We don’t know everything, and we want to help you to learn more, and/or give you some tools to get help make your website better. Here are some resources we suggest.
Many of these are referral links, which means by clicking and buying through the link you help to support us or someone we know. Sometimes you may get a discount through the link.
Want to suggest a resource to go here? Fill in our suggest a resource form, and we will get back to you if we add your resource. Please don’t email us directly as we will then delete the email, and delete the suggestion you have made.
Website Platforms
Website Hosting
Domain Registrar
Website Monitoring And Stress Testing
WordPress Education And Learning
E-commerce
Website Analytics
SEO
Email Marketing
Affiliate Networks
Website Platforms:
WordPress: this is what we use for our website and have been using for many years. It is free, and can be installed on almost any website host.
Squarespace: If you want to easily create a website yourself then check out Squarespace. It is fairly limited and you can’t exactly copy what you have made on Squarespace to any other platform.
Shopify: If you want to create an online store easily and not worry about anything, then Shopify may be the place for you. If you use this link you get a 14 day free trial.
Carrd: If you need a simple website, starting with one-page you can easily do that with Carrd. They have great features for their free plan, and if you upgrade then you get tons more features.
Website hosting:
Cloudways: An managed website hosting company. Many one-click apps that auto update behind the scenes. They have 24/7 support which in our experience tend to respond within 24 hours solving the issue.
DigitalOcean: If you want to manage your own server then DigitalOcean is the company for you. If you use our link you get $100 in credit for free (to use within 60 days of signing up).
BuyShared: If you want a cheap website host then check out BuyShared. Their support is very good.
LunaNode: If you need a Canadian based website host, with servers in Canada then check out LunaNode. Get $20 in free credit by using promotion code: TATVGDU (enter the promotion code at Billing -> Promotions).
Domain registrar:
Namesilo: If you want the cheapest domain names then use Namesilo, their control panel may be a bit hard to use for some but once you get the hang of it then it becomes easier.
That Hosting Company: A Canadian based and ran company.
Gandi: A well known company based in France, started in 2000.
Sibername: Ottawa, Canada based company.
Website monitoring and stress testing:
HetrixTools: Great service to tell you when your website is up or down, has a very generous free plan, and if you pay you get more features like text notifications.
GTMetrix: Let’s you test how fast (or slow) your website loads from around the world in an uncomplicated way.
WebPageTest: Many more testing locations compared to GTMetrix, but some find the result complicated and hard to understand. If you are more technically inclined then this will be the one for you.
Loader: Simple and free way (with paid upgrade options) to test how a load on your website will be handled. This is great to ensure your website can handle a load of people coming to your website.
WordPress Education and learning:
WordPress codex: This is the technical official WordPress manual, some people may find this too technical but there are other unofficial resources.
WPBeginner: Many people (including us) keep going to back to for WordPress help, it’s known as the “beginner’s guide to WordPress”.
Torque Magazine: A great resource for WordPress news. Owned by WP Engine.
WordPress Tavern: Another resource for WordPress news. Owned by Matt Mullenweg.
Winning WP: WordPress tips and tricks.
WP101: If you want to learn WordPress in video form, in an easy way then watch WP101.
Lynda / LinkedIn learning: Great professional, high-quality place to learn not just about WordPress, but about almost anything. Video’s vary in length.
Skillshare: Learn over 500 things on WordPress, and many more courses on a variety of topics. Get 2 months free using our link.
Udemy: People create their own courses and share them here.
E-commerce:
WooCommerce: If you build a ecommerence website on top of your WordPress website, then WooCommerce is great.
Sellfy: Easy way to sell your products online with no transaction fee.
Website analytics:
MonsterInsights: If you want an easy to use Google analytics implementation in your WordPress website then this is great.
Matomo: Great Google analytics alternative, it can either be installed on a server or you can pay them to run it. The dashboard can be overwhelming for many people, but once it is changed to fit your needs it can be a very good privacy-friendly analytics.
Fathom analytics: If you just want a simple overview of people coming your website than Fathom may work for you. You do have to pay for this but you don’t have to worry about anything related to your analytics, just seeing how people are coming to your website.
Plausible Analytics: A great analytics that is very similar to Fathom analytics.
SEO:
AnswerThePublic: A free ways to find what people are searching for.
Sitechecker: A free (and paid) website SEO score checker. You can get started for free and upgrade to a paid plan if you need more.
SEMRush: A tool some people use for SEO. If you use that link you get a free 7 day trial, it is a paid tool afterwards.
Moz: Is very similar to SEMRush, some just prefer Moz over SEMRush. As with SEMRush you can get a free trial but it is a paid tool afterwards. They have a blog as well.
Ahrefs: Similar to the other two tools, if you want a trial you do have to pay for it. They also have a blog.
Mangools: A cheaper alternative to any of the other 3 SEO tools, and some say with more tools & features.
Backlinko blog: Great SEO tips.
Sparktoto blog: Another great SEO blog.
Email marketing:
ConvertKit: An awesome email marketing company, they do have a free plan with a majority of the features you want.
EmailOctopus: Easy email marketing. They do require email verification and they manually confirm each and every account.
Mailerlite: An easy to use email marketing company. They do require email verification and they go through each and every account and approve (or deny) before you can send any emails.
MailMunch: An fairly unknown email marketing company, that has a great free plan with unlimited subscribers.
Limus blog: Blog to guide you through best practice of email marketing.
AWeber blog: “Email marketing tips delivered”
Affiliate networks:
ShareASale: The affiliate network we have found to be the best for us. You can’t easily find new programs to join, and they do payments once a month. They do payment by bank deposit in many countries, or mailed cheque with a $50 minimum.
Rakuten Marketing: They do have more advertisers and it’s easier to find advertisers.
FlexOffers: A huge list of advertisers. It does take longer than other affiliate networks to get accepted into any advertisers programs.