Let me take you “behind the scenes” so to speak and share the tools I use to run an online business. This page will be updated regularly as my team and I continue to to make helpful tutorials regularly for YouTube as well as full length blog posts.
*Please note that affiliate links are used whenever possible. That means I may earn a commission from qualified purchases at no additional cost to you. You can help support the production of our free content through some of the links below.
Web Hosting
You need a website or online store at a minimum. To do that you’re going to need a quality web host for that. Anyone who’s watched my tutorials videos know I have a few go-to recommendations.
Hostinger
Recommended by WordPress, they are the best beginner friendly webhost for creating blogs, websites and online stores.
Great hosting & support, free domain name, free WHOIS protection and competitive pricing. I use them in all my tutorials.
Use coupon code WEBPRO at checkout for an added discount!
WPX
My current host. They are a managed WordPress host and provide the best support and hosting I’ve experienced.
More expensive than Hostinger, they are ideal if you already have a few established websites. But you can still start with them if you like.
Website Builders
Website builders are a fantastic, all-in-one, done for you options for anyone not wanting to deal with the technical aspects of setting up and managing a self hosted website using a web host.
Ghost
Ghost is a hosted blogging platform with strong focus on paid subscriptions, blogging and email marketing.
You get access to a bunch of well designed themes, a superior content creation experience, and the ability to offer a direct response email newsletter, tips & donation and paid subscriptions without any tech setup.
I use this platform for my personal development/travel/expat blog found at edgeofdavid.com.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the best, and most popular ecommerce website builders around. They provide all the features you need to create and grow an online store.
Great themes, excellent checkout process, inventory management, helpful plugins to add on additional features and good selection of pricing plans to get you started.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a “do everything” website builder. You can build any type of website, blog or online store.
Sell products, offer coaching and do email marketing.
It’s a great alternative to WordPress if you’re looking for a less technical, but equally professional option.
Domain Names
You need a domain name in order to have a website, blog or online store. While you can get a domain name through a web host or website builder, I do use and recommend Namecheap because their domain name prices and renewal rates are cost effective. I also like keeping my services separate.
Namecheap
Low prices on domain names, low renewal rates, free WHOIS protection and good support.
I use Namecheap for all my domains and use them in my tutorial videos.
Blog Content
AI tools can be used to help scale your blogs traffic by helping you do keyword research, build out topical authority on a topic, create titles and meta descriptions and give you inspiration for content creation.
While there are a lot of tools and resources, here are my go-to options:
Claude AI
This is an AI writing tool that helps myself and any writer I bring on to create quality content more quickly.
Great for keyword research and for helping you scale content quickly.
Problogger Jobs
Problogger is one of the original blogs on blogging. Darren Rowse has grow this site into a full business
He launched a jobs board on the site and it’s now become one of the best spots to find quality writers.
Grammarly
I use Grammarly to edit all blog posts for grammar, spelling, punctuation as well sentence rewrites.
You need this tool if you’re publishing online.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is how you turn a blog and YouTube channel into a business. Make more money through selling your own products, driving target traffic to affiliate offers and just helping people achieve their goals through your helpful content.
Convert Kit
My preferred email service provider of choice. Advanced funnels, clean user interface, great looking landing pages and an incredibly helpful tagging feature.
Grow your email list today. Email is how you turn a blog or YouTube channel into a business.
Convert Box
Create pop-ups with customized offers per blog posts. Drive traffic to an affiliate offer or grow your email list.
Leadpages
I use this tool to create landing pages to grow my email list and one time offer pages for selling products to new subscribers.
You can also use Leadpages to create sales pages for products, services and coaching offers. With advanced analytics and A/B testing built in, it’s tool to help you better optimize your sales funnel process.
Selling Digital Products
Doing affiliate marketing and running paid ads is a great way to monetize a niche website . But what if you’re trying to build a profitable personal brand based around your knowledge and experience? Selling products and courses adds another revenue stream to your business.
Teachable
Website Creative Pro, my online course website is powered by Teachable. Teachable comes with all with essential marketing features built in that I love and use.
