Resource List for Your WordPress Website

Updated December 28, 2020

This resource list for your WordPress website highlights resources I actually use for my clients or myself. There are lots of other good resources; these are just mine.

Domain Name Registrars

Namecheap – This registrar has good prices and customer support. Their management interface is easier to use than most.

Hover – They have good prices and technical support, and very reasonable pricing on professional email at your domain name.

For some hosting – those listed below – I recommend the domain name at the hosting site, as it’s simpler for those just starting out.

Website Hosts

Tiger Technologies – Besides amazing support from company employees, this website hosting company gives refunds for partial months, if you cancel hosting. They have reasonable monthly or yearly prices, support from their own employees (no outsourced support), no CPanel, but a clean, simple interface, one-click WordPress install, shell access, up-to-date PHP, MySQL database access, backups, carbon neutral hosting, free domain name with hosting.

WPEngine – This website host has great WordPress-only hosting; they have managed updates (They update WordPress for you automatically.), daily backups, malware scanning, and staging area for testing. They recommend using Hover for domain names.

Siteground – This is also good for WordPress-only hosting. They have backups, scanning, and no longer use CPanel. They also have caching and security plugins that integrate with their hosting. They have several email options. Discounts are for the first year only.

Website or Blog Platform

WordPress – This is the most popular and fastest growing publishing platform on the web because it’s so flexible, allowing it to power e-commerce sites, personal websites, business websites, blogs, and everything in-between. With a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, you can easily publish and update your own content, and have a blog with your website. WordPress is ten years old on May 27, 2013.

WordPress Themes

StudioPress Themes and Genesis Framework – Genesis framework is a premium theme, but is are well-coded, has good SEO, and a great assortment of child themes to give your site a unique look.

WordPress Default Themes – These are all really nice free themes available in the WordPress theme directory. WordPress themes also include default themes Twenty Twenty-One (and other “Twenty” themes which can easily be customized for a business.

e-Commerce WordPress Plugins

Easy Digital Downloads – This free plugin is great for managing document downloads whether paid or free. It’s a light-weight, easy-to-customize plugin with Paypal Standard gateway, shopping cart, coupon codes, reports for seller and customers. There are lots of additional free and premium add-ons, including a Stripe add-on and a Mailchimp add-on.

Woocommerce – This is an easy-to-use plugin for selling products online using PayPal Standard and Stripe. It has excellent documentation, inventory management, reports, flat-rate shipping, shopping cart, coupon codes, is easy to customize, and has many add-ons for your shop. While it’s free to get started, some of the premium add-ons are helpful, including additional shipping tables and methods, recurring payments, and other payment gateways. The one-page checkout is very easy for customers to use, as well. It is now owned by Automattic – the parent company of WordPress.

WordPress Plugins

• WordPress SEO by Yoast – Has an indicator to let you know how your on-page SEO is; also has a sitemap generator.
• Jetpack – RSS to email sign up form, contact form, stats, social share, carousel, and many others; all the Jetpack options are easy to use; also see Get Started with the Jetpack WordPress Plugin
• Ninja Forms – very easy to use for non-programers.
• Regenerate Thumbnails – useful if you change themes to create new thumbnail sizes to fit the theme.
• Duplicate Post – Very useful if you need to start with similar content in a post or page; Can duplicate, rename, and then edit.
• Imagify and Compress JPEG & PNG Images – Use one or the other. These plugins can compress and resize images on upload, so you don’t need to edit the images first.
• All-in-One WP Migration – This is free to use for very small sites, but any paid add-on will allow larger site backups; allows backups to be sent off-site; very easy site restore and migration; worth the cost.
• Login LockDown – Useful if bots try logging into your site often.
• Members – Add new user roles and edit capabilities; limit content; side bar login too.
• User Role Editor – Add new user roles and edit capabilities by role or user.
• SB Welcome Email Editor – Allows you to write a custom email that is sent to new users.
• Login Logo – Easily adds your logo to the WordPress login page.
• Fonts Plugin | Google Fonts Typography – Easiest to use Google Fonts plugin; there is also a premium option.

WordPress Plugin Editors

• Code Snippets – Can be used to add custom functions or scripts without editing theme files.
• There are many plugins for the WordPress Block Editor now. While you can use Gutenberg, it’s actually a plugin for testing new additions to the WordPress Block Editor, and is not always stable.
• Recommended Block Editor plugins include Genesis Blocks, Gutenberg Blocks – Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg, and Gutenberg Blocks by Kadence Blocks. They all have different blocks, and which I use depends on the site I’m working on.

Newsletter services

You can read more about no cost email newsletter services.

• MailerLite
• MailChimp

Images to Use in Your Blog Posts

You might want to see How to Customize Your WordPress Website Header.

• Unsplash – These images can be used for personal or commercial use, and is my personal favorite.
• Big Stock Photos – Low cost, royalty-free images.
• Pexels – Lots of free-to-use images
• Pixabay – Free-to-use images
• Depositphotos – Low cost royalty-free images.
• Canva – Online image editing, but includes royalty-free images – link in Image Editors section.

Backgrounds, Icons, and Other Resources

• Lost & Taken – High resolution textures and backgrounds.
• Subtle Patterns – Lots of wonderful subtle textures; great for backgrounds.
• PSD365 – Download a new PSD everyday or purchase graphics.

Web Font Resources

• Font Squirrel – Lots of free beautiful fonts, web fonts, and also a web font generator.
• Google Webfonts – Lots of easy to use web fonts; read about How to Use Google Web Fonts in Your WordPress Website
• Icon fonts
  • Genericons
  • Font Awesome – Free
  • Dashicons – Read how to use Dashicons
  • Fontastic – Create your own custom icon fonts

Image Editors

• GIMP – Similar to Photoshop, but at no cost; good for editing photos or creating images.
• Canva – Free and Premium online image editing software.
• Affinity – Has several low-cost image editors for photos, vectors, and documents. Also for iPad.