Welcome to the Small Business Starter Kit
Building your online business may seem both exciting and intimidating. You have so much potential and yet there are an over-abundance of tools and services that you can use.
How do you know which ones to choose?
Over the years, I’ve tried and tested many WordPress plugins, services, and tools. The items you see listed below are where I’ve settled on the best resources for me. I’m happy to recommend them to you.
NOTE: Click the Scroll to Top button on the right bottom corner to return to the table of contents.
Business Formation & Registered Agent Service
If you're considering forming an LLC, you may be wondering if you should hire a registered agent service. We recommend hiring Northwest Registered Agent for the best price and customer service.
Northwest Registered Agent provides the following core services:
- LLC formation service
- Registered Agent service
- Address privacy (keeps your address off the public record)
- Lifetime customer support
- Annual Report reminders
- Online document dashboard
Northwest is a leader in the industry, providing quality formation and registered agent services at an affordable price. They provide excellent customer service, lifetime support, and annual report reminders to help keep your LLC in good standing. You can easily access your important documents in one place with the online document dashboard.
- Premium registered agent service
- Top Notch Customer Service
- Don’t make your address public
- They keep your customer data private
- Offices in every state
- No hidden fees
- Same-day scanning of received mail
- 100% error-free guarantee
- Free legal forms
- Reliable LLC formation service
- Business formation experts
- Annual report service
- Some other agencies have cheaper prices
WordPress Hosting
Cloudways makes it easy to find the best-performing web hosting providers so you can get the best performance for your website. They offer friendly support, speedy performance, and enterprise-grade security to give you the best web hosting experience possible. And with New Relic server monitoring and metrics, you can keep an eye on your site 24/7.
You choose which data center is right for your server, and you can always scale up as your site grows.
Sign up today and see how Cloudways can help you create a high-performance website for less than many shared hosting providers.
- FAST Performance
- Reliable hosting with excellent uptime
- Inexpensive compared to other hosts
- More server resources than managed WordPress hosting
- Scalable so you can add more resources
- No long term contracts
- Limited trial period
- Complex setup for new users
- Custom (non-standard) user interface
- They don’t sell domains
Email Service Provider
If you're a creative person who wants to start building an email list, ConvertKit is the perfect solution for you.
With a free account for up to 1,000 subscribers, you can get started without breaking the bank. And if you're ready for more features, there's a low-priced plan for only $9/month.
ConvertKit makes it easy to integrate with other services and create landing pages and opt-in forms to grow your list. Marketing automation lets you create workflows to send the right message to the right person.
And if you're running an e-commerce business, you can use ConvertKit as your shopping cart. Sign up for ConvertKit today and start building your list and your sales.
Email deliverability: 93%
- The free trial (and free plan) makes it easy to start
- Easy to use
- Plenty of integrations with other tools and services
- Embeddable forms and landing pages to include on my blog
- eCommerce built-in
- Enhanced email designer
- Excellent support and tutorials
- It’s not a CRM to manage customers
- Lead scoring is only on the most expensive plan
Course/Membership Platform
Searchie is the perfect solution for membership, coaching, and course platforms. It's reliable, easy to use, and packed with features,
With Searchie, you can easily import videos from other sources like Zoom, Facebook, or Vimeo. Plus, you can create beautiful hubs with content for your students or members to enjoy. And because Searchie is self-hosted, you can be sure that your videos are always available and never go down.
- Easy to use
- Search within video or audio to find the content you want
- Video & Audio hosting
- Automatic transcription
- Ad-free
- Unlimited video uploads using Searchie Chrome extension
- May allow users to download video, audio, or text transcript
- Works great on mobile devices
- No transaction fees
- Searchie Academy training to learn how to build your hub
- Use your own domain
- No community features
- Free trial, but no free plan
- Hubs must be Public or Private only
- SSL requires Cloudflare DNS
Shopping Cart Service
ThriveCart is the easiest funnel builder and sales cart service I've found. It operates on a robust platform, so you don't need to dedicate your WordPress server resources to keep it going. It also has a course platform included with the cart service.
As a Lifetime Deal, you pay once and use it forever.
ThriveCart is packed with features to help you succeed online. With an easy-to-use interface, you can create beautiful carts optimized for conversion. Plus, integrations with major payment processors make it easy to start selling immediately.
- Lifetime Deal - One Payment
- Funnel system is easy to use
- Rock-solid uptime
- Very secure
- Works with many payment gateways
- Integrates with many other SaaS platforms for courses, email, or memberships
- Included course platform
- Friendly customer support
- Upsell for additional features
WordPress Theme
If you're looking for a powerful WordPress theme that can help you create any kind of site quickly and easily, the Kadence Theme is definitely worth checking out.
It integrates well with plugins like LearnDash, so you can easily create a learning management system (LMS) site or use the free Starter Templates to create a site for just about anything else.
Plus, with the FREE Kadence Blocks plugin, you can take full advantage of the Gutenberg editor to easily create beautiful pages and posts.
