The Best Website Hosts, WordPress Themes & Plugins
Digital Managed have done extensive research to find the top three Website Hosts, the top four WordPress Themes, including for eCommerce, and a selection of the best and most useful WordPress Plugins in the world.
Scroll down to see them all or click the below button that interests you.
Best Domain Registration Company
Before we start, register your domain with Crazy Domains, they are the best in Australia, by far.
And don’t forget to pay $4.99 per month to be seen in over 300 search engines, (link to the right).
What We Look For in a Web Host
Let’s be clear
Disclosure
Digital Managed are a professional Website & Blog creation company.
As such, we are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.
We do receive compensation for our recommendations but we refuse to promote any company that does not meet our high standards, as any poor performing host would reflect badly on us.
We test each product thoroughly and only recommend the very best.
Reliability
There is nothing worse than building a beautiful and professional website for a client, only to have it consistently crash due to server overload. Every web host we recommend is robust and reliable, with at least 97% up-time.
Speed
What is the point of an awesome website if it loads so slowly that visitors jump off as quickly as they arrive? It is important to us that the sites we build load fast, along with any images or embedded videos.
Support
We have tried many web hosts and the quality and speed of their support can make or break our opinion of them. Support staff who know what they are talking about and can get things done ASAP, that’s what we look for.
Compatibility
Many hosts boast speed, support and reliability but then have hidden restrictions. We only recommend those that are compatible with platforms like WordPress, Themes like Divi and Plugins like Jetpack and WooCommerce.
Without further ado
Our Top Host Recommendation
Our Top Choice
Bluehost Cloud
Bluehost wins our number one spot due to their overall ranking for all of the things we look for in a good host.Cloud Hosting is undeniably better than shared but no other top host has affordable cloud hosting options. Click Here to select a plan.
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The price in the banner is for shared hosting, which is not what we are recommending here. Cloud hosting starts at $6.95 U.S. and the plan we recommend is the “Business Pro” at $15.95 U.S. per month because it is extremely fast and includes SSL.
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Number Two
Our Second Choice
HostGator
HostGator wins our number two spot due to overall ranking for what we look for and their Cloud Hosting is cheaper than any other top host.Cloud Hosting is better than shared but HostGator does have limitations on CPU usage, which prevents them from being our number one.Click Here to select a plan.
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The banner is for Cloud hosting, which is what we recommend.HostGator Cloud Hosting plans start at $4.95 U.S. but the plan we recommend is the “Business Cloud” at $9.95 U.S. per month because it has unlimited domains, is very fast and includes SSL.
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Number Three
Our Third Choice
SiteGround
SiteGround is only at number three due to compatibility issues with some WordPress plugins that use cron jobs, causing a few site crashes on shared hosting plans below the “GoGeek” plan.Their cloud hosting is dearer than the others but they have the best support of any host in the world.
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The banner price is for shared hosting. We recommend the “GoGeek” plan at $14.95 ex GST per month because it has less issues than all other shared plans. It is reasonably fast, has unlimited ‘everything’ and includes SSL.Click Here to select a plan.
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Best WordPress Themes
The Best WordPress Themes & Plugins
Before we get started, download WordPress
Best Website Builder Theme
Divi
Divi is the ultimate WordPress Theme and Visual Page Builder and by far the most versatile website building theme money can buy.Being WooCommerce compatible, it is also the best way to make your eCommerce site look exquisite whilst being fully functional.
Build Anything Visually
Divi is powered by the Divi Builder, an insanely fast and incredibly intuitive front end editor like nothing you have seen before.It will change the way you build websites forever.
Premade Layouts
Jump-start your design process by using one of the 120+ pre-made layouts that ship with the builder.
Real Time Design
When you make changes to your page, it is updated instantly right before your eyes. Design instantly!
Customise Everything
Each element is fully customisable. Adjust fonts, colours, sizing and spacing and even apply custom CSS.
Little To No Loading
The Divi Builder is insanely fast. It requires no pages refreshes and almost zero loading of any kind.
Click anywhere on the image to Buy
Just Click & Type
No need to open up a settings panel to add text content. Just click onto your page and start typing!
Responsive Editing
Enjoy live responsive previews and apply custom changes to specific mobile breakpoints.
Organise With Ease
Add a new row, choose between various column types and everything fits together perfectly automatically.
