Tools I Use

These recommendations based on my experience and research.

(In cases where the provider offers an affiliate program I have linked using those, so I get a bit of money back and you pay nothing extra).

Theme Framework

I work almost exclusively with Genesis for client sites, and most of my own as well. It is secure, well-supported, and has good SEO features out of the box.

Plugins

These are the plugins I use on almost every project:

• Pods – best custom post type manager.
• Formidable Pro (premium) – for contact forms. Many people use Gravity Forms, but I have found Formidable to be more flexible and better supported.
• Display Widgets – control which widgets display on which pages.