my toolbox
The Tools & Resources I use that work in the now!
I want to share the software & tools that I use to drive my websites to help you with yours.
I believe using the right tools is the foundation of any successful online business.
You can spend countless hours trying to figure out which tools are the best for your business. There are so many great options that it can be overwhelming.
That's the reason I've created this page. The tools mentioned below will save you time & money, while also helping you to get better results faster.
So, whether you're new to making money online or have been running a business for years, these tools will help you get results faster so you can concentrate on what matters most—making more profit.
Lastly, when purchasing any of these tools, please treat it as an investment, not an expenditure. The reason I’m saying that is because some of these tools mentioned on this page have paid me back 2x – 100x the money I invested in them initially – some of them directly and some indirectly.
Cheers,
Kuldeep Rathore
WordPress Hosting
Cloudways is by far the best & my #1 recommended hosting, especially for Elementor & production websites. I use Cloudways Digital Ocean Premium ($12/mo) plan. Feel free to navigate through my site & then test it out yourself.
- Highly recommended for websites built with Elementor
- Provides blazing fast speed especially in WordPress Admin area
- Monthly billing (no yearly contracts or high renewals)
- Cloudways platform is extremely flexible (scale anytime)
- Even on DO $10/mo plan, you get to see 99.99% uptime
- Best for high traffic & eCommerce websites
- Comes with custom control panel that is modern & has simple UI
- You get Free SSL, website migration, staging, bot protection
- Their Support is great as reflected in their Trustpilot reviews
- 5 cloud host to choose from (DigitalOcean, Linode, VULTR, AWS, & Google Cloud)
When it comes to budget hosting while not missing essential features, Hostinger will be my honest recommendation, especially for complete beginners. I’ve personally used the Hostinger Business Hosting plan for my small projects when I was starting out.
Since then, I’ve seen a lot of improvement & the company is growing at a rapid rate.
- Highly recommended for beginner bloggers, solopreneurs
- Comes with a modern & attractive hPanel which is a very beginner-friendly interface that helps you manage your websites with ease
- Provides FREE Domain for 1st year as well as 1 SSL Certificate
- Reliable uptime & truly affordable rates (starts at Rs.79/mo)
- Provides fast speed as they use LiteSpeed servers
- You get huge discounts on 2-4 years plan
- Comes with FREE Email Hosting (100 domain-based emails)
- Their Support is pretty decent but they have a full knowledgebase & tutorials
- Supports Indian payment options like the UPI Payments, Google Pay, etc. which is very useful for the Indian customers.
WordPress Page builders
Elementor is no more a page builder. It's a complete website builder & one of the most popular builders in the world. It has more than 5 million downloads. Here's why I love using Elementor on almost all of my sites:
- It offers you an extremely easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder. You don't need to know HTML or CSS skills to design your website.
- Although I personally like to use Elementor with Kadence theme but using Elementor you are not limited with a theme. You can make the custom header, footer, blog page & almost anything using Elementor.
- Comes with a simple & easy to use interface that is very beginner-friendly.
- Useful for almost every use case. Whether you're a blogger, marketer, web designer, small business owner, or an agency, using Elementor you can easily make your website look pro
- With over 90+ widgets and 300+ Basic & Pro Templates, you can build your sites crazy fast.
- They also offer a FREE version but I highly recommend using the Pro version for creating popups, headers, custom post type, contact forms & much more.
- As it's so popular, you can easily find a ton of tutorials on youtube.
- Lastly, there's a business model behind it which gives me mental comfort that elementor is not going anywhere in the near future. They have a solid team & a really helpful community. To be honest, I've seen a constant improvement in Elementor since 2019 & because of that I trust the company & love using their product.
Also Note: To supercharge Elementor, I use a few addons & they are:
- Crocoblocks (Over 20+ plugins & 130 powerful widgets that helps you create any type of website)
- ElementsKit Addon (Another amazing addon with several unique widgets that helps you create better designs inside elementor)
WordPress Themes
Kadence Theme is my #1 rated WordPress theme on the market for 2022. Most of my websites are built using the Kadence Pro version including this website.
