Tools
Exactly What I Use & How I Use It!
Hosting
This is probably one of the most important parts! You need a GOOD host that isn’t going to slow down your website, not mess you around and keep things running smoothly and actually reply to support tickets when you need help!
I personally have been using D9 for about 8 years now.
Just grab their shared hosting account, you don’t need anything more than that and can always upgrade later and get their multisite as things grow.
Domains
Most people say it doesn’t really matter…..
You soon learn it actually does!
I use to use GoDaddy, but then noticed that if I found a really good short or keyword-rich domain name and didn’t purchase it straight away, then it would often be purchased and be back up for sale as a premium domain name 😱
Since that happened more than just a few times, I completely switched to NameCheap…. they are cheap BUT won’t steal your domain names and don’t try and upsell you a load of useless crap too.
SSL certificates – You can get these completely free from cloudflare too.. so don’t buy that upgrade!
WordPress Theme
Stick with wordpress for your blog/website (funnels I talk about in a bit!)
Theme wise, I am by no means a designer… but this site is built 100% with a theme/builder called Elementor (the cheaper wordpress plugin, not the cloud hosting)
Iv’e tried a few others and this is the only one that gives me the flexibility to get a little bit creative… without getting bogged down in options, settings and tweaking things 1000x
After all… it just has to function, look reasonably ok and then you can always hire in the talent later on when you are ready. (I use the Astra theme together with Elementor)
WordPress Plugins
Here’s a sample of the core plugins I use for this blog and most other websites I own.
Pretty Links – Link Shortener (perfect for sending to affiliate links and tracking traffic)
All In One SEO – Makes the SEO side of wordpress nice and simple
Essential Addons For Elementor – Makes it a bit more pretty and adds in more functionality
Instant Images – Puts royalty free images on your blog FAST and right from within the gallery (all the images on this page are royalty free, click and done)
WPRocket – For site speed (so it actually loads and people stick around)
Site Kit By Google – For your analytics / stats right inside your blog (it’s free but their are better ones)
Graphics
As I’ve already said, I am by no means a Graphic wiz!
So I cheat and use a tonne of pre-made templates, elements and “bits”….
Mash them all up together and produce something that’s at least 3/4 of the way there but more than good enough to use.
99% of the images on this website are either free stock images OR created with a tool called Canva
They have a free option or their paid is like £10 ($10) a month which gives you access to more templates. It’s my secret to making my stuff look 100x better 😆
Video Editing
This is key in today’s world… Video is absolutely everywhere!
Plus! Most importantly, you connect fastest and with a much higher level with someone who watches you on video, hears your voice and feels like they are actually there with you VS just reading something.
Here’s what I use / recommend for video editing….
CapCut – If you need fast auto captions, are making reels and shorts or just want to keep the costs down to 0.
Camtasia – I usually use this to quickly edit tutorial videos, where the focus is on the content itself VS me or switching between both. It’s quick and dirty and has a few cool features to make it a bit more pro.
Adobe Premier Pro – The be all and end all of video editing! This is what the pro’s use to edit and it has 10000 features to make your videos perfect. I’m still learning it and failing forward fast… but most of the top youtube videos you see…. they are all edited with Premier Pro!
Screencast-o-matic – This is a nice simple but solid screen recorder! It’s free or $10 a year for a few more features and has a nice handy app which makes recording the screen and your face super simple.
Video Distribution
The distribution side takes a longggggg time if your doing it manually….
Even just waiting for it to download and re-upload, removing watermarks, copying and pasting etc…. it’s a pain!
So I use repurposly to help semi-automate this for me!
They have a 2 week free trial so you can give it a test drive and see for yourself just how much time it saves and after that it’s super cheap compared to the time saving.
I think I worked out it would take just 2 videos a month to cover it’s costs based on earning minimum wage at a job.
Funnels
I’m going to put 2 options here, based solely on budget and where you are right now in your journey.
Kartra – If you want the BEST funnel builder which also combines everything else you will need so you can literally build the ultimate funnel with 0 missing parts/issues… Kartra is the answer. I’ve tried most things now and it’s the only one which allows design, tech and user experience without overcrowding in 1000 crappy features. It is $100 odd a month…. but that is cheaper than buying all the tools & services separately.
If you have or plan to have a list of over 1000 people… want a membership area/product download area…. then go with Kartra!
Systemeio – This one is free, but it’s honestly not the best! It’s a perfect stopgap until you can afford to level up and get better funnel builders though… but they are nowhere near on par with Kartra or even Clickfunnels etc
Content Ideas
I cheat for this!Â
The answer is AI and right now it’s completely free (because it’s in Beta!)
I use it for content ideas such as “TikTok video ideas”, “follow-up email sequence ideas”… Basically mind prompts!
It can also do articles, songs (including rap), poems, coding…. but it’s not perfect :/
Pair this with the next one down and it’s absolutely incredible!!!!
Content Writing
I cheat for this one too! (Add this together with the one above and it’s GOLD!)
Most of the content you see from me is actually all AI written!Â
Quora answers – AI
Forum Posts – AI
Facebook Group Answers – AI
Generic Blog Posts – AI
Ebook Outlines – AI
Everything! You can grab a 2 week trial of this one with 10,000 words and give it a spin…. just install their chrome extension too and you will be golden to be prompted to use it everywhere until it becomes natural.
Spell Check / Grammar
Again another cheat here!
I use something called Grammarly for this.
Its free version is good enough, it’s pro version is even better if you want to understand the tone of what you’re writing too (important for emails) as it will also suggest better ways of saying the same thing… without offending people 🫣
It’s a complete lifesaver and helps stop me from sounding like a complete idiot!!!!