Toolbox

Introduction

These are the tools I use daily through my Sidekick Program to help WooCommerce store owners build a Marketing-first Website, sell more products, speed up their websites, and reduce technical headaches. Whether you need help setting them up, integrating them into your workflow, or advice on how to use them effectively, I can guide you through the process. Together, we’ll ensure your store runs at its best—so you can focus on growing your business.

Page Builders and Design Tools

• Bricks Builder A fast, lightweight visual page builder for WordPress, allowing you to design fully responsive websites without coding. This tool is a critical part of building a Marketing-first Website that’s optimized for speed and conversions.
  Alternatives: Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi
• Automatic CSS A utility framework that simplifies CSS management, making it easier to style your site consistently and efficiently across all devices. Ensures your site looks great across all platforms, contributing to a seamless user experience—a key element of the Marketing-first Website methodology.
  Alternatives: Core Framework, TailwindCSS, Bootstrap

Funnels and Automations

• FunnelKit Funnel Builder Build high-converting sales funnels for WooCommerce, designed to increase sales and maximize order value with upsells, downsells, and order bumps. Sales funnels are a core aspect of the Marketing-first Website methodology, designed to guide visitors through a structured path to purchase.
  Alternatives: Thrive Architect, ClickFunnels
• FunnelKit Automations Automate your email marketing and customer follow-up sequences, ensuring your store generates sales with minimal effort. These automations are essential to keeping your Marketing-first Website working in the background, turning visitors into repeat customers and keeping sales flowing.
  Alternatives: ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, Mailchimp
• FunnelKit Cart Optimizes the WooCommerce cart and checkout process, reducing abandonment rates and increasing conversions with a streamlined experience, including a slide-out cart. A well-optimized checkout is vital to the Marketing-first Website approach, helping you increase your average order value and minimize cart abandonment.
  Alternatives: Side Cart for WooCommerce, CartPops

Performance Optimization

• FlyingPress A premium caching plugin that significantly speeds up your website by optimizing everything from images to scripts. Speed is critical for a Marketing-first Website—faster load times lead to higher conversion rates.
  Alternatives: WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache
• Flying CDN Flying CDN is a white-label for Cloudflare Enterprise, providing enterprise-level CDN features for an affordable price, helping deliver your website’s content faster to users worldwide. Essential for ensuring your Marketing-first Website performs well globally, reducing load times for your audience wherever they are.
  Alternatives: BunnyCDN, StackPath
• ShortPixel Image Optimizer Compresses and optimizes your images without sacrificing quality, speeding up your website’s load times. Image optimization is part of ensuring your Marketing-first Website loads quickly, improving the user experience and conversion rates.
  Alternatives: Imagify, Smush, EWWW Image Optimizer

Email and Communication

• Mailgun A reliable email delivery service ensuring your transactional and marketing emails reach customers’ inboxes without delay. A must-have tool to support the automated email sequences you’ll set up with your Marketing-first Website strategy.
  Alternatives: SendGrid, Amazon SES, Postmark
• FluentSMTP A free SMTP plugin that integrates with major email providers to improve email deliverability and ensure WooCommerce notifications are reliably sent. Ensuring proper email delivery is critical for the success of automations built into a Marketing-first Website.
  Alternatives: WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP, Easy WP SMTP
• FluentForms A user-friendly form builder plugin for creating custom forms, surveys, and quizzes on your website. Lead generation forms are a key component of your Marketing-first Website, ensuring you capture potential customers and nurture them through email automations.
  Alternatives: Gravity Forms, WPForms, Ninja Forms
• FluentBooking An all-in-one appointment and booking management plugin that allows users to schedule services or appointments directly through your website. Perfect for service-based businesses within a Marketing-first Website framework, ensuring smooth booking experiences for clients.
  Alternatives: Amelia, Bookly, Simply Schedule Appointments

Hosting and Security

• GridPane A high-performance hosting management platform designed for serious WordPress users, helping you manage and optimize server performance for fast, secure sites. Reliable hosting is the foundation of a fast, secure Marketing-first Website.
  Alternatives: RunCloud, Cloudways, SpinupWP
• WP Armour A lightweight anti-spam plugin that protects your website’s forms from spambots, ensuring clean and secure submissions. Keeps your forms—essential to your Marketing-first Website—free from spam and functioning properly.
  Alternatives: Akismet, CleanTalk, Antispam Bee

Project Management

• Trello A project management tool that helps organize tasks, collaborate with clients, and keep everything on track through an intuitive, card-based system. Critical for managing the ongoing tasks and updates needed to keep a Marketing-first Website optimized and running smoothly.
  Alternatives: Asana, Monday.com, ClickUp

eCommerce Tools

• WooCommerce The most popular eCommerce platform for WordPress, enabling you to sell products, manage orders, and grow your business online. At the heart of every Marketing-first Website for product-based businesses, WooCommerce provides the flexibility and scalability needed to drive sales.
  Alternatives: Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento

Media Players

• Presto Player A flexible and fast video player plugin that integrates seamlessly with WordPress, helping you deliver high-quality video content without slowing down your site. It’s also perfect for adding videos to online courses if you’re creating video-based learning content. Video is an important tool in your Marketing-first Website, helping build trust and engage customers with high-quality content.
  Alternatives: VideoPress, FV Player, JW Player

Let me help you integrate these tools

If you need help setting up or integrating any of these tools into your WooCommerce store, I’m here to help. Through my Sidekick Program, I can get you set up, offer strategic advice on how to use these tools effectively, and help you grow your business.

Learn more about my Sidekick Program below.