This is my most recommended theme on my starter kit page. No matter what type of website you are creating, Kadence makes it simple & fast.
- Both the free & paid version of the theme offers incredible ease of use and features that allow you to build any kind of website you want along with a lot of starter templates.
- Kadence Theme is even better than the Astra & Generatepress theme in terms of features & functionality (I've tried all of them & I can say that Kadence is light years ahead).
- The FREE version of the Kadence theme gives you much more options than most paid WordPress themes do.
- The theme is lightweight, feature-rich, SEO & design-friendly (I really like that they offer color palettes & font pairings that provides consistent design through the website).
- Provides full control over the entire website & comes with an impressive header-footer builder (My website header is built using the Kadence header builder 😉).
- Although the vision of Kadence is pretty much towards Gutenberg & not the page builders, just for more speed. But it integrates well with most of the page builders. I personally use the Kadence theme with Elementor Pro & it works like a charm. You can navigate this website & experience both of them.
Apart from features & benefits, I would also like to mention Ben Ritner. He's the founder of the theme & all KadenceWP products, has been very actively developing in the WordPress space for over a decade.
The Kadence team has been constantly improving their products & almost every now & then, I get to see a new feature & that's why I love using some of their products like – Kadence Theme & Kadence Blocks.
Note: If I had to choose between Kadence vs Astra vs GeneratePress to build my WordPress sites, I would choose the Kadence theme every single time.
It's not that I'm not a fan of Astra, I know it's a great theme as well. But I would highly encourage you to just give Kadence theme a try. I'm sure you'll be switching to Kadence😉.
Lastly, for eCommerce sites, I would personally go with the Woostify theme. Although Kadence does have WooCommerce features, somehow I like Woostify more.
Lead Generation & Email Marketing
When it comes to email marketing, I’m a noob & unlike other marketers, I don’t just focus on ROI & that’s why I find it hard to pay a high amount on email marketing tools like MailChimp, ConvertKit, and so on. That’s why I looked for better solutions & found FluentCRM by WpManangeNinja.
After extensive use, I can say that FluentCRM is the most powerful self-hosted all-in-one email marketing solution for WordPress (better than popular mainstream CRMs). It does everything that mainstream CRM offers.
Using FluentCRM, almost all your email marketing needs can be fulfilled. It helps you in building complex email campaigns using its advanced automation feature which offers you to set up condition-based emails based on various factors like email open, link click, and tags, etc.
I use FluentCRM because the features are damn powerful & talking about the pricing, it’s a cost-effective solution. Just $129 for a year (that’s just $10.75/month)
- Offers an intuitive & really easy-to-understand dashboard. Seriously, it’s one of the best UI-UX-focused email marketing tool I’ve ever seen
- FluentCRM is 100% self-hosted. It’s not connected with any of thier SAAS servers, meaning, You own the 100% data.
- Send as many emails as you like. There are no limitations on the number of emails you can send. This is what I like the most, also, FluentCRM doesn’t restrict your number of contacts.
- Built-in A/B Testing feature, UTM parameters & email templates for better conversions & faster workflow
- Easily segment your contacts in lists or tags for sending personalised emails. Also, they offer dynamic list building & filteration features.
- As it’s built for WordPress, the integration with over 25+ popular plugins is easy-peasy
- Email sequencing, automation, campaign insights, campaign scheduling, individual user activity monitoring, funnel performace analytics & much much more.
- The best part about this tool is that you can do it all from the WordPress Dashboard of your Website (no separate login required)
I really appreciate the WPManageNinja (the team behind this plugin) for providing such an awesome tool at an unbelievable price. Although it’s new in the market, more than 10,000 businesses have already switched to this tool.
Fluent Forms: Another very handy plugin by WpManageNinja. Using fluent forms, you can create almost every form you can imagine.
I like this form plugin because it’s a front-end form builder & comes with drag & drop functionality (just like elementor). I use it on some of my sites because it’s super easy to use & comes with pre-built templates. The free version comes with some limitations but the pro version is much better than all other form builders available in the market.
