Essential Website Tools
Tools for DIY Website Builders Using WordPress New to WordPress.org? Check out this Comprehensive WordPress Dictionary to get familiar with the world of WordPress! Then I recommend checking out the resources at Learn.wordpress.org. WordPress Hosting All WordPress sites require web hosting service, which is online storage space where your website files live. Think about each page of a website, and each image that appears on the site … all those files have to exist “somewhere” in order to be visible to the public when they view your website. That somewhere is your website hosting server. (I know it sounds complicated, but it’s easy to manage with a guide like me!) The only WordPress hosting company that I use and trust is linked above. Feel free to contact me with questions about hosting. WordPress Themes All WordPress sites require a theme to operate. Themes act as templates and provide structure, functionality and styles for your WordPress website. There are many free themes and also premium/paid themes available. My favorite premium themes are listed below — each one is a reliable, savvy tool to help you create a website that you love. Find more pro themes in the marketplace below. Themes Tip: Pick a theme that has already been purchased by thousands of people AND has really high ratings to ensure it will be robust & user-friendly. Avoid brand-new themes with no verified history of success! (Not all pro themes are truly great, so if you’re unsure, stick with my recommendations above!) Contact Forms Great news ~ Your website does not need a contact form ~ it’s optional! However, using a form can help you attract new clients, so it’s a good idea to build customized forms targeting your different client groups, when you’re ready for that. Click the link below to learn about GravityForms, my favorite contact form tool. If you’re starting a super basic website and you don’t wanna pay for tools yet, but you still need a reliable contact form plugin for your WordPress site, I totally understand! In your case, I’d recommend using WPForms to create simple easy WordPress forms for free. E-Commerce Tools Running a web shop is actually easier and cheaper than many people imagine! WooCommerce is the perfect partner for running e-commerce shops on WordPress. The tool itself is free and offers a library of free and premium (paid) reliable plugins for expanding your online store’s capabilities. You can fully customize your products and variations, as well as the store’s taxes, shipping, pages, search options, etc. Business Email Account Wanna SAVE 10% on your business email address? Use my codes below when you sign-up at Google. Use code: W334PT33E6FVV7C to save 10% on Starter Plan ($6/month) Use code: VARXNQ7P6M993ACto save 10% on Standard Plan ($12/month) Now click the button below and use one of those codes during checkout. ADA Accessibility on Websites I believe it is crucially important to empower disabled folks to use all the services that able-bodied people enjoy without a second thought or glance. Did you know? The vast majority of websites fail to consider disabled visitors and provide no special access for disabled folks, which severely limits how many websites they can use and benefit from. Put Your Art on Merchandise & Sell It Have you ever said aloud, “That would be great on a T-shirt!” Well, I’m stoked to tell you that it’s become incredibly easy and profitable to start your own online T-shirt shop! You can use Printful to make t-shirts featuring your clever slogans or graphics, and you can make tons of other products, like accessories, drinkware, pet products, stationary, posters, flags, hats, bags, phone cases, etc! Several of my clients use this service and love it. It’s easy to use! Email Marketing Email marketing is incredibly powerful in helping digital businesses connect with customers. Email marketing’s proven ROI (return on investment) outperforms every other marketing strategy around, for most businesses. Think about your own email inbox right now… are you a subscriber to any of your favorite brand’s emails? Can you think of a time when you made a purchase using a coupon sent via email from a favorite brand or company that you love? … Has that ever happened to you? I admit, it works like a charm on me! I love online shopping and I love deals! So when Eddie Bauer sends me a coupon (plus I get free shipping as a rewards member), there’s a good chance I’m going to use it. Email marketing works! Lead Generation Your website does not need a lead generation tool, especially if you’re just getting starting. However, after your website is built and you’ve connected Mailchimp, you’ll be ready for this step. I highly recommend it! Using this proven tool to support your lead magnets* totally works in helping convert site visitors into email subscribers, etc. *If you’re wondering “what the heck is a lead magnet?” or “what is lead generation?” — It’s okay! This language is actually pretty new to me, too! A lead magnet is an irresistible offer that your customers can’t say no to! A lead magnet is a freebie that you give away in exchange for someone’s email address. This helps you grow your email list. Email marketing is low-cost and incredibly powerful in helping digital businesses connect with customers. This page contains affiliate links to products that I truly use and recommend. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
DIY Website Videos
Free videos help you launch a powerful website and attract clients online.
