Here are just some of the tools I use – from SEO software, to the courses that helped me learn what I needed to make money from sites, how I grew my social media following and email lists, the WordPress themes I use, and more.
SEO Tools
SurferSEO is amazing for optimizing your content - it'll pick up phrases you haven't used that are key to the topic, but that your competitors have.
You can write in it like G Docs, or audit existing posts to improve them (it'll also check for any internal links you should add), and even do keyword research and make site recommendations.
Don't want to pay for monthly SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs?
Lowfruits is different: you get credits you can use to search for keywords.
I find it super helpful for finding long-tail keywords, questions and FAQs to add on to existing articles to drive more traffic.
Courses
Authority Hacker Pro is only open once per year, but Authority Hacker's entry-level course, The Authority Site System, or TASS, is open all year.
TASS takes you through building a site, picking a niche, designing high-converting affiliate blocks and a site in GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks, and how to do link building.
Jon makes $100,000+ every month, and I paid to join the course and community back when I was earning around $10K a month, to try to learn some new tricks.
Jon's course takes you from the beginning: doing keyword research, writing or outsourcing every type of content (with all his excellent templates) and taking through the entire niche site growth and monetisation process.
Mushfiq from The Website Flip is known for buying and flipping hundreds of websites.
With EasyWins, you get access to his entire framework for how he buys, quickly grows the revenue, and then flips for more money, with 120+ strategies for increasing site earnings.
Affiliate Marketing
The lovely looking CTA you're reading right now... was built by Lasso.
These convert like crazy... that's why I'm using them here!
But Lasso does so much more. It finds broken affiliate links, recommends opportunities (such as links that you could make into affiliate links, that aren't currently), and tells you when Amazon Affiliate links are out of stock!
Display Ads
Ezoic guaranteed that if I moved my sites over, they could increase ad revenue by at least 15%. And they have - we're earning 20-25% more now than we were with AdThrive.
I've had a great experience with Ezoic, and I think they're great for small site owners to start making their first dollar online.
(We have a special custom deal with a 15% revenue lift guarantee - so do be aware that this is not guaranteed for you.)
WordPress Theme
I use GeneratePress Pro on all my sites, and combine it with GenerateBlocks.
It's lightning fast with no bloat, compatible with everything I use, and great to use.
Email Marketing
Mailerlite is a great cheap option for emails, and I've moved over from Mailchimp to save money.
You get all the tools you need for making extra affiliate sales to your base - but at far lower monthly fees.
Miscellaneous
Odys are my choice for the best premium aged domains, with links from the world's top publications.
I'm an Odys customer - I recently bought an excellent domain for £3000 which I am building out, and I also pick four domains every month to recommend and what I would build the site into.
Also, sign up with my link and get a FREE $100 in your account to spend on your first aged domain.
I used Tweet Hunter to grow from 0 to 6,500 followers in 4 months, without much time invested.
I use it to schedule tweets ahead of time, create viral threads, and Tweet Hunter also has detailed analytics and a database of high-performing tweets to take inspiration from (or use their AI to re-write successful tweets in new ways).