Hand-Picked, Tested, and Proven Tools to Run Your Online Business


Not Sure What Tools You Need? 

Try These Proven Online Business Tools

If you are looking to start a business, build a website, or simply just sell more stuff, you need tools that get things done. And these are hands down the best tools on the market for design, development, marketing, and more.

At HTE, we use a suite of different tools and programs for everything from building websites to managing projects and tasks for our team.

If you’re looking for the best tools out there for website design, email, podcasting, building online courses, and more, check out our list of our favorite tools in each category.

Affiliate Links + Transparency

At HTE, we’re big believers in transparency. Because of that, we want to let you know that our site uses affiliate links to generate revenue.

If you click one of our links to make a purchase, we’ll get a small cut of the revenue. It’s a way for companies to make some extra sales, by letting third parties promote their product to their own audiences. We’ve partnered with dozens of companies over the years as an affiliate partner, but we’re very selective. We only promote products that we truly believe in, especially those we use ourselves.

Our Most Trusted and Recommended Tools

Nexcess Managed WordPress Hosting

#1 Website Hosting

Yes, we recommend Nexcess for its speed, reliability, and affordability. But we also use it to host our entire business.

If you are looking to start playing around with your first website, then you may want to save some money and use a shared hosting service.


But when you need hosting for your business, then Nexcess is what you need. We don't just recommend Nexcess, we trust Nexcess with our entire business.


Click here to get started with Nexcess and Save 35% with coupon code HACK35

Bluehost

#1 Website Hosting for Beginners

We recommend Bluehost for its speed, reliability, and affordability for people just starting out.

They offer shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting. As you grow your business and your site, you can adjust your hosting plan to fit your needs.

Get an exclusive discount for HTE readers. Get fast, secure WordPress hosting for just $2.95/month – and get a FREE domain name! 


Click here to get your Bluehost discount and free domain

ConvertKit (Get your first 1,000 subscribers for FREE)

#1 Rated Email Marketing Service

Do you have less than 1,000 subscribers? Perfect, then you don't have to pay a until you get your first 1,000.


Click here to start your next project for FREE.


 Do you have more than 1,000 subscribers? Awesome, you can get your first month FREE.


Click here to get 30-Day Free Trial


ConvertKit is the easiest, most intuitive, and absolute best email service provider. With ConvertKit you can easily set up free email courses, tag subscribers and sort subscribers, add opt-in boxes, and much more.

Astra

#1 Rated WordPress Theme

Build professional websites faster, easier, and better than ever before with Astra and Astra Pro.

Astra is now used by 1,000,000+ users who want beautiful, fast, and secure websites – without the headache of learning to code.

With Astra not only will your website be fast, but you will be able to make it look exactly how you want with our visual theme customizer.


With Astra Pro, you can design your website from scratch or take advantage of the largest library of pre-built websites available anywhere, and a ton of premium features. 


Or, you can use Astra for FREE! Get started with Astra today.

Website Building Tools

No matter what kind of business you run, you’re going to need a website.

While Wordpress.org is far and away our top choice for content management systems, you’ll also need a domain, a Wordpress theme, and a hosting service.

Wordpress + a great theme + a brandable domain + a fast, reliable hosting service = a badass website.

Here are some of our favorite tools that we use ourselves.

Bluehost

#1 Website Hosting

We recommend Bluehost for its speed, reliability, and affordability for people just starting out.

They offer shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting. As you grow your business and your site, you can adjust your hosting plan to fit your needs.

Get an exclusive discount for HTE readers. Get fast, secure WordPress hosting for just $2.95/month – and get a FREE domain name! 


Click here to get your Bluehost discount and free domain

Astra

#1 Rated WordPress Theme

Build professional websites faster, easier, and better than ever before with Astra and Astra Pro.

Astra is now used by 1,000,000+ users who want beautiful, fast, and secure websites – without the headache of learning to code.

With Astra not only will your website be fast, but you will be able to make it look exactly how you want with our visual theme customizer.


With Astra Pro, you can design your website from scratch or take advantage of the largest library of pre-built websites available anywhere, and a ton of premium features. 


Or, you can use Astra for FREE! Get started with Astra today.

Email Marketing Tools

You've heard about the value of building an email list and you understand how important is it to your business. But with some many choices, where do you get started?

Email marketing is the most profitable driver of any small business online. Choose wisely. Here are some of our favorite email marketing tools that you can use to start driving traffic and making sales with successful email campaigns.

ConvertKit (Get your first 1,000 subscribers for FREE)

#1 Rated Email Marketing Service

Do you have less than 1,000 subscribers? Perfect, then you don't have to pay a until you get your first 1,000.


Click here to start your next project for FREE.


 Do you have more than 1,000 subscribers? Awesome, you can get your first month FREE.


Click here to get 30-Day Free Trial


ConvertKit is the easiest, most intuitive, and absolute best email service provider. With ConvertKit you can easily set up free email courses, tag subscribers and sort subscribers, add opt-in boxes, and much more.

Convert Pro


Convert Pro is the only lead generation plugin for Wordpress you need to start building your email list today.

With their all new revolutionary drag and drop editor makes it easy and fast to design high converting opt-in forms in minutes. Plus, you can target visitors with the right message at the right time to boost your conversion rate.

Stop losing customers and start generating real leads. It only takes a few minutes to get started. Start now with Convert Pro.