Website Safety 101
WordPress websites are particularly vulnerable to attack due to its open source nature and because so many websites use the software around the globe — currently used by 43% of websites in the world. E-commerce sites and websites with user logins are often targets, but hobby sites can also suffer from hacker attacks, or find code injections on their sites with spammy links, etc. Any website can be targeted, therefore it’s essential to invest in your website safety, such as adding security systems to protect your website, just like you do with your home, your car, etc. So what can you do to prevent your site from being hacked (or fix it if it’s already occurred)? Keep reading… I’ve been building, fixing, and hosting websites for 24 years with 14 years specializing in WordPress, so I’ve got lots of experience and opinions on this subject! 😉 To protect websites from hackers, many people rely on security plugins that are installed and setup to “add more protection” to their websites. Unfortunately, this “old school” solution isn’t the best solution. Here are some of the reasons why plugins are not the best security for your WordPress site: Plugins can slow down your website. Therefore, if you can create a secure perimeter for your site without using plugins, it’s immediately advantageous by reducing bloat and slowing down your site from those additional plugins. Plugins can cause additional problems. The more plugins you use, the more possible complications can arise, so it’s best to use the absolute minimum number of plugins on your WordPress site. Plugins may interfere with each other, with the theme/template, etc. It’s better to add security at a higher level than by installing plugins on your website, if you have the option. Plugins don’t always work. You might be relying on this security plugin to protect your site but you may have unwittingly also installed some other technology that made your site vulnerable beyond the protection of the plugin, and now your site gets hacked or gets malware injected onto it. So now you need to fix your hacked site! Yikes! If your plugin fails, you’ll need to get additional help. To solve any type security attack on your website will almost always require the support of your website hosting team (unless you’re a WordPress hacking expert — literally no one I know). Many website hosting companies charge you extra money to fix a hacker or malware issue because it’s not part of your hosting package. Lots of people still using super cheap web hosting without realizing the consequences! Sometimes your web host can’t or won’t fix your hacked site at all, saying that they aren’t familiar or authorized to do the work because, “your website and its plugins are a custom setup,” for which they cannot guarantee service / solution, etc….. So then you’ve got to search for a WordPress hacking solution, which mean pouring through random advice online, and it’s likely you’ll end up paying an expensive fee to a WordPress expert to fix your site. It’s hard to predict exactly what bad things could happen if your site gets hacked – I’ve seen it happen to enough sites to know I don’t wish it upon anyone (except my enemies, haha)! So if plugins aren’t a good solution, what is…? Superior WordPress Hosting Some managed WordPress hosting services include hacker and malware protection, prevention, and recovery services. This is a great solution and gives a lot of peace of mind for website owners who don’t want to deal with any extra stress or cost due to unexpected hacker attacks on their website. So if this service is included in your hosting, you can get help immediately if your site ever falls prey to a hacker or malware situation. If they offer protection, it’s extremely unlikely your site will ever get attacked. To date, not a single site of mine or my clients (over 50 sites) has been hacked since moving to Flywheel! I am so pleased and grateful for that fact!!! There are so many other challenges in business — trust me on this one —you’d much rather avoid hackers in the first place than try to clean up the mess if they’ve targeted your site. So getting hacker/malware protection and recovery as part of your WordPress site hosting is the #1 solution I recommend to keep your site safe and strong so it earns you money and attracts clients 24/7! WordPress Plugin Tips: Be extremely selective with any and all plugins you add to your site. Check their reviews, check how long they’ve been around, see how well they are documented and supported by their developer. Brand-new plugins are not as likely to perform perfectly as some that have been around longer… however, some that have been around a long time may end up being neglected or not supported any longer, so you really want to do some research before installing on your site. Test, Test, Test! If you have a testing environment to test new plugins, install them on your testing site first, before installing on your live site. This can save you some frustration in the chance the plugin causes a malfunction to your site. The other option (and this is ALWAYS true!) is to make a site backup before installing any new plugins, to ensure you can quickly and easily revert the site back to its happy working self in those scary instances when a plugin does break your site or cause some malfunction. Subscribe to my Youtube channel for website management & marketing tips & follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. This article contains affiliate links to products that I use and proudly partner with. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. I appreciate your support.
