Resources I Love

Tools I use + happily recommend

Here it is! A list of tools I use in my business β€” for myself and my clients β€” which I happily and whole-heartedly recommend.

Just so there are no surprises…

Some of the links I share are affiliate links. This means at no extra cost to you if you click on one and make a purchase I may receive a small commission or free month or two to a subscription I love.

πŸŽ‰ CONTENT SNARE

No more chasing content from clients! It used to be the absolute bane of my existence – until I discovered a total game-changer: Content Snare. Now, I get the content I need, how I need it, when I need it. It’s like having a magical VA who keeps everything on trackβ€”without me lifting a finger. πŸ’ƒ

Test it anytime with a free trial, but even better… Use this coupon to get 50% off for 3 months:

  1. Register for a Content Snare free trial​
  2. Click your Avatar (top right next to β€œAdd New”)
  3. Click Upgrade
  4. Choose your plan (make sure to select monthly, not yearly prices)
  5. Click Apply coupon and enter: SYE4JACT1SRX

πŸ™Œ Elegant Themes (Divi)

Home to the theme and page builder I couldn’t run my business without… Divi! Divi makes building websites a breeze, allowing designers like us to build WordPress websites ourselves WITHOUT CODE. Check out my live Divi run-through to see how easy it is.

🧰 Setapp

Setapp is like Netflix for Mac apps. You pay one monthly fee and get access to a curated library of genuinely useful tools. It’s saved me a small fortune in separate app subscriptions.

Some of my most-used apps inside Setapp include TextSniper (copy text from any image or non-selectable PDF), CleanShot X (next-level screenshots and screen recordings), Paste (clipboard history you didn’t know you needed), Sip (easy-peasy colour picker, and PDF Squeezer (compress massive PDFs in seconds).

βœ‚οΈ TextSniper

TextSniper lets you copy text from anywhere on your screen, even from images or non-selectable PDFs. A quiet little productivity hero when you’re pulling content from random places. Use code EMMA15 for 15% off.

πŸ’Œ GOOGLE WORKSPACE

I use Google Workspace for all my emails. For years I had dramas with deliverability, downtime and most-annoyingly, big headaches trying to send emails from my phone while out and about. It’s also best practice NOT to host your emails and website in the same place. With Google Workspace, I’ve solved both of these issues and I’ve never looked back!

PS. If you’d like a sneaky discount code, shoot me an email and let me know what country you’re in, and I’ll send you a discount code to use in your region.

⚑ ​SUPERHUMAN​

Email on rocket fuel. Hooks straight into your existing setup (like Google Workspace). It’s slick, super clean, lightning-fast – and the keyboard shortcuts? Life-changing.

βš™οΈ trello

This project management system helps you crush your goals and keep track of all your ongoing tasks in one place. I use it to keep myself organised, collaborate with my VA, as well as for managing client projects (you can copy the board I use to gather content from clients here).

πŸ” LastPassΒ 

Having weak passwords or sharing them insecurely is a big no-no in the web world! LastPass helps me store hard-to-guess and auto-generated passwords easily. I have separate folders for my biz, personal, and clients, which makes logging into a bazillion websites each day both secure and a total breeze.

✍️ The Copy Bar

Love my emails? Ashley from The Copy Bar is a genius and my go-to for plug-and-play welcome sequences, re-engagement series, and pretty much any email or copywriting template you can think of.

Her templates save you hours of staring at a blinking cursor, and they’re designed to help your emails and website copy actually sound like your brand personality and are optimised to convert.

πŸ“„ Termageddon

Termageddon creates and automatically updates website legal policies (think privacy policy, terms, disclaimers, and cookie notices) so you’re not stuck copying random templates from Google and hoping for the best. They have a brilliant referral program too so you can re-sell these templates to all your web clients and earn some sweet passive income.

With my link, you get 2 complimentary sets of policies for life β€”use one for yourself and on-sell the other to a client for ~$190+ per year!Β 

πŸ’Έ Wise

Wise makes it simple (and usually far cheaper) to send and receive money internationally, without the sneaky exchange rate markups the big banks love.

If you join through my link, you get to choose your Wise reward: a free transfer of up to A$1,000, or a Wise card (if it’s available in your region). Win-win.

🧭 Hoverify

If you design websites, Hoverify is one of those β€œhow did I live without this?” tools. My favourite feature is being able to view how a webpage looks on 5+ screen sizes at once. It’s such a time-saver. Perfect for sense-checking responsive layouts without constantly resizing your browser.

🌐 SiteGround

SiteGround is one of my most preferred WordPress host. I host pretty much all my clients’ websites with them. They also have amazing affiliate and reseller programs for designers. Definitely worth checking out!

πŸŽ† Raw Pixel

A great stock photo website with both free and paid plans.

πŸŒ… Unsplash

My absolute favourite and 100% free stock photo website.Β 

🎨 Coolors

Coolors is my go-to for building color palettes quickly. Tap the space bar and generate endless combinations, then refine from there. Try out their free Color Contrast Checker β€” it’s brilliant for making sure your palette is actually accessible, not just pretty.

πŸ›’ woocommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. I use Woo for my selling my courses, products, summit tickets, etc. as well as on my clients’ websites who sell both physical and digital products. Oh and you can use it for free for life! But if you want some extra features there are heaps of awesome paid add-ons.

πŸ’³ stripe

Although I think it’s important to offer PayPal as a payment option on your websites (as many people trust PayPal more than others),Β  Stripe actually my preferred payment processor. It’s super easy to set up, automatically transfers fund into your nominated bank account and you can easily set up one-off or recurring payments, like monthly payments for ongoing web maintenance or your other packages.

πŸ“¦ dropbox

Since using Dropbox I rarely take a time machine backup of my Mac. That’s because ALL of my files are automatically backed up and stored securely in the cloud with Dropbox. It gives me peace of mind knowing everything is safely stored. I can also easily share files with my clients via a unique link.

😍 Fluent Forms

When you start using this beautiful, effortless WP forms plugin you’ll immediately think β€œwhere have you been all my life?” At least that’s what I did. A long-term Gravity Forms loyal, I jumped ship when I saw how pretty Fluent forms were out of the box. No CSS required. Plus you can create conversational forms easily (like TypeForm).

There are both free and pro versions. I have the paid version but you can always start with the free version, and upgrade if you ever wish to. I can’t recommend this plugin enough.

Want more?

Here are even more tools & plugins I LOVE…