing buttons.
Contact Form 7
This is one of the most popular contact form plugins and it includes numerous add-ons such as drop-
down boxes, attachments and more.
Backup Buddy
One of the best backup solutions for WordPress websites. Sleep well at night knowing your site is always fully backed up.
Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin creates a sitemap on the fly so the search engines can index all your new content
instantly.
Akismet
Keep spam at bay with this free plugin. While some spam may get through, Akismet does a decent job of blocking most of it.
Max Blog Press Ninja
Instantly turn keywords on your pages into affiliate links and track the results with this premium plugin. If you’d like a lower cost option, try.
Facebook Like Box
Encourage your visitors to Like your Facebook page by displaying an attractive fan box that includes photos of your existing fans.
Jetpack
Includes a plethora of tools such as site stats, social media sharing integration, email subscriptions to blog posts, widgets and more. It is like having multiple plugins in one.
iThemes
Want to sell something? Get your online store up and running with this free, user-friendly ecommerce plugin.
Foobar
Add a customizable notification bar at the top of your WordPress site. Great for advertising special offers, coupons, special events and more.
EasyAzon
Chris Guthrie’s brilliant creation that lets you integrate Amazon affiliate links right into your website without ever leaving the WordPress admin area.
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