Website Hosts
If you want to create a custom store or use a platform with no hosting, you'll have to take care of that yourself. There are many options out there, but we recommend you go with either SiteGround or Bluehost.
Disclaimer: Just so you know, some of the links featured are affiliate links
Summary:
if you want the industry leader, use SiteGround. If you want a free domain name, use Bluehost. If you want the most optimized solution, use WP Engine.
SiteGround is an internationally recognized hosting company known for its high-performance hosting and 24/7 customer service. SiteGround's performance is impressive, with 99.99% uptime, a free SSL certificate and responsive support, but you have to pay extra for a domain name. If you want to use the industry leader, use SiteGround.
Price: Starting from $2.99/month.
Visit SiteGround
Bluehost is one of the largest and most trusted web hosting services powering millions of websites. They have 24/7 customer support, and comes with a free SSL certificate and a free domain name. If you want a cheap but high-quality option with a free domain name, choose Bluehost.
Price: Starting from $3.95/month.
Visit Bluehost
WP Engine only hosts WordPress sites (including WooCommerce), which means its entire service is optimized to make WordPress run its best. While it's considerably more expensive than other options, starting at $35/month, it takes care of almost everything for you - caching, security patches, updates and more. If you want an all-in-one solution specifically optimised for Wordpress, use WP Engine.
Price: Starting from $35/month.
Visit WP Engine
Domain Registrars
Your domain name is an important part of your brand, affecting whether customers see you as trustworthy or not. It will stay with you for your store's lifetime, so picking the right name from the right host is vital. Domain registrars make sure you are getting the best deal available.
Summary:
If you want a minimalist solution, use Namecheap. If you want multiple features, use GoDaddy.
Namecheap is an affordable domain registrar that is very good at what it does. If you need a no frills registrar that provides a user-friendly interface and minimizes upsell tactics, Namecheap might be a fitting choice for you.
Price: Starting from $10.98 for .com domains.
Visit namecheap
GoDaddy is a popular domain registrar, but also has many other features such as web hosting, web security and SEO consulting, so it could fit in many categories. If you plan on using all of these extra services from one source, then GoDaddy is your go to.
Price: Starting from $11.99 for .com domains.
Visit GoDaddy
Payment Processors
If you want customers to order your products, you have to give them a way to pay you. Here are a few of the most popular payment processors that you can trust to keep your customers' data secure and add money to the bank.
Summary:
If you want to accept as many payment types as possible, you can use multiple payment processors.
PayPal Standard is probably the easiest payment gateway to configure. There are no processing, authorization, and security issues for you to deal with. You just add the payment button and let PayPal handle the rest. However, your customers will be redirected to the PayPal website to pay, which makes the checkout experience less streamlined. To keep customers on your store, you will have to pay extra $30/month for PayPal Pro.
Price: Transaction Fees of 2.9% + $0.30.
Visit PayPal
Stripe is the most popular alternative to PayPal, as it lets customers make payments on-site without the monthly fee like PayPal Pro. However, Stripe is targeted at developers, meaning it can be more difficult to configure. Despite this, it's one of the best options out there.
Price: Transaction Fees of 2.9% + $0.30.
Visit Stripe
BrainTree is another convenient and flexible platform that lets you accept payments. It's owned by PayPal, so you can accept PayPal payments and get top notch security. It also lets customers pay on-site, making it another popular choice when trying to streamline the checkout process.
Price: Transaction Fees of 2.9% + $0.30.
Visit Braintree
Amazon Pay is another well-known payment processing system, giving you extra credibility from the Amazon name. It lets you accept payments in any way that Amazon accepts payments, meaning you will stay on the forefront of payment processing.
Price: Transaction Fees of 2.9% + $0.30 & $25/month.
Visit Amazon Pay
Email Marketing Software
Email is the king of the marketing world, with an ROI of $38 for every $1 spent. If you're not taking advantage of email marketing, you're leaving out an extremely powerful tool.
Summary:
If you need complex tools, use Klaviyo. Otherwise, use the simple and effective market leader, MailChimp.
MailChimp is the perfect email marketing solution for small businesses on a tight budget. They give you all the essentials you need to get your email campaigns up and running. You can create a free account, which lets you send up to 12,000 emails a month to up to 2,000 subscribers. Once you outgrow that, their paid plans let you send an unlimited number of emails starting from $10/month based on list size.
Price: Free.