Best WordPress Hosting Company
After 20+ years building and hosting websites, I’ve learned exactly what you truly need (and should expect) from a great website hosting company. And so I present my top recommendation for the best WordPress hosting company for small to medium sized websites, from hobby sites to e-commerce. This is the service that I actually pay for and use myself for ALL of my websites, which includes dozens of sites that I manage for clients and besties! Here are the reasons I chose this company as Best WordPress Hosting Company: Watch my video for a live explanation of why I am so happy with this WordPress hosting service. Further explanation of why I chose this company for best WordPress hosting: 1. Reliable Tech Support. I put this first because it is SO IMPORTANT! I’ve personally used about a dozen or more hosting companies in the past 20+ years as a website builder and hosting manager. Over the years, the biggest problem I consistently experienced was that hosting tech support sucked! It was incredibly stressful and costly to navigate managing this continuous failure of so many hosting companies. Despite their promises, many professional, highly rated and reputable “big name” hosting companies simply couldn’t provide the friendly and reliable tech support that my business demanded. My favorite hosting company is a Managed WordPress Hosting Company and they are awesome!! I have personally messaged their tech support team and gotten the support that I needed every time. Now, here’s a caveat — technology inevitably fails and needs adjustments, that’s something any expert will tell you — so I’m not saying this hosting company is flawless, or that they don’t sometimes have to problem-solve things that are confusing, unexpected or difficult to explain or replicate. However, they are valiant in diligently communicating with their customers and they always get the job done to my satisfaction. That’s saying a lot, because I’m not that easy to please after 20 years of fixing broken websites and dealing with annoying tech-support over the phone! 😉 2. Free & Easy SSL. Security is important because WordPress is an open-source tool which makes it vulnerable to attackers seeking to exploit the tool for their benefit. SSL is one important method to help ensure your website data is safe and secure. Having SSL on your website shows in the top browser as “secure” and gives peace of mind to your visitors. Any time someone purchases items from your webshop or submits your contact form, they are submitting sensitive information such as their email address and contact info, so they need to know they can trust your website. It’s your job as the website owner to protect visitors by using SSL on your website. 3. Affordable Bundled Services Provide More Value. In addition to including SSL on the control panel, this hosting company also includes a few other important services to make it easy to manage your WordPress site: such as Nightly & On-Demand Backups, Caching Tools (to show the newest version of your website instead of any saved “cached” versions in the browser), Resetting Login Attempts, Debugging Tools, plus there are other upgrades to enhance your site performance and give you monthly reports, etc. One thing to know: this hosting company does not offer email service with hosting, which may surprise or disappoint some customers who are used to having email included with web hosting. In the past, many hosting companies included email for free, but times are changing… There are benefits to separating your email and web hosting services, however that’s another topic. 4. Easy & Reliable Backup Tool. For newbies to WordPress, you may be wondering why you even need backups… I could yammer away explaining how many things *might go wrong* with your WordPress site due to no fault of your own, but that might scare you away from WordPress, which is an amazing tool but she can behave like a bitch occasionally! Instead, let me reiterate this once again: technology inevitably fails. It’s not your fault or the hosting company’s fault, but it WILL happen. And it will happen more than once. Your absolute BEST method to eliminate stress, frustration and paying money to someone to help you fix your website in times of duress is to USE BACKUPS. I will teach you exactly how to use the hosting backup tool in a video lesson making it easy and stress-free for you! 5. Managed WordPress Hosting Is Less Work. Managed hosting is just what it sounds like – someone is helping you manage your website hosting service, which means less stress, and less problems. However managed hosting typically costs a bit more than shared hosting or “basic or starter” hosting plans which are extremely cheap, and lack security services, which can cause problems for newbies. For brand new website owners who need things to be extremely simple, easy and functional, this hosting service is perfect. 6. Bonus! Staging Site for Site Makeovers. This WordPress host also includes a Staging Site with most plans. A Staging Site allows you to make a duplicate copy of your website on a temporary domain name. What does that mean? Basically it makes it safe and easy for you to start a makeover using a new theme, test new plugins or check any additional changes you want to explore before fully committing on your live site. The staging site is incredibly useful to ensure your live site is always safe while you play around with new ideas. And the perfect theme for your makeover? Watch this video below! This article contains affiliate links to products that I use and proudly partner with. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. I appreciate your support. 😘
ADA Website Compliance