Webinar Software Platforms

Webinars have quickly become a normal part of our lives – both personally and professionally. Because of this, webinars have become one of the best ways to engage an audience, get leads, and sell stuff online.


Choosing the best webinar software can get tricky. Don’t worry, I'm here to help. I've tested, ranked, and reviewed 30+ webinar tools – and curated a list of the 7 best webinar software platforms.


If you don't want to see the full list, here my #1 rated two webinar platform.

WebinarNinja

#1 Rated Webinar Software


WebinarNinja is an all-in-one webinar solution. It gives you everything you need to run your webinars, and is trusted by world-renowned companies like Printful, Podia, AppSumo, Baremetrics, and thousands more.

WebinarNinja does all the work, without you having to go through any complicated technical process. With their platform, you can create your webinar in seconds, and start getting sign-ups for your webinar immediately.


Plus, every membership comes with a 14-day free trial. Pay nothing now, cancel anytime.

Podcast Hosting and Tools

Podcasts are a great platform for content marketing, as well as a monetizable hustle in their own right.


Here are the tools that have enabled us to get 6,000,000+ downloads of our HTE podcast.

Transistor.FM


Transistor is a simple, yet powerful podcast hosting platform created by Jon Buda and Justin Jackson, two independent makers with the goal of making podcasting less confusing. 


Transistor is a podcast publishing and hosting service that makes it easy to publish podcast episodes, add your show notes and generate your RSS feeds. 


Transistor also gives you direct access to publish your podcast on iTunes and Spotify. 

Podcast Recording Gear

The beautiful thing about podcasting in 2020 is the ability to be extremely creative with recording and editing. Even five years ago, technology hadn't evolved as it has now. Proving this is the new wave of podcasts that push the boundaries of what podcasting can be.


There are an infinite number of combinations and possibilities you could use to record your podcast, depending on your budget and technical ability.


Here's the setup I use to record HTE:

The Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Remarkable Podcast

Our FREE Podcasting Guide

If you want to take the next step to develop, launch, or run your remarkable podcast, start with The Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Remarkable Podcast.

The free ebook helps you get your podcast off the ground.

It follows the framework mapped out inside The Showrunner Podcasting Course. Yet, at the same time, it is a standalone guide to getting started today.

Get the FREE guide now!

Online Course Building Tools

There’s a huge market out there for online courses, on just about any topic you can think of.


Here are our top picks for tools that can help you create, distribute, and monetize courses and digital downloads of your own.

Podia

#1 Rated Online Course Platform

Podia acts as an all-in-one digital storefront for anyone selling an online course. It handles courses, downloads, membership management, digital downloads, and even email marketing.

The best place to sell online courses is the one that meets your business needs with minimal fuss. We choose Podia.

We use Podia to host and sell our online courses because it is built by a small, hardworking team that we admire — and they have built a beautiful, intuitive platform for independent course creators like us.

Other benefits of Podia:

  • Unlimited everything: files, courses, customers, and sales
  • Free migration of existing courses from other platforms
  • Awesome support: 24/7 live chat support
  • No extra fees: Zero transaction fees and instant payments
  • Bundling: The ability to sell product bundles

Do you want to learn how to make more money from online courses? Check out this step-by-step guide from Podia.

Screenflow



Screenflow is a screen recording and video editing software that’s great for recording how-to videos for online courses. 


It’s intuitively designed and easy to use, with tons of features including animations, stock graphics, closed captioning, and more.

Landing Pages and Page Builders

Not a developer or designer? No problem.


Using a page builder is a great way to get the customization you need for websites and landing pages, without needing to actually code anything manually.

Leadpages

#1 Rated Page Builder

LeadPages is our go-to tool for creating great landing pages and sales pages that convert well. 


Designed for small businesses, LeadPages lets you design landing pages, add pop-ups, create attention-grabbing but non-intrusive alert bars, and even build Facebook and Social Media ads.

If you’re not sure what you want your page to look like, try choosing from their many prefab templates. You’ll find templates for pages, newsletters, ads, and more. 

Thrive Architect


If you’re not particularly technical, modifying the design of your website or landing pages can be a daunting task. Visual page builders help solve this problem by providing an intuitive interface that anyone can use.

There are a lot of visual page builders out there, but Thrive Architect is the one we like the best. It doesn’t create ugly, bloated code that slows down your site, but it has an accessible UI that’s easy to get the hang of.

You can use Thrive Architect to add things like columns, opt-in forms, galleries, social share icons, and more.


Hell, we built this very page with Thrive Architect. Try Thrive now

Project Management

Keeping track of projects and tasks is a must for any business. To do this effectively, you’ll want some kind of project management software. Here are our top picks.

Asana

We use Asana all day, every day. Asana is the ultimate tool for managing your projects more effectively. It works with tasks, projects, conversations, and dashboards. Teamwork has never been easier.

You can turn conversations into actionable tasks, provide comments on other people’s actions, and immediately see what progress has been made – all without having to schedule meetings.


Trello


Trello is a free project management tool that helps you get organized. It shows a board on which you can create lists filled with cards. When you open a card, you can add comments, upload files, create checklists, and more.

It is super versatile, so it can be used for many different types of things: to organize a specific project, write an ebook, create an email course, etc. It really helps you to keep a bird’s-eye view on your projects.


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