rESOURCES & tOOLS

More Resources:

These are my favorite things I use to keep my website (and biz) in working order, including links to stock photo sites (and how to compress them), where to get fonts, my favorite writing tools, and more! Affiliate links are sprinkled throughout.

AI Resources:

Midjourney MasterY: Hacking Visual Content Creation by Rory Flynn is a STEAL.

I’ve taken a few AI courses now, and this course from Rory Flynn is one of the most informative and strategic of all of them, and at under $200, it’s a bargain!!

First, he starts at the very beginning, so if you’re new to Midjourney or AI, this course has everything you need to get started with the tech, and get comfortable and adept at prompting.

But, this is not a beginner course! After he thoroughly covers the basics, he dives deep into more complex and advanced topics like how to use lighting, and how to deeply understand prompt theory.

I have grown leaps and bounds as a designer from his course, and the price goes up the more people buy it, so check it out and get it now!

The Secret AI Society

This is the course where I learned all the AI Photoshoot specifically. If you want to learn how to do that, this is the best place online to do it.

Stock Image Photos:

If you just can’t make the AI work for you, or you don’t have time to try, here are some of my favorite sites to get stock photos that don’t look like stock photos. 

Free Stock Photos: 

Unsplash - This site is my favorite, and most of their photos are still free.

Pixabay - A little more stock-ey, but a good resource for basic free photos, video, and illustrations.

Pexels - (same as above)

Most of these sites will give you huge, high-resolution photos, which is great for printed stuff, but is awful for websites because they slow your site down and annoy Google. Make sure you compress your photos! Which leads me to …  

Photo Compression: 

TinyJPG - This is a website you can use to compress your images so they’ll be more website-friendly. 

Most of the sites above will give you huge, high-resolution photos, which is great for printed stuff, e.g. flyers or workbooks, but is awful for websites because they slow your site down and annoy Google, which is never a good idea. 

My rule of thumb: Keep most pics around 100-200 KB. If want to use a pic as a background image and you want to make sure it looks nice even on a larger screen, keep it under 500 KB or even smaller. 

SeO: 

Speaking of keeping Google happy, here are a few tools you can use to make sure your site is at peak performance for SEO. 

SEO Space is the first SEO Plugin for Squarespace, and it’s remarkably easy to use. It’s got a sleek, graphic interface that clearly shows you where you can improve your SEO, and a new keyword research feature that rocks.

Page Speed Insights - How is your site’s speed? Google hates making people wait, so if your site is slow to load (because you have huge images or a bloated WordPress theme), Google will punish you in search results.

Broken Link Checker - Does your site have any broken links? Google also hates wasting people’s time (most people hate that, too), so broken links on your site are a big no-no. Use this tool to make sure no one is getting the dreaded 404 error by following something on your site.

Accessibility Check at Experte - By making sure that your site visitors, especially those with disabilities, have a good user experience, you ensure that everyone can access all the information on your site. It’s a good business practice, and it keeps Google happy, too.

Google Search Console - This is a free service to help you track your site in search results. It’s essential if you’re syndicating your content to more than one place, e.g. if you’re publishing blog posts on your blog and then publishing the same content to a social network a few days later.

Screen Recording:

Loom’s screencast software has always been good, but their use of AI makes the entire experience next-level. Not only does it have transcript editing, made-for-you chapters, and summaries, but if you record a Google doc and reference it in your video, it will offer to add the link as an action button to the video. Plus, it will offer to add action items during the video when you ask the viewer to do something. It’s amazing and has completely upleveled the way I communicate with clients. I couldn’t do my work now without it.

Email Marketing:

My favorite email marketing software is ConvertKit.

It’s robust and sophisticated enough to support a 6 or 7-figure business, but it’s easy to use and has an amazing free option.

Writing: 

Grammarly - Use this to spell and grammar-check your content! This is my favorite tool on this list. The pro version has a lot of nice features, but the free version is stellar and will check both your spelling and grammar. It’s a lifesaver!

Talk to books - This site is amazing for brainstorming and research. Put in any question you’d like, and get an answer … from books! This is one of Google’s coolest toys. 

Sharethrough Headline Checker - A great tool that analyzes your headlines.

Hemingway Editor - Another great writing tool that makes your writing as clear and bold as Ernest’s. It’s also ruthless about the word “utilize”, which is the bane of my existence.

Graphic Design: 

Canva - Canva is an easy tool to use to create social content, ads, and graphics for your website. 

Color Palettes: 

Canva Color Palette Generator - Don’t just pick colors out of thin air. Let a color picker help you choose colors that coordinate and have balance. This one is easy to use and can help you pick colors from a favorite photo.

Coolors - This is my personal favorite color picker. I love that you can save different palettes and come back to them later.

ColorSpace - Such a cool color tool! Just click on the purple button to select a color and hit generate! You’ll get tons of well-matched color themes to pick from for your website.

Fonts:

Google Fonts - Unless you’re choosing a font for a graphic (like a logo or a fancy script on a banner), stick with Google Fonts. It will be more likely to show up on other people’s machines, and it’s likely to be universal across platforms. It will make your life easier.