Mailer Lite: If in case I've to use an alternative to Fluent CRM for email marketing then I would definitely go for Mailer Lite. (I had used it previously)
It's a feature-rich email marketing tool & more importantly, it offers an intuitive user interface. Also, it's less expensive when compared to other email marketing tools such as Aweber or constant contact and so on.
If you are looking for an alternative to Fluent CRM then do checkout Mailer Lite.
Website Speed & SEO
Wp-Rocket: Wp-rocket is hands down the best caching plugin out there. When using any product, the first thing that I look for is the user interface & the second is the main functionality (obviously 😅)
I love this caching plugin as it's one of the easiest speed plugins to set up on any type of website.
To conclude, If you’re looking for a sure and quick solution to keep your website fast and optimized, WP Rocket is the best plugin you can get for your money.
Bunny CDN: BunnyCDN is one of the best CDN providers out there. Using Wp-Rocket you can make your website fast but when combined with a CDN network like BunnyCDN, you can make your website lightning fast.
In simple terms, Bunny CDN clones your website & keeps it in different locations so that your website is accessible (superfast) by global users no matter where your hosting server is.
To be honest, it's of the cheapest yet best services out there. I have never paid more than $5 for the usage in an entire month since 2020. I highly recommend trying it out as it offers a FREE trial.
Try BunnyCDN FREE for 14 days (No Card Required)
Rank Math SEO: Rank Math is one of the fastest-growing plugins in the WordPress space. It offers a lot of features in its free plan that most premium SEO plugins don't offer. That may be the core reason it became the #1 choice for most WordPress users. As of writing this, Rank Math has more than a million installs.
Again the selection comes down to UI & UX. I use this SEO plugin over others not only because it's more powerful but has a really good user interface. It's beginner-friendly & a really powerful SEO tool.
Another reason for me choosing this SEO plugin is that it's an Indian product for WordPress.
Nimit Kashyap, Suraj Vibhute & Bhanu Ahluwalia are the founders of Rank Math SEO and many WordPress products.
I believe that they are going to take this plugin to next level & that's why I recommend grabbing a pro license as you can use their pro license on unlimited websites.
WordPress Plugins
Kadence Blocks: Using Kadence blocks, you can supercharge your Gutenberg editor with tons of custom blocks. Right from testimonials to row layouts, you get that inside of your Gutenberg editor.
To be very honest, I'm using this plugin (pro version) on this website for features such as table of content, modal, and countdown & to get full control over layouts.
To conclude, it gives you page builder-like features inside the native Gutenberg editor. More importantly, it's optimized for performance & works with any theme. I use it with my favorite Kadence theme.
Try Kadence Blocks Pro FREE for 7 Days (No card required)
Pretty Links: I don't know how many times I've mentioned that I'm an affiliate partner of so & so products. To cloak all of my affiliate links, I use Pretty links pro edition. Not only for affiliates, but it's very useful for other businesses as it offers features such as tracking, redirection, automation, and link management.
It's a freemium product, so. if you are just starting then do try their free version & if you want to level up, then Grab one license of pretty links pro.
iThemes Security: It's a no-brainer that a security plugin is a must on every WordPress website. Whether you are just getting started or have an established site, you need one.
I've been using iThemes security plugin since 2019 & so far I haven't faced any issues. All of my site's databases get backed up automatically. It's easy to set up, reliable & a trustworthy product. Right from bot protection to email alerts, it does the job for you.
Simple Custom Post Order: Easily change the order of your posts, pages & even custom posts. I really like this plugin by Colorlib. With little to no settings, you are ready to arrange your posts as you like. I'm sure this might be a very useful plugin for some of you.
Try it out, it's FREE.
Duplicate Page: Easily duplicate any page, post, and even a template with a single click. It can really save you a lot of time. This FREE plugin has more than 2 million installs. I thank the developer mndpsingh for his generous work. Get this plugin here.
WP-Optimize – Clean, Compress, Cache: For the best performance of any WordPress website, the database should be optimized from time to time. Wp-optimize offers caching and database optimization solutions.
To be honest, I use this plugin only to clean my site databases & nothing more. For caching, I use wp-rocket & would suggest you do the same.
UpdraftPlus Backup: With over 3 million active installs, UpdraftPlus is the most popular scheduled backup plugin.
