Between designing WordPress blogs and websites, and providing training and support, I have used and been exposed to a lot of hosting services, themes and plugins. I’ve found great products, good products and a lot of crappy stuff.
From experience I have consistently recommend these products to my clients because: 1) I have personal experience with them 2) I know they work seamlessly; and 3) I trust the people who make them.
I will never recommend a product that I don’t stand behind 100 percent.
I know firsthand that they are reliable, affordable and value-driven. Because I’ve used them, for myself, for my clients or both. I recommend them because they have helped me grow my business.
If you click on one of the links and purchase a product, I will get a small commission because I am an affiliate. I like to call it my coffee and martini fund (use to be gas, but you know how that is). If you enjoy this site and find you need one of these products, I’d appreciate it you used a link to make your purchase.
It won’t cost you one penny extra and it will help me keep some of my webinars and cool videos free.
Here they are, the products I stand by:
Blog and Website Hosting
Product: inMotion
Why I love them: There are many hosting services that work well with WordPress, but for shared hosting, I recommend inMotion. They have several options to choose from that will suit almost any hosting need you have with WordPress. With 24/7 support and one-click WordPress installs, you can’t go wrong.
Product: WPEngine
Why I love them: BobWP is on WPEngine. If you are looking for a managed WordPress host, WPEngine is your solution. Prices are a bit more than regular shared hosting, but with that you get more security, faster site loads, WordPress updates and a more focused support system just on WordPress. I highly recommend considering them for you WordPress hosting.
WordPress Security
Product: WPSecurityLock
Why I love them: Regina and her team do awesome work. It’s that simple. I have not only used them personally, but have recommended them to clients several times. And each time they come back with a huge “thank you”. Whether you are looking for ongoing help, or are in desperate need to get your “hacked” website back to normal, they will help. Check out all their products and services that they offer to help you keep your WordPress site safe and secure.
Product: Securi.net
Why I love them: The team at Securi.net really knows their stuff. I have had the opportunity to get to know Dre and Tony and the knowledge they have behind WordPress security. If you are looking for a service that will monitor your site round the clock for any security issues, check out there website monitoring, alerting and malware removal.
Premium WordPress Subscriptions
Product: WPMUDev
Why I love them: The yearly subscription gives you an amazing number of quality plugins for WordPress, BuddyPress and Multisites. In addtion, lots of great themes, tutorials, videos, documentation, manuals, and best of all, amazing support.
Premium WordPress Themes
There are tons of premium themes out there. The list can be overwhelming. I’m including only the ones I’ve had a positive experience with.
Product: Studio Press Themes
Why I love them: We’ve used their themes for several client projects. The Genesis theme is awesome, whether you’re a novice or a developer with advanced skills. The variety of child themes for Genesis is great. Using a child theme allows you to be able to customize your site without touching the core theme. The choice of layouts and “Genesis” custom widgets, give you great flexibility for your website or blog.
Product: WooThemes
Why I love them: We have also used WooThemes on several of our clients’ projects. They have an outstanding selection, from simple designs to more complex, magazine-style layouts. The options you get in the backend are intuitive and easy to understand. They also have WooCommerce themes and the WooCommerce plugin. I recommend this for creating your next ecommerce site.
Product: iThemes Builder
Why I love them: My very first WordPress theme I ever used was from iThemes. They not only have an incredible selection of themes and plugins, but for those of you who want to get into building and designing WordPress sites, check out Builder. iThemes Builder lets you create WordPress sites quickly and easily by creating your own layouts.
Product: Headway
Why I love them: Headway, with it’s unique user interface — the visual editor — lets you create a custom site from the ground up without knowing code. I find this framework the perfect solution for designers who don’t want to learn tons of code yet deliver custom websites and blogs to their clients
Premium Plugins
There are literally hundreds of plugins out there that are free. And many of them are incredibly useful and rely on donations. But there are some premium plugins that we have found well worth the money. Check them out.
Product: BuddyBackup Plugin
Why I love them: If you have watched enough of my videos, or heard me speak, I am always saying, backup, backup, backup. BackupBuddy is an all-in-one solution for backups, restoration, and migration. You can use free plugins for these separate pieces, but this one gives you peace of mind that everything is done in one swoop!
Product: Gravity Forms Plugin
Why I love them: I have used a lot of free contact form plugins over time, and struggle with the fact they can quit working and sometimes you never know it till it’s too late. Gravity Forms is worth the money. If you depend on your forms and use them in a variety of ways, this plugin is for you. It’s flexible, easy and has a number of great features for a form management plugin.
Product: CommentLuv Pro
Why I love them: I have used a lot of different commenting systems, but after testing what works for me, I settled on CommentLuv Pro. Now there is a free version, but what you get with the Pro version is amazing. Not only do you have several options to reward your commenters, but it also incorporates the anti-spam plugin G.A.S.P., which is great at catching that spam. Watch this video here on my blog to get an overview of what CommentLuv can do for you.
Product: WPtouch Pro Plugin
Why I love them: This is my favorite of all the mobile plug-ins for WordPress. It offers a great-looking and customizable app that supports all the major mobile browsers. You can even add less popular browsers through the excellent WPtouch Pro documentation. There is a free version – but it’s definitely worth investing in one of the premium licenses.
Product: Premise
Why I love them: You can quickly and easily create 6 critical landing page styles in WordPress, add visual flair with included custom graphics, and control fonts, colors, and styles without code. And it has a great membership module as well that makes it so easy to turn your site into a membership based site.
RSS and Email Subscription Services
Product: Feedblitz
Why I love them: Your RSS subscribers are you gold mine readers. And you want to keep them, and make them happy. Feedblitz helps you manage your subscribers with ease and also let’s you customize your RSS emails that go out. And if you don’t want to spend time creating content for a newsletter, turn your blog into one. I trust my RSS subscribers to Feedblitz.
Product: MailChimp
Why I love them: First of all they have a free level that can help you with both your RSS email feed and newletters. You can send 12,000 emails a month to a list of up to 2,000 subscribers with MailChimp’s Forever Free plan, though a few features are only available to paying users.
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