Are you building your own website, but you aren’t sure which tools to start with?
Scroll through this page to see my favorite tools for hosting, emails, sales, SEO, and more!
Website hosting
A website hosting service stores your website’s files and makes them accessible on the internet so anyone can visit your site. Think of it like renting space on the web—your hosting provider keeps your site running smoothly, securely, and available 24/7. You NEED a quality host that will troubleshoot and provide support as you go.
This is the BEST website hosting platform in my opinion.
The customer support, security, and functionality are unmatched. If you plan to grow your blog into a full-time monetized website then I highly suggest this host.
BigScoot’s WordPress Optimized Hosting plans look like this:
- Starter $34.95/month (great for under 750,000 visits/month)
- Professional $98.95/month
- Business $248.95/month
SiteGround is another great hosting platform. I recommend them to every blogger that is just starting out.
The introductory pricing (as low as $1.99/month) can save you a bundle in your first year, but keep in mind that this price will go up. SiteGround does require an annual payment.
Siteground’s hosting plans look like this:
- StartUp $14.99/month- billed annually
- GrowBig $24.99/month- billed annually
- GoGeek $39.99/month- billed annually
eMAIL SERVICES
Email service providers help online business owners, non-profits, and bloggers manage and grow their audiences by sending newsletters, automated campaigns, and updates to subscribers. They make it easy to design professional emails, segment contact lists, track engagement, and nurture relationships—all from one platform.
When it comes to automated mailing systems, Kit is the way to go. This tool allows you to not only send beautiful newsletters to your readers but also utilize powerful automation capabilities to make sending newsletters and sequences a breeze!
Kit’s pricing plans vary depending on the number of subscribers that you have, but the range looks like this:
- Up to 1,000 subscribers (no automation)- FREE!
- Up to 300 subscribers- $15/month ($9 if paid annually)
- Up to 1000- $29/month ($25 if paid annually)
- Up to 3,000- $49/month ($41 if paid annually)
- Up to 5,000- $79/month ($66 if paid annually)
- all the way up to 500k plus subscribers
More on MailerLite soon.
When you are ready to upgrade your newsletter sign-up forms, run (don’t walk) over to Convertbox!
Convertbox offers beautiful and customizable sign-up forms that allow you to add multiple steps for upsells and special offers.
The pricing for Convertbox is:
- Standard- $495 for lifetime use on up to 10 websites with up to 250,000 views/month
- Pro- $590 for lifetime access on up to 50 websites with 500,000 views/month
This one is 100% worth the price.
Ecommerce
E-commerce platforms like allow bloggers and online business owners to sell digital products, courses, services, and physical merchandise directly from their websites. They handle payments, checkout pages, and product delivery, making it easy to automate sales and manage customers. These tools also integrate with email providers and marketing systems to help streamline and grow online revenue.
I cannot say enough about ThriveCart! This is a powerful sales cart system that hosts all of your products (digital and physical). It allows you to create bump offers, upsells, down sells, and even courses!
My income increased drastically the month after I started using this tool. In fact, it more than paid for itself within the first month. If you have products to sell and you want to maximize your revenue, don’t skip out on Thrivecart.
Thrivecart pricing looks like this:
- Standard- $495 Lifetime Use
- Pro0 $690- Lifetime Use
More on WooCommerce Soon.
more tools
RankIQ is a tool that makes writing posts with good SEO simple! This tool will help you choose your target keywords, create the best title, and optimize your posts so Google will rank you more quickly.
RankIQ analyzes the top 30 posts on Google that use the keyword that you want to focus on. It then gives you a long list of words that are commonly used throughout those posts so that you can create the most comprehensive article possible.
Pricing plans for RankIQ:
- Lite (8 reports/month)- $29/month
- Standard (16 reports/month)- $49/month
- Pro (36 reports/month)- $99/month
- Agency (80 reports/month)- $199/month
Canva is an incredible graphic design tool that allows you to create logos, flyers, ad images, and any other graphics/images that you may need for your website.
There is a free option that is great to start with, but I suggest eventually moving up to a paid plan for access to premium features like the image background remover, free stock photos, a resizing tool, brand kits, and more.
Canva Pricing Plans:
Canva for Teams- $14.99/month OR $149.90/year
Basic- FREE
Canva Pro $12.99/month OR $119/year
If you need a domain, 1&1 IONOS is the place to find it!
This domain registrar has wonderful customer service and an easy user interface. Their pricing is pretty competitive as well.
A .com domain is only $1 for the first year! It goes up for $15-17/year after that.
Kadence is a completely customizable and secure theme for WordPress sites.
The free theme download comes with a library of website design templates (all can be customized to your liking) and blocks that work seamlessly to add functionality to your site.
Later is my favorite social media scheduler. You can schedule to all of your accounts and utilize the built-in Link in Bio feature.
Schedule up to 10 posts/month/social profile for FREE or upgrade to the $18/month plan to post more often.
Creative Market is THE place to go when you want premium clip art, graphics, photos, mockups, and fonts for your website.
Prices vary based on the seller, but most are very reasonable. You can get quality branding elements in Creative Market and you will be supporting small businesses in the process!