Affiliate Links and Recommendations
These products are available through partnership programsI only include products that I am willing to personally recommend and that educate or benefit my website clients.
I definitely recommend that companies promote and participate in affiliate programs with reputable products and services that they use regaularly and enjoy. It is a win-win situation for both parties.
Please be assured that I only include products that I am willing to personally recommend and that educate or benefit my website clients. I’m not trying to just get clicks, nor am I willing to recommend products or services that I wouldn’t use myself.
I truly appreciate your support in buying and signing up for products or services through my affiliate links. If you ever have a bad experience with any of these companies, please let me know. It is important to me that I only recommend and represent great companies that maintain high standards of support and service.
As a customer of Dreamhost, we automatically receive affiliate opportunities for referring customers to them.
We are part of the Constant Contact partner program, and certified to provide services for their products, we have extensive training from our past participation in their Authorized Local Experts program.
Email Service Providers
Sign Up for a FREE 60 day trial account of Constant Contact.
The free trial lets you take the Email Plus package for a spin, which includes:
- 60-day free trial (starts when you sign up)
- Unlimited contact upload
- No functionality limits
- Unlimited sending, publishing, and scheduling of all campaign types
- Trial send limit of 100 contacts
Stock Photography
Deposit Photos is a stock photography site, similar to several out there. However, they have some great deals at times and I really like their infographic templates and flat vector illustrations for technology topics. Sign up here via my referral link: http://depositphotos.com?ref=8627856
AppSumo
I have picked up so many digital services and tools through this marketplace. Some of them have been a bit less that ideal, but most of them have been fantastic, with companies that are growing and innovating regularly. At least two of the tools I recommend on this page are from lifetime deals I got through AppSumo. Sign up here via my referral link: https://appsumo.com/r/cofssbe/
Web Hosting
My favorite WordPress hosting company is hands down WPEngine. I’ve migrated several clients from slow hosting or badly managed (GD… cough), services to their platform. Their basic service is about 38% faster on those migrated sites than the previous hosting, and their basic ecommerce service is great for Woocommerce stores. One client with a lot of store traffic moved to a WPEngine custom plan, from an extremely complicated and overly expensive cloud service, and saw not only a massive increase in performance, but also got a dedicated support team and saved money. They specialize in WordPress sites and it shows.
I started using Dreamhost several years ago for a personal blog. I kept using them when I started my business because they have that combination of geek joy and dedication to their customers that resonates with me. While I’ve noticed a trend lately of more tiered services, rather than giving you all the options in one bucket, their VPS hosting service performs really well and is easy to use. Their account types are mostly straightforward and affordable. I no longer recommend their basic DreamPress plan. If you want their managed DreamPress hosting, go with DreamPress Plus or higher, especially with an online store. Or frankly, pay a little bit more and use WPEngine if you do ecommerce.
The HOTH Blog Writing Service
Great, consistent blog posts are so important, but many of the small business owners I talk to don’t know where to start and don’t have time to stay consistent. While I can write content too, I’ve been really impressed with the quality of content available from The HOTH. It is written with SEO in mind and I love when my clients use their service because it makes my job of putting blog posts on sites really easy. The quality of their writers and editors has impressed me.
WebinarNinja
I love how this company handled a major upgrade of their platform and how responsive they are to user feedback. They also provide a platform for increasing the visibility of webinars created by their customers via their Webinar Finder. Their site is easy to use as a webinar creator, and easy for attendees too. You can read my more complete review on G2. “WebinarNinja easily allows you to host, share and attend webinars with no worries. Get started today and create your first webinar in 10 seconds.”
WebinarNinja Home Page
WiseStamp
WiseStamp is a web browser extension that creates a stylish, professional email signature quickly and easily. It has templates and several add-ons to let you customize email signatures for various purposes.
All you have to do is plug some basic information into a form, add professional social media links, and then choose a template. I always advocate that you share your website links in all your emails. This is a great way to share your social media profiles too. My only dissatisfaction with them is that they occasionally hit me with ads during extension updates, but it hasn’t been obnoxious enough to make me give up on them.
WiseStamp works on Firefox, Google Chrome, and RockMelt.
https://www.wisestamp.com/?referring_feature=friends-of-Paula-Sageser
Amazon
First off, I love Amazon Prime. If you buy a lot through Amazon, the membership fee more than pays for itself.
Shop Amazon – Give the Gift of Amazon Prime
Now on to books:
In this book, a truly remarkable business guru talks about the importance of passion and purpose guiding start ups, not money. Those that succeed are in business for the right reasons. This helped me make better decisions when I decided to take the leap into starting my own business.
Do you have things on your website that might annoy or confuse your visitors? This book has great advice to help you build better content like labels for buttons that make sense and get clicked.
Be a Better Presenter
The overall advice in this book is great, but I love it because of the extra help with presenting on more technical topics. Be more engaging and interesting.
A friend recommended this book several years ago because it taught her strategies to keep her cool when dealing with difficult people during tense work confrontations. I found it valuable in helping me learn to be more objective and avoid making assumptions in many aspects of my life.
Guy Kawasaki is one of the names that comes up most often when people talk about Social Media experts. The advice in this book will help you make sure your time spent on social media is not wasted. There is an art to doing it right and a joy to be found in making social media work for you.