You can upgrade to the PRO version for most features to create Mega Menus, hooked elements, and much more.
WordPress Plugins
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FREE!Get Them for FREE!Kadence Blocks are the perfect way to build beautiful pages and posts in WordPress. With a wide range of free blocks, you can do a lot with Kadence Blocks, but there are even more advanced options when you're ready to upgrade.
Kadence Blocks makes it easy to create beautiful pages with WordPress. With a wide range of blocks, you can easily add text, images, videos, and more to your page. Kadence Blocks is perfect for building pages for your business, blog, or online store.
When you're ready to take your WordPress pages to the next level, Kadence Blocks has you covered. Also, Kadence Blocks and other Gutenberg tools are much lighter than page builders, so your site speed will fly!
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$59/yearBuy Now
If you’re looking for a WordPress plugin to create forms that are both user-friendly and informative, look no further than Fluent Forms.
With Fluent Forms, you can create all sorts of forms, from conversational ones to multi-step forms. You can also add calculation fields and receive SMS notifications when someone submits a form. So why choose Fluent Forms over other similar plugins?
For starters, the forms are easy to use and very user-friendly. Your visitors will have no problem filling out the form, and you’ll be able to gather all the information you need without any hassle.
Secondly, our plugin is highly customizable. You can change the colors, fonts, and layout of the form to match your site branding.
Finally, save 20% when you apply our coupon code - BEEM - at checkout.
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4.5$36.75
Is your WordPress site running slow? If so, you need WP Rocket, the best caching plugin to optimize the performance of WordPress sites. With WP Rocket, you can improve your page load times, reduce stress on your server, and improve your Google PageSpeed score.
Best of all, WP Rocket is easy to use and doesn't require any coding knowledge. Just install and activate the plugin, and you're ready to go!
Make My WordPress Site Faster!Pros:- Improve site speed
- Integrates with Cloudflare
- Easiest cache tool to use
Cons:- Some beta features may break site display
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4.5Get Started for FREE!
Like most people, you're always looking for ways to make your website faster and more efficient. ShortPixel is a WordPress plugin that can help you do just that. It optimizes and compresses images using next-gen image formats, which can reduce the load time of your page.
This is especially important if you have a lot of high-resolution images on your site. ShortPixel can help ensure they load quickly and smoothly without sacrificing quality.
In addition to speed, ShortPixel also offers peace of mind. With its easy-to-use interface, it's simple to optimize your images with just a few clicks.
Start for FreePros:- Multiple compression options
- Next-Gen Image formats
- Improves site speed
Cons:- Initial installation may require the purchase of credits if you have many images to compress
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FREE (Pro $59/year)Buy Now
If you're serious about ranking higher in search engines, you need Rank Math SEO. This easy-to-use WordPress plugin gives you all the tools you need to optimize your content for better search engine visibility.
Rank Math provides built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted best practices, so you can be confident that your website is optimized for maximum search visibility. You can easily customize essential SEO settings, control which pages are indexable, and choose how you want your website to appear in search results with Structured data.
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5.0Start for FREE
Looking for a reliable backup solution for your WordPress site? Look no further than UpdraftPlus! UpdraftPlus is the best backup plugin for WordPress, offering reliable and easy-to-use backups for your website.
With UpdraftPlus, you can easily schedule backups, choose where to store your backups (including off-site storage), and restore your website with just a few clicks. Plus, UpdraftPlus is constantly updated to ensure that it works with the latest WordPress versions and infrastructure.
Don't take chances with your website's data - trust the experts at UpdraftPlus to keep your site safe!
Buy NowPros:- Easy to use
- Connects with many external storage services
- Works well with Cloudflare sites (some competitors don't)
- Affordable price
- Optional dashboard to control backups on multiple websites
Cons:- Included off-site storage is only 5 GB
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$9/MonthBuy Now
If you're looking for a powerful email capture form service that can help you boost your conversion rates and grow your list, OptinMonster is the perfect solution.
With OptinMonster, you can create beautiful offers, target specific visitors, and adjust your form behavior in real-time with live testing. The wide range of features and integrations makes it easy to customize OptinMonster to fit your specific needs.
So why wait? Sign up for OptinMonster today and see the results for yourself!
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4.9$33/Month
Lasso is the perfect plugin for affiliate marketers who want to increase their sales and commission earnings. You're looking at part of it in this display box.
With Lasso, you can easily organize your links, find opportunities for more sales, and create beautiful info boxes, grids, and list posts designed to increase your conversion rate.
You'll get the most out of your affiliate marketing efforts and earn more commissions with less effort. Install Lasso on your WordPress site today and start earning more affiliate commissions tomorrow.
Buy NowPros:- High conversion compared to linked text
- Organize affiliate links
- Very lightweight for fast performance
- Beautiful info boxes, grids, and list posts
- Showcase your affiliate links or best articles
- Easily change the order or replace items in lists
- Import from PrettyLinks, EasyAzon, etc.
