My Black Friday Picks for Small & Medium Businesses
Every year Black Friday rolls around and I get giddy with excitement exploring all of the different tools I can use to take my business to the next level. This year is no different and rather than create another “ultimate” list, I thought I’d simply share some of my favourite offers that I’ve picked up (or will do).
Full disclosure: I have affiliate relationships with a few of these companies (the ones without a *) so I may make a few bucks if you buy from my links. Either way everything included here has been chosen because I genuinely believe in it and would be happy to recommend regardless of any official relationship.
So without further ado here they are…
Black Friday Picks
Deposit Photos*
I’m a sucker for this deal every time it comes around but that is because it is genuinely useful. Deposit Photos are a provider of stock photography for creating websites. AppSumo have a special promotion where you can get 100 or more image credits for less than a $1 each and they have saved me many times when you can’t quite capture or find the right shot elsewhere.
Gravity Forms
This is my go-to contact form solution for WordPress. It has stood the test of time, there are a bunch of official and third party extensions that can make them even better. I’ve even built pseudo web apps using it that have generated thousands of leads for my websites. I’ve actually been a subscriber for years now so I won’t technically be picking this up, just keeping it. For general purpose forms, this is the one.
LearnDash
This is a course management plugin for WordPress that helps you create online training courses. I’ve used it for everything from general business subscription websites all the way through to high school education providers. It is both versatile and respected and comes with a pretty deep discount for Black Friday (50% off with coupon: BLACKFRIDAY50 ) and Cyber Monday (50% off with coupon CYBERMONDAY50 )
OptinMonster
I’ve actually used this before and took a break to start using Gravity Forms in their place, but unless you spend a lot of time testing and rebuilding them you just won’t get the same level of conversions. Creating and stying forms with OptinMonster is a super quick and easy process, plus they offer a surprising amount of advanced targeting options if you’re a data driven marketer. So, for email marketing optin forms I’m back on the OptinMonster wagon…
ProtonMail*
ProtonMail are a secure email provider based in Switzerland. While they don’t offer the integrations you’ll get with something like gmail, they do have a solid web interface and accompanying apps designed to help you keep your business, your own business.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the go-to eCommerce solution for WordPress. I’ve used it to create stores for clothing brands, tourism companies, membership sites, conference planners and much more. Much like WordPress itself, if it’s missing a feature that you want to make use of, there is almost certainly a plugin that will have your back. They are offering 40% off all extensions this Friday with the coupon code “BLACKCYBER2019” and there are more than a few I have my eye on.
WordPress Hosting
I’m not picking sides here because I use both all of these options with different projects. So if you’re current hosting kind of sucks and you’ve been looking for an upgrade, look into one of these options.
- SiteGround* – If you’re just launching a new site this should keep you going until things really kick off. Solid shared hosting with great integrations and built in caching to speed your site up. They also offer pretty deep discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- WP Engine* – Managed WordPress from one of the largest WordPress focused providers. I’m currently an agency parter and this website is currently hosted here, enough said.
That’s All Folks…
Of course I haven’t even slightly made a dent on the full scope of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals that will be hitting the web this weekend. But hopefully the selection above will help you to narrow down some of the best options before it is too late.
Until next year…
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