Excellent Website Tools and Services I Use

If you’d like to make your own Websites and marketing campaigns, the below tools are in my opinion excellent choices.

If you’re going to hire someone (like me) to create your Website, it’s important to know what theme and plugins they’ll use. Further below I discuss why I prefer these tools over others.

Tools I Use To Create WordPress Websites

• WordPress, a Content Management System (CMS) for building and running your Website
• GeneratePress Premium WordPress Theme (Includes Sample Sites with full Website designs)
• GenerateBlocks Pro plugin
• A free MailChimp account for the email list
• The free WPForms Lite plugin for the Contact Form
• All In One SEO (AIOSEO) SEO plugin
• WPvivid Backup and Migration plugin
• The Perfmatters plugin for fine-tuning the Website’s speed
• Cloudflare.com Content Delivery Network (CDN) free version to deliver your pages faster
• Super Page Cache for Cloudflare to make Cloudflare free version serve pages even faster (install it for free at your Web Host)

Why Choose These Tools?

Of the above tools, I’ll discuss in detail WordPress, the GeneratePress Premium Theme, and the GenerateBlocks Pro plugin. (The free versions are great and may also suit your needs.) The other services and plugins can be considered when it’s time to build your Website.

Why Choose WordPress?

What Is WordPress?

WordPress is a free software called a Content Management System (CMS). WordPress manages your content by putting it where you want it, displaying it to viewers, and letting you edit your Website. WordPress resides on a disk on your Web Server, at your Web Host.

How Do You Create a WordPress Website?

• Install WordPress by logging into your Web Hosting account and clicking “Install WordPress”.
• Log into WordPress and begin to create your Website.
  • Install a WordPress Theme that contains the visual and organizational design of your Website.
  • Install WordPress Plugins, add-on programs that add functions to WordPress, such as creating a Contact Form, running an Online Store, or speeding up your Website.
• Type in or upload your content, which is your text and images.
• Set WordPress to display your Website to the world, and your Website goes live on the Internet!

Among the reasons I like WordPress:

• Everything is ready to run
• It’s free or cheap
• It works great and is easy to use (once you know it)
• Most plugins and services offer a free version
• There’s extensive documentation and free help all over the Internet

SquareSpace, Wix, and eCommerce sites like Shopify produce beautiful Websites. Yet WordPress is in my opinion the best platform because you own your domain and control the Website entirely. It’s also very versatile and suitable for fairly large online stores. WordPress is the most popular way to publish on the Web, with 40% of all sites live today.

Why Choose GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks?

GeneratePress is a WordPress Theme, and GenerateBlocks is a WordPress plugin used to create your content, consisting of graphic and text blocks inserted on your page. There are free versions of both but I prefer the paid versions, especially for their excellent tech support. They’re created by they same company and share beneficial qualities such as speed. Mostly I’ll discuss GeneratePress and its Premium version.

GeneratePress is Customizable and Includes Many Time-Saving Tools

GeneratePress is highly customizable and contains professionally designed sample Websites. Using these sample sites as templates, you can avoid the time and expense of creating a completely new design. When you do choose to create a new design, GeneratePress has lots of customization and automation features to save design and coding time. These customization features also make it easier for the Website owner to change fonts and colors, and to otherwise edit the site.

GeneratePress Runs Fast

Lots of themes offer templates and tools but GeneratePress is what’s called a Lightweight Theme. That means it’s built with code that is native to WordPress. GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks therefore run faster than sites that use lots of added code, discussed below. That translates into a fast Website, which is of the utmost importance in gaining viewers. The use of native WordPress programming code also simplifies maintaining the Website.

Lightweight Themes Versus Page Builders

Another type of theme called a Page Builder also contains full Websites and tools, generally lots and lots of them. Page Builders allow you to quickly create beautiful, sophisticated Websites with little or no coding. Popular Page Builders include Elementor, Divi and Beaver Builder, and they are all used by commercial Website Designers with excellent results. Many people are happy they chose to learn the Page Builder they settled on, just as I am happy with my (differing) choice. I feel obliged to point out you may prefer to use them rather than to follow my choices.

Yet for the reasons below, I prefer to use Lightweight Themes rather than Page Builders. There are exceptions, also discussed below.

Page Builders Add A Layer of Complexity and Code

As good as the products of Page Builders are, each one has its own specialized menus to learn. They also use additional code to create their features, and that may slow your Website. Using the publisher’s designs and code adds a layer of complexity and makes you reliant on the publisher.

If you’re creating your own Websites using a Page Builder, you may find it time-consuming to maintain, optimize and troubleshoot your Website. You may also find you can’t figure out how to speed it up on your own.

Page Builders Are Great For Some Users

If you’re always going to hire help to maintain and update your Website, it doesn’t really matter if it uses a theme that is more complicated than another. Web Developers who support Page Builders are readily available.

Small sites will probably run fast on good hardware, with little or no speed optimization. So if you want to make a small, simple Website, a Page Builder’s collection of excellent designs and ease of use may be your deciding factors.

Page Builders are not as slow as they used to be, either. Website optimization has come a long way, and so have Web Server speeds. Today I tested several Elementor sites and found them lightning fast, as they were using CloudFlare.com, a Content Delivery Network.

Page Builders Are Great For Learning Web Design

Website Designers who specialize in creating sites using the Elementor, Divi and Beaver Builder Page Builder Themes can often produce sites quickly. These sites may all be suitable for heavy public use, especially Beaver Builder sites. Many high-traffic, successful Websites were built with Page Builders.

Page Builders are great for learning Web Design, for getting ideas, and for turning out out flashy sites quickly. Personally, I may begin using Elementor to create landing pages inside my GeneratePress-built websites. Elementor has lots of beautiful designs.

If your Website is important to you and you decide you want it rebuilt in another theme, then you can just do that. It may not cost that much if you don’t have to do new design work.

Want To Bring Your Product Or Service Online?

If you’d like a Website or Blog created, or need help creating your own, just click below to drop me an email! I’ll reply as soon as possible.