Visit MailChimp
Klaviyo is made for email marketing automation. While a bit more pricey than MailChimp, it comes with its own benefits. It has effective segmentation tools, powerful A/B testing, as well as advanced reporting possibilities to understand your most successful campaigns. Klaviyo is the best choice for larger companies that need in-depth reporting. It's free for your first 250 subscribers.
Price: Starting from $25/month.
Visit Klaviyo
Aritic PinPoint is a full-stack marketing automation software platform for marketing operations teams. It has landing page builder, lead scoring, lead tracking, lead nurturing, email campaign, email campaign automation, a/b testing features with mobile optimized interface. Salesforce, SugarCRM, Zoho CRM, and Social integrations like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are also included.
Starting from $19/month
Visit Aritic PinPoint
Shopify Apps
If you decided to create your store with Shopify, then you already know about their huge app marketplace. Here are some great apps that we definitely recommend installing to boost your sales. If you are looking for even more Shopify apps to add to your store, here is a list of our favorite Shopify apps.
Summary:
Browse the Shopify app store to find many other apps to benefit your store
Limespot is an app for Shopify and BigCommerce that uses artificial intelligence and A/B testing to show your customers personalised product recommendations in real-time. The best thing is that you don't have to pay the subscription fee if it doesn't earn you 5x that amount!
Price: Starting from $10/month.
Visit Limespot
Wheelio is a fun plugin that gamifies the pop-up experience. This app lets you distribute discount codes and collect subscribers at the same time, in an interactive way. It boasts a conversion rate 5x over the industry standard for pop-ups. Wheelio is free to test for 7 days.
Price: Starting from $14.92/month.
Visit Wheelio
Boldapps has a set of tools for Shopify users that allow for upselling, recurring orders, loyalty points, product options and recurring memberships, and more.
Price: Starting from $5/month.
Visit Boldapps
WooCommerce Plugins
WooCommerce has its own marketplace of plugins that you can use to enhance your website. If you need more, here is a list of 10 WooCommerce plugins for your store.
Summary:
Browse the WordPress app store to find many other plugins to benefit your store.
OptinMonster is a powerful targeting and segmentation engine that lets you show personalized messages to customers based on their behavior. This maximizes engagement, conversions, and sales.
Price: Starting from $9/month.
Visit OptinMonster
A simple but overlooked part of any website is the FAQ section. Ultimate FAQ is a free solution that lets you quickly build an FAQ section for your site. This will make sure your customers understand your products and services without taking up your time with unnecessary support questions.
Price: Free.
Visit Ultimate FAQ
Etsy Seller Apps
Just because you're selling on a marketplace doesn't mean there aren't a ton of awesome apps you can use to grow your business. You can see a full list of our top 10 Etsy seller apps here.
The term ‘Etsy' and other Etsy graphics are trademarks of Etsy, Inc. This application uses the Etsy API but is not endorsed or certified by Etsy, Inc.
Summary:
Browse Etsy's seller apps to find many other apps to benefit your store.
Marmalead gets your products found by customers through SEO. They use machine learning to analyze what customers are searching for, and then help you match your product listing to what shoppers are looking for. They have a few tools for free, but their real business plan starts at $19/month.
Price: Free.
Visit Marmalead
Seller Tools is a one-stop shop that covers everything from social media to coupons to market research and SEO for your Etsy store. Some tools are free, others start at $9.95/month.
Price: Free.
Visit Seller Tools
Landing Page Builders
A landing page is a stand-alone page of your site designed with a single, focused purpose. When you promote your site, you want to send people to a landing page where you get people to make a specific action, like join your mailing list or webinar.
Summary:
For a basic landing page builder, use Leadpages. If you plan to build complete sales funnels, use ClickFunnels.
Use Leadpages to create landing pages that drive traffic, collect emails, and ultimately increase sales. Leadpages give you heaps of templates that you can use for lead magnets, webinars, and landing pages to grow your email list.
Price: Starting from $25/month.
Visit Leadpages
ClickFunnels doesn't just build landing pages, it also lets you build a full sales funnel. This means it takes your customers from a landing page all the way to the checkout. It's packed with pre-made templates that you can customize. It's a bit on the pricey side, but the tools are simple and powerful.
Price: Starting from $99/month.
Visit ClickFunnels
Analytics Software
You can make as many changes to your site as you want but if you don’t analyze the results, then it's impossible to really tell what's working and why. These tools will make sure you see exactly what happens when you make a change on your site.
