Recommended TOOLS
Here are some of the tools, software and other resources I (Josh) use, trust and/or recommend.Find Tools by Category

Divi
The Divi Theme® by Elegant Themes is the trusted WordPress I’ve used exclusively since 2014. It powers my site, my agency clients’ websites. The company, support and community behind it are also top notch!

SiteGround
SiteGround is the web hosting company I use for my hosting and trust for my client sites. They’re affordable, reliable, have top-notch support and have been the foundation of me and my client sites since 2015.

Circle
Circle is the platform I run my Web Designer Membership on. I generally steer clear from “all-in-one” solutions but this one is AMAZING. For online communities, memberships, live streams, coaching and now courses…Circle is truly the best tool to have it all under one roof. I’ve been an early adopter since it released in 2020 and I’m in love with it today more than ever before.

Content Snare
Content Snare is top recommended way to effectively, efficiently and successfully collect content from clients. For big projects where you’re collecting content, images, media files and more, having a tool to assist is key and this one is GOLD.

FocusWP
FocusWP is like have a white-label web developer team on call. They’ll handle your maintenance, support, development, design help and more. You can purchase hours one-off or go month to month depending on how many hours you need. It’s one if not THE best solution around for getting quality help when you’re ready to delegate and hire.

17hats
17hats is what I use for managing clients and creating and sending proposals, invoices, contracts, collecting payments and more. They’ve been the key tool which helped me organize my systems and processes which I’ve used since 2016.

Termageddon
Termageddon is my trusted tool for creating auto-updating privacy policies. I use this to keep my site compliant and protected and my agency uses this for all our client websites which we offer as an up-sell.

Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is the WordPress form builder I’ve used exclusively since 2013. It’s light weight, extremely customizable and very reliable with email deliverability. It’s also a great company with amazing support behind it.

BuzzSprout
Buzzsprout is the hosting platform for my podcast. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Buzzsprout for many reasons but in short, it makes it easy-peasy to upload your audio files then it takes care of the rest. The UX is great, it’s been super reliable and it’s very affordable.

Divi Life
Divi Life is a collection of Divi Plugins, Divi Child Themes and other great Divi resources. They’re the creators of some of my personal favorite plugins like Divi Overlays, Divi Bars, Divi Welcome Home and more.

Fathom
Fathom is a GDPR compliant and ethical analytics tool for tracking and analyzing your website traffic. I left Google Analytics and starting using this awesome tool to avoid any potential legal issues with tracking users. Plus, you don’t need cookies when using it!

Pretty Links
Pretty Links is my preferred URL shortener plugin for WordPress! I use it for my podcast episodes, affiliate URL’s and other pages or post types that have a long URL that I need to shorten so I can share in other places online.

WriteSite
For a “content-first” approach to building websites that are high value, I recommend diving into the WriteSite course (meet the founder Damian via my podcast interview with him here) and be sure to use code JOSH at checkout for $100 off the course!

Magnfi
Magnfi® is the tool I’ve used for years to capture video testimonials. It’s great because you can send clients a link and all they have to do is click and record their testimonial on their computer, tablet or phone. Makes it easy when clients don’t need to download a software or try to send a 4GB sized file over.

WPRocket
WP Rocket is a leading performance WordPress plugin that me and my agency use to not only speed up websites and increase load time, but optimize media, caching and overall webiste performance.

Divi Lover
Divi Lover has a growing collection of premium Divi Child Themes and Divi Plugins. They’re the creators of the super handy, all in one customization plugin Divi Toolbox and also has several handy free layouts.

Divi Space
Divi Space is a leader in premium Divi Plugins, Divi Child Themes and other add-ons. They also have a value-packed blog and other resources that will help you in your Divi web design journey.

Divi Pixel
Divi Pixel is an all in one customization add-on for Divi which features an amazing set of plugins and extensions to help take your Divi designs to a whole other level without having to code. The devs behind this are second to none.

SitePresser
SitePresser, headed up by my colleague Melissa Love is my go-to plugin for exporting and deploying child themes. It neatly packages up your entire site (theme, pages, content, etc) and deploys it in a new site in minutes.

LifterLMS
LifterLMS is an amazing online course platform for WordPress. Perfect for creating online courses for you, clients or for membership sites. Plus, the owner and team behind it are AWESOME. If I were starting with courses today, I’d go with Lifter.

PowerUpPodcasting
PowerUpPodcasting® is the course I took to help me plan, build and launch my podcast. I’m a big proponent of this course because, while an investment, it helped me launch my podcast with a bang and has helped me sustain it moving forward.

Email Marketing Magic
Email Marketing Magic® by Pat Flynn is an in depth guide to effective email marketing. From building and growing an email list, to learning how to effectively market to your list without coming across salesy…this course has is ALL. Made a massive impact on my email game personally!

List Builders Society
List Builders Society® by Amy Porterfield is one of my favorite courses for learning out to build an email list, create a content marketing plan and how to identify your ICA (ideal customer avatar). While it’s great for beginners, even though I took this as a more experienced entrepreneur, I still got TONS of value from it.

Music Radio Creative
Music Radio Creative is an awesome service for podcast and video production introductions, music, show assets and more. It’s what I used for the introduction in my podcast.
*** Important note ***
While the companies and products listed are affiliate links, they are not sponsors and they do not pay to be on this page. The tools and companies listed here are ones that myself and/or my agency uses and trusts.
There are also a lot of other great options for tools in the Divi, WordPress and wider Web Design market that may suite you, your budget and your needs. These are simply the ones in my toolbox 🙂
– Josh