These are the tools and services we use and recommend to our clients and website owners.
Domain Name
A domain name is the identity of your business on the internet. Examples of domain names are google.com, amazon.com, etc.
Here are some tips to select the domain for your brand or business.
- Try to get a .com domain. If not available, get a country-specific domain name. Like if your business is in India you can buy a domain like mybusiness.in. mybusiness.co.in.
- Try to include the brand name and your product/service/profession in your domain name. For example in our case starwebdeveloper.com, the Star is the brand name and we provide web development services so starwebdeveloper.com. Avoid names that confuse your clients. Like mybusinessconsultancy.com, mybusinessmanufacturer.com, etc.
You can buy a domain from Cloudflare.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is the computer where your website or web application lives so that everyone can access your website or web application.
Here are some tips to select the right web hosting service for your business.
- Try to purchase web hosting from reputed companies.
- Choose the server that is geographically near to your targeted customer’s location. For example, your targeted customers are from India, choose servers that are in Mumbai, Banglore, etc or near to India.
For your business website with a blog or small web application, you can choose Hostinger.
For medium to large scale projects, you can select Digital Ocean or Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate
SSL is a must for every website and web application these days. Google Search Engine algorithm considers SSL certified websites and web applications as secure. The SSL encrypts the data between the user’s browser and the server. So the middlemen cannot see or alter the sensitive data.
Most of the top web hosting companies provide an SSL certificate for free. And that is enough for small business websites.
For medium or large projects you need to buy an SSL certificate from third party vendors. We recommend Comodo.
Business Email
Instead of using [email protected] or [email protected], use [email protected]. This approach is more professional and sends a signal to your clients that you are serious about your business.
Examples of professional email addresses are:
Most shared web hosting provider comes with free webmail. You can configure it with your favorite email clients too.
We recommend using paid email hosting solution. Paid solutions are reliable, secure, and come with tons of features, that are actually useful for businesses.
Our favorite is Zoho Mail. It is free and their paid plans are cheap if you need them. Another reliable provider is Google Workspace.
Content Management System (CMS)
Nowadays most of the business websites and small web applications are developing using CMS.
Advantages of CMS:
- The website owner can change the content of their website. Like website text, images, videos, etc. without the help of a web development company.
- Changing the look and feel of the website is easy.
- Adding new features is also easy.
- The maintenance cost is low.
We recommend self-hosted WordPress as a go-to CMS.
Please note, you cannot develop everything using WordPress. Sit with your web development company’s lead developer and discuss it. He is the right person who has lead so many projects and knows what works and what does not works.
WordPress Themes
WordPress Theme is the design of your website. You can change to any theme of your likings.
There are many free and premium themes out there. Please don’t use cracked themes.
We recommend Astra, OceanWP, Elegant Themes, and StudioPress Themes.
There are many other themes. We are recommending the above themes because we have developed so many successful projects using those themes.
WordPress Plugins
Plugins are the small chunk of code that adds one specific feature to the WordPress website.
Suppose you want to add a contact form, install the contact form plugin. You are an author and you want to sell a book from your website, install the eCommerce plugin.
Install plugins that have good ratings, developed by reputed companies or developers and updated regularly for the latest version of WordPress.
We recommend Contact Form 7, Yoast SEO to every WordPress website owner.
Website Security
You can ask your web development company to perform several tests on your project. If they find any vulnerability, they will submit a report about that.
Generally, developers develop projects keeping security in mind. But often the problem can be with the web servers, third-party services used in the project, etc. So it is better to perform security tests after the development of the project completes.
And yes you can have security flaws if you have used a famous CMS or framework too.
Payment Gateways
If you want to accept payments on your website or web application, you will need a third-party Payment Gateway. These Payment Gateways process the transactions securely and efficiently.
We have been using Stripe since the beginning of Star Web Developers.
We also use PayUMoney sometimes.
Other Tools
Google Analytics is one of the best choice for measuring your website’s performance, traffic and metrics. It is difficult to understand Google Analytics, but you can ask your web development company to help you and simplify the report. We recommend Google Analytics over any third-party analytics tool.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a very helpful tool from Google to find out the performance issues of your website. This tool will show you what is the problem with the mobile website.
CloudFlare CDN (Content Delivery Network) can be used to deliver static content like CSS, javaScript, Images faster. CloudFlare also provides a free plan.
Mailchimp is a tool, you can use to send newsletters to your audience or clients. It is simple to use and provides templates that can be used to design your newsletter. It is free till you reach 2000 subscribers.
Brevo to send transactional emails from your app.
Tawk.to adds live chat feature to your website.
Canva is an Online Graphic Designing tool. You can use Canva to design a business card, logo, presentations, website banners, etc. They have editable templates for everything a business needs. We use Canva regularly.
Buffer is a Social Media Management Platform. You don’t need to log in to every social media platform to post the same content. You can manage your all social media accounts from one place, You can also schedule posts for the future.
Disqus is a famous tool to manage comments in your project. It is quite better than WordPress’s own commenting system.
MightyCall is a virtual phone system for the US and Canada. You can get toll free business contact number for a small fee.
Zoom for video meetings, team chat, VoIP phone, webinars, whiteboard, contact center, and events.
Freshdesk to manage customer support tickets.
Asana to manage team’s tasks and projects.
Loom for screen recording.