Tools and Resources That I Use

Every web publisher has his or her own set of favorite tools and services that he or she uses to run his or her online business. I’ll be sharing mine on this page.

I will share all of my tools – or at least everything I can think of. Some of the links will be affiliate links, so thanks in advance for signing up using my code.

Amazon Affiliation Tool

I use AM Image Master to embed Amazon links in our posts easily and effectively.

Social Media tools

Social media is a cornerstone of my current strategy. I use the following tools –

Postplanner – to schedule posts across our Facebook pages. With features such as topical buckets and smart recycling, this has been a lifesaver. We have an agency-level plan where multiple team members can work on their respective social media accounts (both Facebook and Pinterest)

PinGenerator – for quickly producing pins with overlaying text and scheduling them to our accounts. It’s a nifty tool where our VAs can easily add dozens of effective pins within minutes.

Strevio – for tracking the success of each post, and finding page-level patterns. It’s also great for checking out the competition and getting more ideas for Facebook creatives.

Project and task management

Clickup

I’ve tried Trello, Toodledo, and Asana as well, but Clickup gave me the best value for money. I do use the paid version for the premium features. The free version of Clickup works very well. It’s robust and feature-rich.

Read more: How I use Clickup to manage my web publishing business (inc. screenshots).

Publishing Platform

WordPress

WordPress is pretty much the industry standard. It’s free, open-source and has every plugin you can imagine. And if you’re still missing something, getting a coder to fix you the right plugin is fairly easy. Some of the plugins are mentioned below in the context of how I use them.

Stock photos

We have paid subscriptions with Shutterstock and DepositPhotos.

Mailing Lists

I use Convertkit for the Yeys newsletter and Flodesk for our other newsletters.

AI Tools

We use AI a lot. Everyone on our team has a ChatGPT Team account. I have an additional ChatGPT Pro account and a paid Claude account.

Courses and tutorials

The following are courses and info products by people I know and trust in the industry. These are all affiliate links, and I share them either because I’ve tried them or because I know the creators and consider them friends.

Now that Google traffic is dead, there are many courses out there that can help you find alternative ways to reach our audiences. Before you buy any course based on the mention here, I suggest you read this post for my views on courses.

One very thorough and methodic course that I have reviewed is Tony Hill’s Pinpoint Clicks. The course is generally closed, but if you click this link, registration will open for you for five days.

For Facebook, I reviewed and can recommend the Masterclass by Jesse Cunningham and Brian Nagele. It covers the same methods that I use to get a consistent stream of traffic from Facebook.

Another course I have reviewed and am following these days is Scott Delong’s Million Dollar Newsletter Playbook.

A very interesting traffic strategy is to piggyback on Reddit’s recent success and promote your content there. Ewen Finser does that very well and shares his methods in this Reddit traffic course.

Last but not least, for those who are further down their web publishing journey or are looking to flip sites, I have tried out these –

The Website Flipping Course by Mushfiq Sarker—Mushfiq has purchased, improved, and sold (i.e. flipped) hundreds of websites. He’s a great guy and knows what he’s doing. I took this course recently to assess the potential of selling some of our sites. I’ll publish a detailed review soon.

The Easy Wins database – Also by Mushfiq Sarker, this is a handy cheat sheet that lists hundreds of ways in which you can improve traffic, revenue, or both.