Summary:
Use Google Analytics in combination with a heatmap tool like Inspectlet or Crazy Egg.
Google Analytics is a must for everyone with an online presence. It's a free web analytics tool that gives you detailed statistics about activity on your site. It tells you where your users come from, how long they spend on your site and what they do while they are there, all for free. We also have a blog post about Google Analytics basics.
Price: Free.
Visit Google Analytics
A heatmap tool is the easiest and most beginner-friendly way to start using analytics to make your sites better. You can track how users act on your site and make changes to optimize it. Inspectlet gives you this for free, and has better paid plans starting from $39/month.
Price: Free.
Visit Inspectlet
Crazy Egg is another powerful heatmap tool. They have many different types of heat map like confetti, clickmaps, and scroll maps that give valuable insights. Their data and reporting tools are also top-notch. Crazy Egg also has an built-in A/B testing tool, which is amazing for small businesses.
Price: Starting from $29/month.
Visit Crazy Egg
Reviews
90% of consumers look at reviews before buying. If you don't have reviews for your product, then you could be missing out on a ton of sales from skeptical buyers. The more reviews your current customers give, the greater social proof you'll have, and the higher your sales will be.
Summary:
If you want to focus on reviews and social proof, use Yotpo. If you want to focus on conversions through email, use Conversio.
Yotpo helps store owners generate product reviews which they can then easily share to their Facebook and Twitter profiles to drive new traffic and sales. Yotpo is free and helps you leverage the power of social proof to increase trust and sell more. They also have premium plans to really help your business grow.
Price: Free.
Visit Yotpo
Conversio is a marketing dashboard for ecommerce stores that will help raise your recurring revenue with review emails, cart abandonment emails, and more. Conversio has a 30-day free trial.
Price: starting from $20/month.
Visit Conversio
SEO Software
When people google something related to your site, you want to make sure your site pops up. To do this, you need to focus on search engine optimization and make sure your business ranks higher in search results. Tools can help you see how optimized your site is, what words shoppers are searching for, and more.
Summary:
If you are an SEO expert, use Ahrefs. Otherwise, use SEMRush.
SEMrush has the easiest reporting compared to the other SEO tools on the market. With great analytics about backlinks, keyword research and more, it’s perfect for beginner or intermediate SEO marketers.
Price: Starting from $99/month.
Visit Semrush
Ahrefs has a ton of in-depth analytics and features that SEO experts will love, like KW research, backlink analysis, KW analysis, and SERP feature analysis. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you don’t have a deep background in SEO.
Price: Starting from $99/month.
Visit Ahrefs
Freelancing Services
You don't have to do everything yourself when creating a business. There are many different experts out there who are able to complete just about any task that you don't have the the time or expertise to do.
Summary:
Use Fiverr to find freelancers who specialize in a specific gig, or Upwork to post your own job that needs to be done.
Fiverr lets you hire a freelancer to complete almost any task. You can browse the homepage and category pages, or use the search to find a freelancer or gig. Popular search categories include graphic design, voiceovers, and content creation, but there is much, much more that you can explore.
Price: Varies.
Visit Fiverr
Upwork lets you find freelancers in two different ways. You can either browse their list of freelancers to contact individually, or you can create your own job listing. Upwork also offers short, comprehensive training modules to teach you the most efficient way to get the most suitable freelancers for your job.
Price: Varies.
Visit Upwork
Social Media Publishers
Your store won't succeed without a social media presence. Constantly posting on social media increases brand awareness, builds relationships, boosts SEO, and more. Using a scheduler will let you form a defined strategy, post consistently, and save time.
Buffer lets you publish and schedule content to social networks. Their free plan works for up to three social media accounts and lets you have up to ten posts scheduled at a time. If you want to start getting more in-depth analytics, you will have to upgrade to one of their Pro plans, starting from $15/month. If you want something basic, then use Buffer.
Price: Free.
Visit Buffer
HootSuite is a more complete social media management platform, a step up from Buffer. It goes further with powerful collaboration tools for teams, as well as powerful analytics reports. Hootsuite has a limited free plan and 30-day free trial for paid plans from $29/month.
Price: Free.
Visit Hootsuite
SproutSocial is a step up from Hootsuite, a social media management and optimization platform aimed at larger businesses and enterprises. They have a built-in CRM system to engage with users, a clean UI making it easy to publish across multiple platforms seamlessly, and in-depth analytics.
Price: Starting from $99/month.
Visit SproutSocial