There is such a huge wealth of help and resources on the web available to you when you’re starting your new venture. Some are crucial to creating a successful site and finding your way when first setting up. I have listed a number of my personal favourites that I just know will inspire you and furnish you with all the guidance and information you’ll need!

Super Useful Resources

  • WordPress.org– WordPress is a Content Management System or CMS. All our themes work only with a self-hosted WordPress.org site. A CMS allows you to to login to your own backend of your website and make changes to your site without having to know much code. There are other options available, but WordPress is by far the best and one of the most used on the internet!
  • Kadence Theme – All our themes are Kadence Child Themes. This means that you have the Kadence theme as the framework of your site and your Studio Chem Theme as the beautiful aesthetic front end that your clients will see. You do therefore need to have the Kadence theme installed alongside your Studio Chem Theme.
  • SiteGround– A really great option for hosting if you’re just starting your business, with the added option to grow in future.
  • WPEngine– This is a dedicated WordPress hosting company with excellent customer support, security, and up time.
  • Flywheel– This is also a dedicated WordPress hosting company and they are fabulous! Great customer support offer free migrations if you’re moving from another host.
  • Here is a comprehensive list of the best Shared WordPress Hosting.
  • Here is a comprehensive list of the best managed WordPress Hosting.

When it comes to stock photography you want the best looking images that reflect and show off your brand to it’s beautiful best. There are both paid and free options available and it’s worth checking both out.

Paid Stock Photography:

  • SCStockshop– Shay Cochrane is one of the best stock photographers offering gorgeous feminine photos. Her prices are the highest when it comes to stock photography but worth every penny. You can browse by brand colour and collections.
  • Hautestock– A fantastic site offering a huge range of collections of stock images in different colorways or themes.
  • Jana Bishop– With white space her trademark, Jana’s stock photography is very minimal and clean. She offers many sets that are incredibly reasonable, making it easy for you to have a consistent brand and plenty of images to use on your site and across social media.
  • Creative Market– Here you will find an extensive selection of different artists and photographers offering their work, and there’s sure to be something you love.

Free Stock Photography:

Unsplash– Unsplash has a large selection of free images that can be used anywhere you’d like. I use images from Unsplash and Pexels in all of my themes, which you are free to replace with your own.

Pexels– Pexels is another spectacular stock photography site offering a massive collection of images for any and all projects.

  • ColourLovers– Grab a cup of tea and make yourself comfortable as there is seemingly endless colour schemes for you to go through and be inspired by. You can also create your own for others to enjoy.
  • Adobe Colour– This is a powerful tool for pulling colour palettes from images, try it out!
  • Design-Seeds– This is a great site with some incredible photographs where the colour schemes are taken from the images. Absolutely beautiful!
  • My Pinterest Board– Check out my Pinterest board, there is a ton of colour inspiration there along with loads of other cool boards.
  • PicMonkey– This is a free online tool for basic image editing, easy and fun to use.
  • Canva– This is another great free online tool for image editing as well as creating graphics.
  • Pixelmator Pro– If you’re on a Mac this is a great App that does essentially everything Photoshop can do, without the huge price tag.
  • ConvertKit– A great and reliable email services provider.
  • Mailchimp– When you’re just starting out this is a great service to start building your email list. It’s free up to 2000 subscribers and is super easy to use.
  • A few other options include:
  • AWeber
  • Active Campaign
  • WooCommerce– If you already have a WordPress site and just want to add the eCommerce functionality to it, WooCommerce plugin is the way to go. This site uses Woocommerce and Woocommerce is also used in my themes.
  • GumRoad– This is a third party eCommerce platform that allows you to sell just about anything and also allows you to create landing pages.
  • LeadPages– “Connect with your audience, collect qualified leads, and sell your services with Leadpages.”
  • Teachable– If you want to create and sell online courses, this is the software to use!
  • Google Analtyics– From the minute you create your website it is important to install this in order to track the traffice coming to your site and it’s behaviour.
  • Google Webmasters– Set this up alongside the Google Analytics to learn how to track your sites search performance.
  • Yoast SEO– This is the best SEO plugin available, with a slight learning curve but if you’re looking for something that’s going to do a great job with your SEO, this is your plugin.
  • CREATIVE MARKET– There is an incredible wealth of graphics, stock photography, logos and illustrations on this site, be prepared to spend hours marvelling at all the talent.
  • ETSY– Check out Etsy for a wonderful collection of talented illustrators and designers