Recommended Resources
On this page you’ll find my recommended resources to help you design, operate, and market your business. I only recommend products and services I use, and in some cases I do receive an affiliate commission if you choose to purchase through this page. You will pay the same price whether you purchase through me, or go direct, and just know I would be recommending these products and services whether I was earning a commission or not. My goal is to help you find quality products and services quickly, so you can get on to growing your business.
Digital Access Pass Membership Plug in
If you’ve ever thought of creating a membership site, this is the way to go. Easily protect your content, “drip” content according to the schedule you want so your members don’t get overwhelmed by all your content at once, or worse yet, join, download everything, and then cancel their membership. This inexpensive WordPress plug-in makes it all easy. They’ll even install and set it up for you, if you’re not the geeky type!
Click here to learn more and get Digital Access Pass today.
Optimize Press for Creating Professional Looking Web Pages, Fast
If you use WordPress and you need to quickly, easily, and cost-effectively create Squeeze Pages and Sales Pages, or Membership Pages to deliver your content, Optimize Press (OP) is the way to go. OP comes with a wide variety of templates and all you do is choose one, check a few boxes, fill in your copy, and you instantly have a professional looking, well-designed web page…no programming skills required! Please note that OP is not a WordPress plug-in, it’s actually a theme, so you can’t use it on a site that’s already using another theme. My suggestion? Register another domain where you can install OP and host all of your squeeze pages, landing pages, and sales pages there. That’s what I’ve done. My main website and blog are here at www.DebbieLaChusa.com, and my OP pages are at www.TheBizStylist.com. Easy-peasy! To see an example of a squeeze page created in OP, please visit www.TheBizStylist.com
Click here to learn more and get Optimize Press today.
Aweber for Email Marketing
Aweber is the service I use and recommend for email marketing. If you’re building an email list—if you’re in business you should be—this is THE program to use. You can create multiple lists, easily create professional looking opt-in forms, send follow-up emails (auto-responders) and broadcast emails in both html and text. Step-by-step wizards and great customer support make it easy, even for the non-tech-savvy.
KickStartCart Online Shopping Cart
If you want the ability to accept credit cards and make sales online, you need a shopping cart, and THIS is the shopping cart used by more online marketers. This cart system is the same as 1ShoppingCart (it goes by various labels). I couldn’t do business online without it. And the cool thing is, they offer a variety of service levels so you can choose the one that provides the functionality you need.
Click here to learn more and get KickStartCart today
Free Conference Calling for Teleclasses and Conference Calls
Conduct your teleclasses, teleseminars, conference calls for free using Free Conference Calling. Host free conference calls with up to 1000 callers anytime, no reservations required, and you can easily manage and record your calls on their user-friendly web interface. There’s no need to pay for a conference calling service. I host all my calls on Free Conference Calling.
Click here to learn more and sign up for your free account today.
EzineArticles for Article Marketing
Article marketing is a wonderful, FREE way to spread the word about your expertise and your business, AND to drive traffic to your website. There are a lot of article directories out there, but EzineArticles.com is #1 in my opinion. In fact, it’s the first and often the only place I post my articles. And it’s the only article marketing directory I recommend to my clients. Plus they have a killer plug-in for WordPress that makes it super-easy to turn your blog posts into articles on their directory—talk about efficiency!
Click here to learn more and start using EzineArticles to market your business, for FREE
Prints Made Easy for Business Cards & Digital Printing
Design and order your business cards online and get them in one week for about $20. I love Prints Made Easy and have been using them for years. You can upload your own artwork, or you can use one of their templates, to create professional looking, high quality business cards, fast and cheap. I like to update the offer on the backside of my business cards frequently, and with Prints Made Easy, I can do so without breaking the bank. Plus, you can also create, print, and mail postcards!
Click here to learn more and try out Prints Made Easy
The Best Wireless Headset
If you’re on the phone a lot with clients like I am, you want to be sure you have a headset that’s comfortable and doesn’t keep you tethered to your phone. THIS is an awesome headset and I highly recommend it. It’s a bit of an investment, but if you make your living on the phone, it’s worth it!
Click here to purchase the Plantronics Wireless Headset on Amazon
LegalZoom for Basic Legal Services
LegalZoom is a great online resource to help you with basic legal services, such as filing a trademark application. While I definitely recommend consulting an attorney if you have any questions, and for more complicated legal matters, LegalZoom is a wonderful and cost effective resource for solo-professionals on a budget.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and cannot give you legal advice. I am simply making you aware of a resource that may fit your needs.
Click here to learn more about LegalZoom and the services they offer
GoDaddy for Domain Registration
For inexpensive domain registration I recommend GoDaddy.
Click here to learn more about GoDaddy
Hostgator for Website Hosting
I’ve hosted with several different website hosting companies in all the years I’ve been online, but I recently moved all of my sites to Hostgator. Hostgator is cost-effective, allows you to host multiple sites in one hosting account (saves money), is great for hosting WordPress sites (not all hosting companies are well suited to WordPress), and came highly recommended from quite a few people. After doing my research and due diligence, I chose Hostgator and I’ve been very happy so far.
Click here to learn more about Hostgator
Snagit for grabbing screen captures
Very often I need to grab a screen capture of my website, or a graphic, or even a video and to do this I use a cool little program called Snagit. In the past, I used Snagit for PC, and I was very happy to see when I switched to a Mac that they also have Snagit for Mac. You can’t grab and use copyrighted images from the web, but it’s great for grabbing images you do have the rights to use. For example, I used Snagit to grab some of the product and service images you see on this page. Since I’m promoting them, I’m pretty sure they’d be cool with that.
Click here to learn more and get a Free Trial of Snagit
ScreenFlow and Camtasia for creating screen capture videos
These two programs are great for creating training videos. They allow you to record your computer screen along with narration, so you can create videos of your PowerPoint presentations or web tutorials. When I was on a PC, I used Camtasia. Now that I’m on a Mac, I use Screenflow. You can get Camtasia for the Mac but it’s a lot more expensive than Screenflow and I’ve been VERY happy with the capabilities Screenflow offers.
Click here to learn more about Screenflow and register for a Free Trial
Click here to learn more about Camtasia and register for a Free Trial
Handbrake for Prepping Videos for the Web
Handbrake is a cool little program that enables you to reformat and resize your videos for the web. And it’s totally free.
Learn more and download Handbrake here
Amazon Web Services for Video Hosting
If you need to host videos and you’re looking for a YouTube alternative—especially if you don’t want all of your videos available to the public—Amazon Web Services is a very cost effective place to host, and you only pay for the hosting you use, by the month. If I’m creating marketing videos, I’ll host them on YouTube. However, Amazon Web Services offers a great alternative for my training videos, which I only want to make available to paying clients.
Click here to learn more about Amazon Web Services
EasyVideoPlayer
EasyVideoPlayer makes it easy to create video players and embed your videos on your website. It integrates seamlessly with Amazon Web Services, and best of all there are no ongoing charges. It’s a one-time cost and it’s very inexpensive. I love it!
Click here to learn more about EasyVideoPlayer
Scout Wilkins
Clear The Doubt & Follow Your Heart
When people work with me to brand themselves and market their business, they are stretching to be far bigger than they’ve been before. The natural result is that they often get stopped by fear and doubt, and by their innermost conversation about what is or is not possible for them. If you’re feeling like there’s something INSIDE holding you back, talk to Scout. She’s got an innate ability, and incredible tools, to take you inside, so you can truly get out of your own way, and rock your business – and your life. I cannot recommend Scout highly enough.
Click here to learn more and register for a Free Discovery Session with Scout
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