We use these tools – typically on a daily basis – to help our productivity and creativity (among many others):
WordPress.org
This CMS (Content Management Service) is a state-of-the-art open-source publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. As its slogan suggests, it is both free and priceless at the same time. We’re huge WordPress fans, which is why we haven’t built websites using anything else since 2006.
Genesis Framework with StudioPress Themes
We build effective, versatile websites with WordPress, using the professional Genesis Framework paired with robust Studio Press Themes. Genesis provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes web sites to the next level.
Video / Conferencing / Screen-Sharing
We’ve been using YouTube, Skype and Zoom for years and helping the surge of new users – especially new Zoom users since March 2020 – transform their local/brick-and-mortar businesses with limited reach and availability to global/online businesses often with orders of magnitude more potential. We can make training videos with you – including how to best use your new YouTube channel – as well as assist with editing, video SEO and social media integration and much more.
WP Engine
If you want or need premium hosting for your website, WP Engine is our preferred high-performance web host. Read why we recommend WPE for the ultimate in performance, reliability, and support.
SiteGround
We’ve been using SiteGround for a growing number of client projects and are impressed with their performance in all the usual categories, particularly speed … SSD drives do make a difference! 🙂
BlueHost
We’ve been using BlueHost for all our web hosting and domain registration since 2006.
Plugins
We have an ever-evolving list of favorite WordPress plugins that help us help get the job done. We carefully review plugins from among over 50,000 available for WordPress, basing our selection on support, peer reviews, number of installations, our own long-term experience, and other factors. We often use “freemium” plugins which have a free version (suitable for smaller sites – most of what we build and maintain) as well as a paid version which offers greater capability at modest cost.
Slack
Slack helps us keep track of all our projects. Sure, we’ll use spreadsheets, etc. where they make sense, but if we need quick and easy-to-find access to frequently used information … or details on what which plugins we updated when … or a link to a great article we read a while ago, Slack is our go-to app. We make Slack channels for each client site on our own (IDS) Workspace to safely keep track of important details and available for quick access. If and when a project becomes sizable and/or a significant ongoing team effort, we’ll spin up a new Slack workspace for websites that can benefit from having its own workspace with channels for each sub-project, intra-team messaging, Zapier integration and more.
MailChimp
Send automated, eye-catching, and informative emails that help your business grow. Create subscribe forms and collect valuable client emails. (With their permission of course.) We’re also huge fans of their RSS-to-email service that automatically packages recent posts (from the last day, week or month) and sends them out with no additional effort on the part of our clients or ourselves to up to 2000 subscribers … for free! Is this one of the best-kept secrets in the world of email marketing? Perhaps not now that we’ve shared it. 🙂
G Suite
We routinely use lots of G Suite apps such as Chrome, Google, Gmail (typically a maintenance email for each client site), YouTube, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and, of course, Google Analytics extensively or all sorts of uses. We also have the full Microsoft Office Suite which we use as needed for client compatibility.
Adobe
We’ve been using PhotoShop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and other Adobe apps from the earliest days of their existence. Need to remove objects from an image? We enjoy using content-aware fill and other tools to make edits in minutes that took hours in years past.
Dropbox
A great place to share content and images with clients and friends. Save all types of files and keep your own hard drive clog free providing lots of room to save all the Photoshop, Illustrator and other files on your own hard drive.
Amazon Drive
Amazon Drive is another useful place to store all the videos, audios and high-res images that take up so much room on your devices.
Apple
We both use MacBook Pro to create all of our work, and test on iPad and iPhones. We also use simulation tools such as ScreenFly to make sure our sites look good across the ever-growing spectrum of available web devices.
Other Tools
We have lots of favorite websites, apps, and tools we use for just about every purpose imaginable. A few notables include WPBeginner, W3Schools, WhyNoPadlock, and Hubspot’s Marketing blog. You can subscribe to our email bulletin to keep up with this ever-growing, ever-shifting landscape and learn about what we’ve found helpful, insightful and even crucial. 🙂
Disclosure: We receive compensation from the companies whose products and services we review at no extra cost to you. We recommend these on the basis of excellent performance and value resulting from our own use and testing. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own. We appreciate your support by purchasing from these links.