Recommended Tools

These are my recommended tools for you if you’re building out a website and thinking about how to improve your SEO efforts.  These tools have already been tried, tested, and PROVEN to work.

Tools I Believe In

Website Setup

Website hosting, website builders, and everything for you to get started on your website. Here are my personal recommendations for you to begin your online journey

Website Optimisation

Image compression, website caching, and everything else to make your website much much faster. My favourite plugins I’m recommending to make your website blazing fast.

SEO Tools

SEO optimisation, schema markups, and all things technical for those who can’t code (like me). Easy to use plug & play plugins that will help skyrocket your traffic significantly.

Website Setup

BlueHost

Website Hosting

BlueHost

For website hosting, I recommend BlueHost as it has the cleanest interface and cPanel I’ve seen. Setting up WordPress was fast and easy, and you can manage the backend of your website through their dashboards.

I initially got the Basic Plan and realised that Choice Plus plan made much more sense for me since I wanted to build a few websites. Their customer service officer was helpful in upgrading my plan, but however didn’t add-on the other products that were supposed to be included. Though this was supposed to be done on the first try, after a few email exchanges, their customer support was effective and quick in addressing some of the issues I had. Just make sure to check that all the add-ons are already included so that it’ll be a smoother process for you.

Pricing wise, as a student, I’m always searching for the best deals. By far, BlueHost’s pricing is the most competitive one I’ve seen and the server speed is one of the best when compared to others offering similar prices.

Elementor

Website Builder

Elementor

I’ve used a few website builders on WordPress before and Elementor Pro is by far the best. Its easy to use drag and drop interface makes it easy for a non-website designer like me. They come with a lot of widgets that helps eliminate the use of other unnecessary plugins that slowed down my website! 

Though it took me slightly longer to learn how to use Elementor as compared to other builders, once I got the hang of it, it’s actually much more user-friendly.

The cheapest plan is $49/year and I find it a fair price to pay for as it reduces the need for most free & premium plugins. Furthermore, they’re continuously adding more widgets for you to use! Pair it with their free Hello Theme, I get a fast loading responsive website, which is still cheaper than paying for a premium theme!

If you’re just starting out and want to save some money. I find that the free version is sufficient to get started, and you can always add on other plugins to help boost the functionality of your website.

Website Optimisation

WP Rocket

Speed Optimisation

WP Rocket

Prior to WP Rocket, I’ve tried free plugins such as WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. Though they did increase my overall site speed, it wasn’t the satisfactory for me as the website I was working on was heavy on media and was bloated. These plugins were not a conclusive solution and I still had to install other plugins to help boost my site speed – which seemed to be contradictory! Furthermore, it was not entirely friendly for someone who has no experience with coding like me. 

Then I began to search for premium plugins that could provide all-in-one speed optimisation and yet was easy to use. After much research and contemplation, I settled for WP Rocket and have no regrets. Probably the best investment I’ve made as its dashboard was pretty damn easy to use, and it included additional features like lazy loading, minification, database cleanup, and CDN integration!

They also have their own image compression plugin, Imagify, which I didn’t really find as effective as ShortPixel.

This plugin costs $49 yearly, and trust me it will be worth your money. With all its features and the significant improvement in page speeds, it’s definitely the best speed optimisation solution available. 

ShortPixel

Image Compression

ShortPixel

I’ve tried many image compression plugins like WP Smush, Imagify, and Optimole only to find that most of them compressed only a small percentage of my images. They compressed my images by 5%-20%, which I thought was a lot, until I tried ShortPixel. ShortPixel compressed it up to 80% and that’s why I recommend it as their compression is up so much better and loads my pages so much faster.

When compared to other plugins, they only provide you with 100 free compresses (which includes thumbnails) a month. Other plugins allowed a higher number of free compressions as compared to ShortPixel. However, the difference in the compression levels are what got me sold to ShortPixel. Just disable the compression for the thumbnail in the settings and you’ll last much much longer. Only drawback to this is that your thumbnails, though smaller in size, will take longer to load and cause overall page speed to increase.

Pricing wise, ShortPixel offers 2 types of plans, monthly subscriptions and one-time plans. If you’re just regularly blogging like me, the $10 plan allows you to convert 10,000 images, which I think is highly worth it given that it compresses up to 80%, and the credits will last me a loooong time!

SEO Tools

Schema Pro

Rich Snippets

Schema Pro

Why Schema Pro?

There are many schema plugins that will help you feature rich snippets and rank well on Google. One of the most effective ones I've used is Schema Pro. Other plugins have an interface that's simply hard to use, and even more difficult to implement! Some even displayed their snippet on the frontend of my website which made it super ugly.

My experience with Schema Pro!

Schema Pro was easy to set up and they have a list of schema types for you to implement from. It was easy to set up as I just had to follow their setup wizard, and once it was done, I left it there. This plugin has helped me rank comprehensively on Local SEO and have increased my clickthrough rates significantly!

Is Schema Pro affordable?

Coming with an annual and a lifetime plan, the price is a little bit steep for my liking. However, the ease of use and the improved search rankings makes this plugin pay for itself!

SEO Tools

Schema Pro

Rich Snippets

Schema Pro

Why Schema Pro?

There are many schema plugins that will help you feature rich snippets and rank well on Google. One of the most effective ones I've used is Schema Pro. Other plugins have an interface that's simply hard to use, and even more difficult to implement! Some even displayed their snippet on the frontend of my website which made it super ugly.

My experience with Schema Pro!

Schema Pro was easy to set up and they have a list of schema types for you to implement from. It was easy to set up as I just had to follow their setup wizard, and once it was done, I left it there. This plugin has helped me rank comprehensively on Local SEO and have increased my clickthrough rates significantly!

Is Schema Pro affordable?

Coming with an annual and a lifetime plan, the price is a little bit steep for my liking. However, the ease of use and the improved search rankings makes this plugin pay for itself!

Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links.

I’m open to new projects or job opportunities. If you’re interested to engage an SEO consultant in Singapore, do fill up the form and I’ll get back to you at my soonest!

Contact Me

You can also connect with me via my socials!

I’m open to new projects or job opportunities. If you’re interested to engage an SEO consultant in Singapore, do fill up the form and I’ll get back to you at my soonest!

You can also connect with me via my socials!

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