- Imports from PrettyLinks convert categories and tags to groups in Lasso
Cons:- No way to bulk delete broken links
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4.7$99
FluentBooking is a WordPress plugin that provides a booking calendar service similar to Calendly or Acuity Scheduling. You can have unlimited hosts (team members) and unlimited calendars.
Since it's self-hosted, there are no monthly charges or additional charges for each team member. You just pay for the license of the software and use it without additional fees, making it one of the most cost-effective booking services available.
FluentBooking is fast and won't impact your site performance. Since you host the booking form on your WordPress site, you have unlimited options to customize the landing page that hosts the booking form.
Buy Now Our ReviewPros:- Lifetime offer available
- Allows multiple team members
- Unlimited Hosts & Calendars
- Google Meet & Zoom integration
- Fluent Forms & FluentCRM integration
- Plenty of calendar integrations
Cons:We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
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$79Buy Now
If you're serious about SEO, then you know that schema markup is essential for helping search engines understand your content. And that's where Schema Pro comes in.
Schema Pro is a WordPress plugin from Brainstorm Force that makes it easy to add schema markup to your articles and reviews. With just a few clicks, you can add rich snippets to your content to make it more visible in search results. And because schema markup is constantly evolving, Schema Pro is always up-to-date with the latest changes.
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$24.95/yearBuy Now
Is your WordPress website running slow? Perfmatters is the perfect solution!
This powerful plugin optimizes performance, so your site runs faster and smoother. By eliminating needless code, Perfmatters reduces your overall number of HTTP requests and page size.
And it's super easy to use - just toggle the switches to activate or deactivate the performance optimization options.
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced webmaster, Perfmatters makes it easy to get your site running at peak efficiency. So don't wait - try Perfmatters today and see the difference!
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Buy Now
The power of social media should not be underestimated. If you're looking to drive more traffic and engage with your audience, SnapSocial is the perfect solution.
With easy-to-use controls, you can decide who shares your content and where it's shared. This can make a big difference in your online social marketing strategy. Social Snap also includes over 30 social networks and apps, so visitors can share your content however they want.
Plus, you can place share buttons anywhere on your website or blog.
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FREEBuy Now
Gutenberg is a revolutionary new way to create content for the web. And Spectra is the perfect tool to help you get the most out of it.
With Spectra, you'll have access to a library of high-quality Gutenberg blocks that you can use to create beautiful, impactful content. From stunning Call to Action buttons to powerful social media integration, Spectra has everything you need to improve your Gutenberg projects.
And best of all, Spectra is completely free! So what are you waiting for? Get started today and see how Spectra can help you unleash the power of Gutenberg.
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4.7$129/year
When it comes to providing excellent customer service, speed and efficiency are key. Fluent Support is the perfect WordPress plugin for supporting your customers.
With its fully functional support ticketing system, you can create automation to assign tickets based on specific criteria, integrate with chat and messaging services, and get detailed analytics of your support tickets.
Plus, with advanced features like collision detection, you can avoid issues with multiple agents working on the same task. Easily filter and search for tickets and integrate with FluentCRM or other services.
With Fluent Support, you can provide the fast and efficient customer service your clients deserve.
Try It Now Read Our ReviewPros:- Low cost of operation
- Multiple integrations
- Automated workflow
- Collision detection for multiple agents working same ticket
- Automatic assignment
- Portal and Email ticket entry
- Custom email notifications
- Performance reports per agent
Cons:- It only works in WordPress
- No mobile app
- No SLA support
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$69/yearlyBuy Now
Is your documentation up to date and easily accessible to your audience? If not, you need BetterDocs.
BetterDocs is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create online documentation and knowledge base articles quickly and easily.
With BetterDocs, you can use ready-made document templates, add a scrollable table of contents, and add instant answers to reduce the number of support tickets your team has to resolve. With easy-to-use editing tools, you can customize your documents to match your brand's voice and style.
BetterDocs is the perfect solution for businesses of all sizes who want to improve their documentation and knowledge base. Start today and see the difference BetterDocs makes!
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4.7$77
If you're struggling to get your website to rank higher in search engines, Link Whisper may be exactly what you need.
This powerful WordPress plugin scans your site for broken links and orphan posts, then shows you opportunities to use internal linking to improve your SEO. With Link Whisper, you can quickly fix broken links and improve your site's structure, which is vital for improving your search engine ranking.
In addition, Link Whisper makes it easy to find and add internal links to your content, helping you take advantage of one of the most important ranking factors. With its easy-to-use interface and powerful features, Link Whisper is the perfect tool for anyone serious about improving their website's ranking in search engines.
Buy Now Our ReviewPros:- Easily creates Internal Links
- Find Orphan posts without internal links
- Click Links report shows which posts are getting results
- Reports show Broken Links and 404 errors
Cons:- No reports on External Inbound Links
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$199Buy Now
FluentCommunity is a WordPress plugin by WP Manage Ninja that adds lightweight discussion and course hosting services to your site. It's lightweight and heavily influenced by Circle.so, but at a fraction of the cost.
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