I would suggest not skipping this plugin & the iThemes security plugin. Because they are worth the entire investment you've made in your WordPress website. Simply install, set up & automate your backups to cloud storage such as Google Drive & so on.
Fluent SMTP: To ensure all my marketing efforts work, I use this simple plugin with little to no setup. It ensures all of the emails sent from WordPress get delivered to the recipient.
To conclude, this plugin solves all the email deliverability problems. I highly recommend using it as it's completely free. Download Fluent SMTP.
Design System & Inspiration
Whether you are a complete beginner or a professional designer, you need inspiration at times for your web design projects.
To be honest, there are a lot of them but I haven't used them & don't know much about some of the popular tools. That's why I've only listed the ones which I use and know a little bit about.
Elementor Pro: Create a stunning design system for your WordPress website for consistent layouts, typography & CTA's. It's highly recommended even by professional web designers like Jeffery (Lytbox) & Rino (Livingwithpixels). Get Elementor Pro
- Dribble & Behance: You can easily find inspiration for any kind of design work. Be it elementor, website layout, or app, everything is available on these two platforms.
- ColorHunt: An open collection of beautiful color palettes. It's a really useful tool for color inspiration.
- ColorSpace: One of my favorite tools. It allows you to create shades, spot Palettes, gradient colors & a lot more from just a single color. I find this tool useful & I personally use this tool for creating shades.
- TypeScale: A very useful tool for creating a visual hierarchy in your fonts. It helps you organize sections with subheadings. I use this before setting global typography in Elementor.
- Fontpair: A really useful website for getting proven font pairings. See what are the popular font pairings & use them for your own web or design project.
- CSS Pepper: This is one of the best chrome extensions, especially for web designers. Inspect styles of any website in a simple, well-organized way. It allows you to inspect the whole color palette used on a website. I highly recommend installing this free chrome extension.
- Figma & Adobe XD: These two are the new standards for UI / UX design. You can create your complete design system inside of these tools. Also, prototyping an idea for a website or app can be superfast using these tools. Most prefer Figma over Adobe XD. You are free to choose for yourself.
Productivity Tools
When it comes to productivity, my list collapses. I personally use very few productivity tools bcoz when using a lot of them, I found myself spending more time on the tools than the actual work. That's why I consciously use very few of them.
- Notion: I just love this tool. It’s an all-in-one solution and when it comes to productivity, it’s simply one of the best tools I’ve ever used. Right from my habit tracker, subscription tracker, blog content planner & so much more everything inside this tool. I usually open notion.so before I start my work.
- XMind: This one is a mind mapping software & probably one of the best ones available in the market. There's a concept called mind dumping & I use this tool to dump all of my ideas & then arrange them. My whole website structure & planning was done inside this tool. You can create wonders for yourself using this tool.
- TinyJPGÂ &Â TinyPNG: Probably one of the best compression tools out there. I use them to reduce the file size of JPEG & PNG images before I upload them to my website media library. I personally use their website but you can also use their WordPress plugin.
Honest Affiliate Disclosure: I'm a proud affiliate for some of these tools & services, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, I'll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
My recommendations are based on my experience and knowledge of these companies and their products, and I recommend them because they are genuinely helpful and useful.
Know that I only recommend products and services I’ve personally used and stand behind.
If you decide to purchase from my affiliate link, I'll be really thankful to you.
Most Recommended
Cloud Hosting: Cloudways
Shared Hosting: Hostinger
Page builder: Elementor Pro
Elementor Addon: Crocoblocks
WordPress Theme:Â Kadence Pro
Email marketing:Â Fluent CRM Pro
Domains: Namecheap
6 Comments
Your site is solid! Very impressed.
Thanks Jason 🙂
Your comment is much appreciated.
Lul, Mumbai where???
Hey, thanks for your interest.
I'm currently residing in Mira-Bhayander (between Borivali & Virar)
Dude hit me up here – contact@kuldeeprathore.com & let's connect 😀😅
Cheers,
Kuldeep
Thank you for all the information on the various tools that you use. I love your website
Thank you for your kind words. Ken, would like to share some of the common ones that you use?