Our tech stack

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I have a confession to make. I obsessed over the tech for this blog for months, and once I had chosen a few things and started using them other alternatives came into play so I modified my choices.

Website

Domain Name

I am using Namecheap for most of my domains. I started with Network solutions, yep, I’m that old. Google domains is another popular option.

Hosting

I finally chose Cloudways, even though it was less user friendly than other options. It was a little confusing at first but several searches on Google finally got me sorted. For other small simple websites I use Dreamhost which is suggested as a good host by WordPress.org.

CDN

Cloudflare, the free option.

Theme

The Kadence theme has a free version but I invested in Kadence Pro last year for another project. I got the Lifetime license for a great deal and I build most of my websites with this theme. It lets me configure headers and footers just the way I like them. They’ve added a ton of designs to their starter templates, which helps a lot. I only wish they had more templates specifically for blogging.

Email Marketing

I chose ConvertKit last year, however I only tried out the free plan until recently when I discovered you need to be kind to your readers and create nurture sequences for them. This requires automations and that is not allowed in the free plan. The one addition I’d like for them to make is to be able to do custom unsubscribe pages.

Graphic Design

Canva

I use Canva for pretty much anything that has to do with my business, from the logo to the mockups for the lead magnets I can do it easily with Canva. You can mostly get by with the free version, but I needed a lot more options once I started this blog so I splurged for the Canva Pro subscription. Haven’t looked back.

Squash

This is a simple tool by Realmac Software. It lets you optimize your images, from resizing to compressing to renaming and placing in a specific folder. It will even convert your file to Webp which is the current preferred image type.

Adobe Creative Suite

I generally use Adobe if I need to open a template or file that is in that format. But this is an expensive subscription to have. I had dreams of becoming an Illustrator Master but I really don’t have the time for that these days. So goodbye dreams, hello blog business.