Import & Export
Save layouts to your library for later use. Import, export, share and download layouts from the web.
Click anywhere on the image to Buy
Best Blog or Magazine Builder Theme
Extra
Extra by elegant themes, is the most stylish and customisable Blog or Magazine Theme on the market. Choose from a large range of ready made layouts to get your Blog looking amazing, quickly and easily.Watch the video to learn more or click the image to the right, to buy.
Best Free eCommerce Theme
WooCoomerce is well known as being available as a Plugin to your existing theme, but did you know it is also available as a Theme in it’s own right, and FREE at that? WooCommerce is super expandable, with a huge array of add-on features, making it suitable for anyone needing to sell online. Click Here, or on the banner, and select “Storefront” from the “Theme Store” dropdown tab, at the top of the page you land on.
Best WordPress Plugins
Best Email Opt-In Plugin
Bloom
There is no better plugin for pop up and fly in email opt-in forms.You can set them to appear after a set time period, when there is a lack of activity or when a certain event happens, like reaching the bottom of the page or making a purchase.They can appear wherever you need them to, bottom right, centre page, in the widget area, pretty much, you name it.The forms are stylish, with many templates to choose from and are compatible with all of the major email marketing companies.Watch the video to learn more or click the image to the right, to buy.
To the left you can see an example of our own pop up email opt-in form, made by Bloom. This is the widget version but we also use the pop-up version at the bottom of our Blog posts and selected pages.
Best Social Media Sharing Plugin
Monarch
To the left of every page on this site, apart from the Home page, you will see social media sharing buttons.When you read any of our Blog posts, you will also find the sharing buttons at the bottom of each post.These are made possible by the Monarch Plugin, by Elegant Themes. .
Monarch is super easy to setup and you can choose which social media platforms are shown and where you want them to appear.
Watch the video to learn more or click the image above, to buy.
Best WordPress SEO Plugin
All in One SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is extremely important for any website, yet it can be very confusing and difficult to get it right.
All in One SEO takes out the guesswork and provides all the tools you need to get your site on to page one of Google and Bing.
The free version handles the basics, like Keywords and Snippets, and is available through the WordPress Dashboard “Add New” feature. However, when it comes to getting found online, we recommend you don’t mess about with doing half the job.
You will be a lot better off if you just go ahead and buy the PRO version, starting at just $97 per year.
Pro will sort out the ‘nuts and bolts’ stuff, like Social Media integration, sitemaps, Google Analytics insertion and robots management.
As an incentive, follow this link to get the first year for just $57. If you have multiple sites, then the same link will give you the option to buy the “Business” pack for $97 for the first year and $139 thereafter.
Best Social Media Auto-Poster Plugin
NextScripts Social Networks AutoPoster (Snap)
SNAP enables you to automatically post your products, links, posts or images to the most popular Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Blogger, Xing, Flipboard and many more.
The free version can only post to one each of your favourite networks, whereas the PRO version can post to unlimited accounts and that includes Facebook Groups! You also get the ability to schedule your posts and re-post existing posts.
Click Here, or on the image to the right, to Buy the Pro Version for just $49.95 U.S. per year. When you land on the page, click on “SNAP Plugin for WordPress (Pro)”, from the “Snap Products Family” list. Then scroll down to see the complete list of Social Networks this plugin covers, (it is massive). Scroll even further, to purchase.
Exclusive “Pro Only” Features
Note: There is no other social autoposter program that comes close to Snap but it can be a little bit difficult to set up. If you have trouble, you can always pay us to do it for you; simply purchase 2 x our Hourly Service Rate and tell us you need us to install Snap in the comments section of your purchase.
Best WordPress Image Compression Plugin
WP Compress
A slow loading site will result in visitors jumping off almost as fast as they land on your page. This is almost always caused by high resolution images taking too long to load into the browser of the visitor.
WP Compress will preserve the quality of your images but compress them so they are much smaller in size and therefore load extremely fast. Resize them too, if you want.
WP Compress is very easy to setup, you can download it for free, then go to “Plugins” on your WordPress Dashboard, hit the “Add New” button and upload the file.
Once you activate, you can immediately compress up to 1000 images for free but we recommend you sign up for a monthly plan, or better yet, a lifetime membership.
Lifetime memberships range from a once only payment of just $29 for 15,000 images up to $89 for 60,000 images. Why not go for Gold, so you can set and forget?
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