resources page

Resource Page

Why I create this resource page?

When I started building my first website, I had very little knowledge of web hosting, WordPress, SEO, HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, Photoshop and so on. I quickly learned that my expectations were very different from the reality I was stepping into. My first taste of web design was overwhelmed. I spent hours upon hours on the Internet searching and collecting information in order to find out the best solutions to my design. However, I found that it was far from easy to convert my input-those hours I dedicated each day into actual output-a professional and satisfying web design. To avoid wasting your time like I did before and cut down the learning curve, I would like to share the following resources and information I wish I had known before I started my journey into the world of web design.

online business training
hosting
Content Management System(CMS)
Themes & Design
SEO tools
Web analytics
Email subscriptions
Online form builder
Images & photos
WordpPress plugins
Article Submission Web
popular affiliate program

My most recommended

While there are many good webs hosting out there, Bluehost is one of the best! Its trained, in-house experts are always there to help 24/7; its one-click install function even make a newbie set up a website in a flash; its prices are reasonable and attractive; Click here to read my article that works you through the exact steps to setting up your own website on Bluehost in minutes!

If you want to develop your web programmer skill to a higher level, Treehouse is one of the best for you. It has world-class teachers who teach the latest technologies like HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS and so on. It contains over 100 courses and hundreds of hours of video.

Training

Treehouse: Learn the latest web technology. Learn how to write codes like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP and how to build apps. It contains over 1,000 present training videos from professional teachers.
Lynda.com: Another fantastic training website that teaches software, developer and business skills.

web hosting company

Bluehost: I highly recommend using Bluehost for your site. Why? Because it is unbelievable user-friendly with one click WordPress installation and outstanding 24/7 customer services.
iPage: Founded in 1998, iPage is another good web hosting with extensive list of products and their support available around the clock.
HostGator: Since its establishment in 2002, HostGator has been a world-leading provider of web hosting service. One of its wonderful policies is its 45-day money-back guarantee.
Just Host: Just Host is a great low-cost and quick support web hosting service.
A Small Orange: A Small Orange provides various plans with different features.

Content Management System(CMS)

WordPress: The most popular blog publishing platform. Wordpress probably has the widest base of plugins and themes to choose from.
Joomla: Joomla is a super CMS with regard to its functionality. Joomla’s installer makes installation fairly easy.
Drupal: Drupal is another CMS that has a very large, dynamic community. Unlike other CMSs focusing on blogging as a platform, Drupal is more of a pure CMS.

Themes & Design

Woo Themes: Woo Themes is a market leader in developing WordPress theme and plugin.
The THESE Theme: This is the WordPress theme that provides faster page load time and better Search Engine Optimization (SEO) .
WIX: Wix offers you everything you need to create an amazing free website, right at your fingertips.
LeadPages: LeadPages is a stunning tool for easily creating amazing landing pages. It works with both WordPress and non-wordpress sites.

SEO tools

Market Samurai: My most recommended SEO tools. It is one of the best keyword generators. You can track the ranking for certain keywords and target keywords. It can show you each keyword’s popularity according to search results.
Long Tail Pro: This is another powerful keyword research tool that particularly generates long tail keywords. It is simple to use, fast and effective.
Keyword Researcher: This is an additional distinctive keyword research tool for generating competitive long tail keywords.
SEO book keyword Suggestion Tool: Another great SEO tool for an approximate recommended daily search volumes for main search engines like Google and the Bing Yahoo.
SEO key word ranking: It is a unique keyword research tool that provides before and after reports of keyword rankings as they rise and fall over time.
Google’s Keyword Planner: This is a special tool that helps build search network campaigns and get keyword ideas and traffic evaluations.
YouTube keyword tool: A keyword tool for acquiring new keyword ideas.
Google trends: This is one of the best and most handy tools available for SEO. With Google trends, you have the option to set variables and compare them to come up with a better result.
Google page speed online: This is a very useful tool that some people overlook. It is designed to help improve the performance of your website.
Tynt SEO: This is a unique tool that helps defend your site from people who copy and steal your content.
SEMRush: It is another wonderful SEO tool that helps you easily view not only who ranks for what, but also how effective a particular keyword is for a certain domain.
Microsoft SEO Toolkit: It is free 100% SEO tool (no paid version). With this fantastic tool, you can review your website, like checking for broken links, missing tags, missing alt tags and any other SEO infringements.
GTMetrics: This is one of my favorite SEO tools to analyze and test page speed online.
CuteRank: This is a free keyword rank checker tool. It checks keyword positions and tracks keyword ranking performance on search engines.

Here is a good article introducing some WordPress SEO strategies and tools not listed above, which we strongly recommend you to read.

Web analytics

Google analytics (Free): This is a free clickstream analytic tool that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. A must have for anyone with any type of website.
Google website optimizer (Free): Another free tool from Google. It is a experimentation and testing web analytics tool. It is a complicated testing service that allows you to see which sections convert into the most clicks.
Clicky: This is a web analytics tool similar to Google analytics. It can help examine, inspect, and react to a website’s performance in real time.
Yahoo web analytic (Free): This is another free clickstream analytic tool that provides you with more depth in your surveying.
Crazy Egg (Paid): This is another free clickstream analytic tool. It allows you establish heat maps and track your visitors every click based on where they are specifically clicking within your website.
Compete (Paid): This is a competitive intelligence tool. Compete can help you know what your competitors are doing.
Optimizely (Paid): This is also a competitive intelligence tool similar to Compete.
Kissinsights from Kiss Metrics (Free/Paid): This is a voice of customer tool. It provides businesses with customized feedback form for visitors.
4Q by iPerceptions (Free): It allows you to learn what people are doing while on your website.
ClickTale (Free/Paid): This is a fantastic tool that record each action of your website's visitors from their first click to the last.
Facebook Insights (Free): It provides details about your follower counts, likes, comments on posts and more.
Twitalyzer (Free): It gives a higher view of your account's impact on customers.