Good landing pages, can use bump offers, upsells, coupon codes, provide a referral code to your students as well as run your own affiliate program.
On top of that you can sell ebooks, memberships, coaching offers and of course, online video courses.
Skool
Skool allows you to easily create a community platform where you can host courses, workshops, digital products, live coaching calls and have a forum style communication features and gamification built in.
All for one low price. The only downside is that video hosting is not included so you’ll need to use YouTube or pay for a hosting service like Vimeo for online courses.
Thrive Cart
Thrive Cart is my go-to platform for selling digital downloads like ebooks, checklists, simple video courses and so forth.
Thrive Cart can host your products and provides you with a beautiful, high converting checkout page and bump offer options.
While I use Teachable for my video courses, I use Thrive Cart for pretty much everything else.
Content Optimization
No you can’t just “wing it” and create whatever content you want. You must have a keyword research process to find content topics people are actually looking for.
Surfer SEO
The best on-page SEO tool. It breaks down what your blog post and compares it to what’s ranking.
This is helpful because it gives you actionable steps on how to improve your content.
Ubersuggest
A decent, “one time price” keyword research tool. You can use Ubersuggest to do competitive research and basic keyword research.
aHrefs
The best keyword research tool available today but costs an expensive monthly fee. Get backlink profiles, your competitors top content, YouTube video keywords and a deep dive into keyword research.
YouTube
Creating videos changed my life, not even an exaggeration. While depending on what you want to do will determine the specific tools you need, here is what I personally use.
If your on Mac, then obviously I suggest using Final Cut Pro. For Windows users, Davinchi Resolve is probably the best, but here I’ll share what I actually use.
Vegas Pro
I do edit my own videos usually. When I do, I like Vegas Pro. I’ve tried a lot of editors and I personally like Vegas for my workflow.
I can create and edit a 2 hour+ tutorial video in an afternoon. The latest version (22) has a ton of features and it’s also easy to create short form content with.
Open Broadcast Software
OBS is what I use for screen recordings. It’s free, you can record at a high framerate, connect external audio like a USB mic and even use a mirrorless camera as a web cam.
Frame
This is my go-to video collaboration platform of choice. When you hire a video editor you need some way to communicate on the end product. Frame is made for this task.
Snagit
A cheap, and very good screen capture tool. While I usually use OBS 90% of the time, I love how fast Snagit is and how it uses a variable frame rate so your files are small and efficient.
I use this for my UX testing and when I want to overlay video clips in my YouTube videos.
CapCut
Made by the same company that owns Tiktok. CapCut is a fantastic editor for creating short form content.
Auto subtitles, good transitions and solid mid range features ideal for beginners. Best of all, it’s free.
Graphics and design
Here are the tools I use to design websites, make YouTube thumbnails, design ebooks and lead magnets.
Canva
Canva is incredibly powerful. With it you can make YouTube thumbnails, blog post feature images, ebooks, presentations, infographics, banner images and even videos. It’s a must have for what I do.
UpWork
UpWork is where I go to hire out freelance design work. If I need some HTML or CSS for design, an ebook that needs to be formatted for Amazon. Upwork is the marketplace I turn to.
Business Tools
Running multiple websites and managing a YouTube channel starts off simple enough but will eventually grow into a proper business. Here are the essential tools I need to help me stay focused, organized and on top of everything.
Google Workspace
Workspace is the paid version of a free Gmail account. You get an add free experience, professional email accounts that you need for business and email marketing, and content management tools.
Quickbooks
You’ll need Quickbooks as your business grows. It helps you manage your income, profit and loss and makes tax season stress free.
Microsoft to-do
Windows 10 and 11 come with a great little to-do app I use to plan what tasks need to get done. It’s simple and a great way to stay focused.
Notion
I’m a Notion power users. I use Notion to organize my website and YouTube content as well as a way to take notes and write rough drafts for blog posts.
I love Notion and once you use it, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without it. Best of all it’s free.