Top creator tools that we proudly use
GreenGeeks
Grammarly
GeneratePress
Trello
RescueTime
Website Hosting And Domain Registrar
Siteground: If you’re launching your website or blog, then Siteground is a reliable host to get started. Their interface is user-friendly for beginners, plans are optimized for WordPress websites, and customer support is available round the clock.
They offer great value for money with plans starting at $3.95 per month, though the prices quickly shoot upon renewal. Free Cloudflare integration, SSL certificate, and a guaranteed 99.9% uptime rate sweeten their offering further. I like their Startup
WP Engine: As your website starts to grow, moving it to a managed hosting provider might make sense. WP Engine is a premium host for WordPress sites. Numerous administrative tasks such as taking backups and implementing security patches are taken care of.
While their plans are expensive as compared with another hosting at $350 per year, you get quick site loading times and high performance. Premium WordPress themes based on the GeneratePress template further sweeten the deal.
Namecheap: Domains could come bundled together in a special deal with your hosting. But if they don’t, then Namecheap is a great domain registrar to register a name.
Google Domains: Another reliable registrar from the big search daddy that comes with free privacy protection is Google Domains. It layers well with other tools by Google: search console and analytics.
WordPress Plugins And Themes
Thirsty Affiliates: Managing tracking links of all your affiliates and their special offers could become cumbersome. Thirsty Affiliates plugin makes it easy to save and cloak them — inside your WordPress dashboard.
GeneratePress: A robust and lightweight WordPress theme with ample customization opportunities. You can design a professional and elegant website using it, even without using page builders. Premium templates built on top of GeneratePress come bundled with WPEngine. But you can buy it separately as well.
RankMath: Taking care of on page SEO is one part of the organic traffic in your control, and you should leverage it. Yoast is easy to use and even its free version lets you perform a quick SEO check of your articles before pressing publish.
RescueTime: To track the time you spend on your laptop and mobile, RescueTime is pretty cool. It works in the background, offers a premium feature “Focus Time” that can block distracting sites for a designated period, and send weekly reports with your “productivity pulse” and time spent working during the week.
Content creation tools
Google Documents:
Canva:
Surfer SEO:
Ahrefs: A superb tool for keyword research, backlink analysis, and keeping track of SEO efforts. It’s a goldmine for content marketers who want to get traffic from organic search. The software isn’t affordable, but you can get
Buzzsprout: If you want to launch your show, then Buzzsprout is a great podcast hosting platform. It’s affordable, easy to use, and offers a welcoming experience for new podcasters.
TubeBuddy: If you plan to start a YouTube channel, then TubeBuddy is a great market research and analytics tool. It can help you fine tune your content ideas, dissect the popular videos of your competitors, and even streamline your YouTube workflow. Overall a great tool to get more YouTube views and subscribers.
Grammarly: While not a replacement for the human eye, Grammarly still provides a layer of defence against typos and grammatical errors. If you want to get your email and text messages also checked, the software offers a browser extension and mobile apps to facilitate the same.
Trello: For managing the ECM content calendar, I still rely on a Trello board. Its free version itself has been sufficient for collaborating with editors and writers on my team.
Google Analytics: For analyzing stats around your site’s visitors including their country, time spent on your site, demographics, and a bunch of other relevant attributes, Google’s free analytics suite is perfect. It’s extremely powerful to dissect the behavior of your audience and draw actionable insights.
Audience building tools
ConvertKit: Built for creators, ConvertKit remains one of the easiest email marketing software. It offers numerous templates, the ability to segment your list and add tags for organizing them, and numerous integrations. Overall, it’s value for money with advanced features.
Monetization platforms
Thinkific
A course creator tool that has a great user experience
Kickstarter
Thinkific: If you want to sell online courses or memberships, then Thinkific offers great value for its price. You can create an effective eLearning experience within minutes. You can even set up affiliate programs and checkout for selling your courses. Read our detailed Thinkific review.
Tailwind: Pinterest could be a nice source of the traffic to your website — especially if you’re in a creative niche. Tailwind takes care of scheduling pins on Pinterest around the clock, thereby saving you lots of time.
Shareasale: A premiere affiliate network with some high-paying affiliate programs from companies looking for working with publishers.
Social media tools
YouTube creator studio
Tailwind
Software of different types of content creators
Writers
FreshBooks – One of the best invoicing software.
Podcasters
Buzzsprout
YouTube and Video creators
Here are the tools of the trade that I recommend for creators to build a successful online business. Most of them save time and money and help in sustainable growth. The others just keep me sane. If I make changes to my toolset, I’ll update them here
WebinarJam: If you want to conduct webinars up to the scale of 5000 attendees at an affordable price, Webinar Jam is a fit. It has a slick interface, landing page templates, customization options to suit your brand’s needs, and the ability to split test two designs. You can record and send the replay of your sessions to your attendees as well.