Welcome to the ADA Website Compliance Q&A! Let’s dive right in, starting with the basics and moving onto solutions. What is Web Accessibility and why does it matter? Web accessibility = A set of rules created to allow people with disabilities to effectively use websites, which includes behaviors, rules, as well as code standards and design guidelines. Why does web accessibility matter? Here are some compelling reasons: 1) About 1 billion people in the world live with some form of a disability. Up to 190 million people are estimated to experience significant disabilities, yet the vast majority of websites are not functional for disabled visitors. Common disabilities that affect webpage use include sight-based disability, which includes: And that’s only one type! There are so many others. Now imagine how many people may be unable to purchase what you sell because of a limitation due to their disability… If you think about it, it’s like owning a shop and refusing to install a wheelchair-accessible ramp for customers to enter your store. Not only is it illegal, it’s foolish to prevent customers access to your shop, and it’s also unkind. Your website is your digital storefront — don’t unintentionally keep people out. If your site lacks ADA features to enable everyone access, it’s your job to fix it, and you should. 2) Web Accessibility (ADA) Lawsuits are on the rise – and could affect your website. Is there a solution for website accessibility? And is it easy and affordable? Innovative technology and the leading AI-powered web accessibility solution make it so that your website can be instantly accessible to people with disabilities with a simple plugin installation and some steps. Your site will be compliant with the WCAG, ADA, and other accessibility legislation. By using AI and automation, new tools significantly reduce costs and time, making web accessibility achievable for all websites. It’s a tax write off for your business and costs $49/month for small sites. How does this ADA website tool work? The tool uses fancy new technology (contextual understanding and image recognition) to scan and analyze the functionality of every element on your website. Then it adjusts it for screen reader accessibility. In addition, the ADA tools uses AI engines to provide a detailed report for your website that can be used as proof of ongoing compliance. This is particularly valuable if you’re facing pressure or lawsuits regarding your website ADA status. What are the benefits of this ADA website compliance tool? What tool do you recommend for automatic ADA website accessibility? I’m using AccessiBe on my website. I installed it quickly and without any difficulty. I am recommending it to my clients and to anyone who is ready to protect their website and expand their reach to the additional 15% of the world who cannot otherwise fully access your website. I can help you with setup and management, if you want. Just ask me. Why Be Compliant?kindness + smart business This article contains affiliate links to products that I use and proudly partner with. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. I appreciate your support. 😘
Domain Transfer Guide
If you’ve already purchased your domain somewhere else, I can help you transfer it over to Google. TIP: If you have a Google/Gmail/Youtube account already for your business, log into your Google account prior to purchasing your domain name. That way, any time you’re logged in, you can also access your domain services. This makes it efficient and easy to access your domain from any device at any time. How to Transfer a Domain to Google Start here: https://domains.google.com/registrar/transfer and type your domain name into the search bar where it says “Enter the domain name you want to transfer.” Then click enter and it will bring up information about your domain account. Typically most domains are locked. You must unlock the domain and find a Transfer Authorization Code before you can successfully transfer the domain to a new service. Step 1 Login to your domain registrar account. Find your Domain Settings and find the UNLOCK option. You also want to request the AUTHORIZATION code, it should be in the same area… Sometimes they will pop your authorization code up on the screen, but sometimes it must be emailed to you, it just depends on the service you’re using. If you can’t find these items, contact your domain company for help or search their help articles and I bet you’ll find it. Step 2 Return here: https://domains.google.com/registrar/transfer and type your domain name in again. This time, you should have your authorization code ready, and the domain should already be unlocked and ready to transfer. There will be an obvious spot to enter the authorization code – do that, then continue. Keep the recommended settings and complete the process by adding your payment card and checking out until you get the confirmation page. Step 3 Return to your domain registrar account (logged in) and go back to Domain Settings. Look for an option for Transfers. Look for Incoming/Outgoing Transfers and click Outgoing. You should see something indicating your website domain is awaiting approval to transfer. Click Yes/Approve in whatever format they offer and then continue. This is the final step to release your domain to Google. Great job! Need a little more help? If you still have trouble transferring your domain, contact me for help. I’ve transferred domains from dozens of providers, so I know what to expect and how to efficiently assist you with this process. If you get frustrated, just reach out! Why is Google my favorite Domain Manager & DNS Service? I’ve used about a dozen or more services in 24 years. Some were fine, some were terrible, but Google has proven to be consistently reliable and affordable – values I cherish in the world of tech! Reasons I like Google Domain Services: Its DNS service works fast so my domains resolve quickly The set up is simple It’s the cheapest price for the most services ($12 + tax per year) The price includes Privacy Registration, which keeps your personal website registration info protected online (many other companies charge extra for privacy protection, though more are including it free now that Google does) The service also includes free email forwarding for the domain so you can setup in**@******in.com to forward to your existing gmail account. Additional Benefits for me as a Website Manager: The control panel works well for me to take action as “the first responder” to provide tech support to my client-owned domains My clients pay for their accounts and retain master-level control of their domain & email settings I have a single login to access 60+ domains making it massively efficient for me!