Email subscriptions

Aweber: One of the most powerful email marketing and auto-response tool I have ever used. It allows you to install an Aweber form on your WordPress site.
OptinSkin: A premium WordPress plugin. It allows you to easily create and put opt-in forms and take-action areas anywhere on your site.
MailChimp: Founded in 2001, MailChimp has become one of the powerful email marketing service providers. It is the best way to design, send, and share email newsletters.

online form builder

Wufoo: Wufoo is the most powerful web application that helps build remarkable online forms.

Images & Photos

iStockPhoto: It is a stock imagery website that provides quality images. I personally purchase and use these images on my sites.
Flickr creative commmons: It is perhaps one of the best free online photo websites. You have to apply the Creative Commons License before you use selected images for free.
Sxc.hu: This is a free stock photo site that offers more than 380.000 quality stock images. It is a MUST KNOW site for web designers.
EveryStockPhoto: Its stock photos come from many sources and are license-specific. It has become more and more popular, with its millions of free photos.
Pixabay: Pixabay’s ability to search for or filter images by their orientation makes me go back to it often.
MorgueFile: It contains free high-resolution digital stock photos for either corporate or public use.
Unsplash Another free high-resolution photo site worth mentioning. It provides 10 new photos every 10 days, which makes it the best license out there.
Getrefe.tumblr: If you want to find quality photos for your mobile, Getrefe.tumblr is the one you should not overlook.
Picjumbo: One more site worth looking for. It provides free photos for both commercial and personal purpose.
OpenClipart: OpenClipart provides free vector clipart.

WordPress plugins:

VaultPress VaultPress provides premium-level service that helps you back up your valuable site automatically.
Art Direction: This plugin can let you to add extra code like CSS or JavaScript into your posts or pages.
Akismet: It is probably one of the best anti-spam plugins to protect your comment system from being attacked by spammers and hackers.
Breadcrumb NavXT: This plugin creates breadcrumb trails for WordPress website.
Contact Form 7: One of the most popular WordPress plugins. With Contact Form 7, you can create and customize various contact forms on your site.
Jetpack by WordPress.com: If you want to find a one-stop service that supercharge your self-hosted WordPress site, this is the one you must take a look.
MailChimp for WordPress Lite: This is a great plugin for your email subscription and marketing.
Online backup for WordPress: Another great back up plugin that protects your WordPress site with its simple system.
WordPress Popular post: This is a simple yet incredible plugin that display the most popular posts on your WordPress blog.
WordPress SEO by Yoast: This is the most popular plugin! This is a must have plugin considering its No.1 ranking on WordPress official website.
Yet another related posted plugin: This is a wonderful plugin that provides visitors with blog posts that have similar topics to the one they have been looking at, a smart way to keep people hanging around.

Article submission website

Ehow: Ehow is a wonderful how-to site that includes millions of articles submitted and thousands of videos uploaded.
Examiner: Examiner.com is completely contributed by thousands of writers. If you publish your article on Examiner, you can take advantage of its built-in Search Engine Optimization and social marketing tools.
Hubpages: If you want to create more followers to your websites, Hubpages is a good choice for to you submit your articles.
Seekingalphp: This is a good article submission website for people whose niche or industry is of business and finances.
Squidoo: Squidoo is a unique site that allows people to create their own page and add contents. This special feature is greatly welcomed by people who want to promote website, products or services.
Ezine: This is probably one of the most popular online article submission platforms that allow people to submit their article for free.
Articlebase: Articlebase has 26 articles categories and most extensive statistics for users to analyze and to better target their audiences.
Technorati: Technorati is a search engine itself. It focuses on searching blogs. Submitting articles through Technorati allows users to increase their website visibility.
Articlecube: Another great article submission platform that is good for both publishers and authors.
ArticleCity: It is one of the best article submission sites that provide thousands of free articles.

Popular affiliate programs

linkShare: It is probably one of the best affiliate programs. It offers a comprehensive affiliate marketing solutions to help you to increase your online revenue.
Commission Junction: Another fantastic affiliate marketing network. Its pay-for-performance programs make it stand out from the crowds of affiliate programs.
Amazon Associates: Amazon’s affiliate program provides linking tools that help Internet marketers easily cut-and-paste to link to their preferred products.
ShareASale: If you have multiple websites, ShareASale is a good choice for you. With its unique function, Internet marketers do not have to apply to their desired products for each website that they own. In this way, they avoid wasting time and get started marketing a new product very easily quickly.
ClixGalore: ClixGalore offers various types of programs and thousands of potential merchant programs. Its two-tire network makes existing affiliates receive a commission by referring to other affiliates to the network.
ClickBank: It is a leading affiliate network for digital information products.
PeerFly: PeerFly is a cost-per-action based network and uses distinct custom-built software system.
AvantLink: AnantLink is a unique affiliate network because it only partner with qualified web retailers who have to supply product catalogs on a percentage of sale (CPS) arrangement.
Affiliate Window: This is one of the best affiliate networks in Europe. With its 13 offices worldwide, Affiliate Window provides good opportunity for any Internet marketer looking to go internationally.
TradeDoubler: Another good affiliate network based in Europe founded in 1999.