Recommended Online Business Tools – Welcome to our comprehensive guide to the online business tools that power Legal123. Running an online business isn’t easy, and we’ve kissed a lot of frogs on the road to building Lega123. But this is what we actually use – all the tools, apps, services, plugins, etc. – our full online business “tech stack”. We hope this list helps you along your journey of building your own online business.
Online business tools covered in this guide
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you click on them and make a purchase. We fully endorse these online tools based on our own experience and research, and they have not been chosen for their commission potential.
Online Business Tools for Site Speed
WPEngine – As soon as you can, move from a “shared” server to a “dedicated” server. This one upgrade will have the greatest impact on your website’s speed. We use a dedicated server at WPEngine to host Legal123. They are not cheap, but their service is great – and their ‘Smart Plugin Manager’ is a huge time saver.
Try WPEngine »
Cloudflare – We use Cloudflare’s CDN, which caches our site content in data centres around the world. This allows it to be delivered faster to visitors from any location. Cloudflare now powers 20% of the websites on the Internet! Cloudflare’s easy setup and management dashboard make it a no-brainer CDN solution.
Try Cloudflare »
GeneratePress – For a lightweight yet highly customizable WordPress theme, we recommend GeneratePress. It has a minimalist design coded with performance in mind, leading to fast page load times. Best of all, GeneratePress is extremely affordable compared to many premium WordPress themes.
Try GeneratePress »
WP Rocket – We use the WP Rocket caching plugin to further optimise website performance. WP Rocket makes everything load faster: content, images, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. This premium plugin isn’t free, but the speed improvements make it well worth the investment to please your website visitors.
Try WP Rocket »
Perfmatters – To further enhance WordPress performance, we utilize the Perfmatters plugin. With this plugin, you can disable resource-intensive scripts from loading on a page-by-page basis. This granular code control ensures an optimum balance between performance and functionality across your site.
Try Perfmatters »
Squoosh – Optimizing images is crucial for fast website loading times. We use the free Squoosh app to resize and compress image files easily before uploading them to Legal123. Its simple drag-and-drop interface allows you to visually adjust compression settings and see a live preview of the optimized image quality.
Try Squoosh »
Online Business Tools for eCommerce
Easy Digital Downloads – The EDD plugin provides a full-featured online store for digital products with links to multiple payment gateways, discount codes, purchase tracking, customer management, and more. As a law firm, the customer account security features were of paramount importance.
Try Easy Digital Downloads »
Shopify – But if we were starting all over again, we’d definitely go with Shopify. Shopify has become the leader in online shopping carts and eCommerce, eliminating the need to patch different apps and services together. While more expensive than self-hosted options upfront, Shopify’s ease of use makes it well worth the investment.
Try Shopify »
AffiliateWP – We use the AffiliateWP plugin for WordPress to run our affiliate marketing program. It integrates seamlessly with Easy Digital Downloads (and Shopify) and automatically tracks referrals and sales. It’s a no-brainer app for us.
Try AffiliateWP »
Help Scout – As soon as your online business grows to any size, you’ll need a help desk platform for multiple customer support agents. Gmail is not good enough! We’ve kissed a number of frogs in this space, and the only one that is simple and elegant is Help Scout. The saved replies feature is particularly useful.
Try Help Scout »
Stripe – Thank God for Stripe. Stripe has revolutionised credit card payment processing for online and small businesses. Previously, “The Banks” (grrr) gouged their business customers with credit card processing fees. Stripe, by contrast, is fairly priced and easy to implement on your website or app.
Try Stripe »
PayPal – PayPal is the granddaddy of online payments. It’s over 26 years old and has a 40% share of the global online payments market! If you have an online business, you need to offer payment via PayPal. It’s that simple.
Try PayPal »
Online Business Tools for Content Marketing
WordPress – WordPress powers 810 million websites – that’s 43% of all the websites on the Internet! So we’re in good company using WordPress. However, we use WordPress because of its flexibility in adapting our website to the changing eCommerce world. Plus, it’s free.
Try WordPress »
Rank Math – We use the Rank Math SEO plugin to optimize our WordPress site for search engines. The Yoast SEO plugin is the market leader, but Rank Math is (much) better. Rank Math settings are easier to configure, and the feature set is constantly improving. There are free and paid plans.
Try Rank Math »
MonsterInsights – Google Analytics (GA4) is pretty easy to add to your website. But have you tried to get any useful information from the GA4 reports? It’s horrible! Luckily, there’s an easier way: MonsterInsights. There are free and paid plans.
Try MonsterInsights »
Grammarly – We use this AI-powered writing assistant to ensure error-free writing across all our content. Grammarly catches grammatical, spelling, and punctuation mistakes and provides suggestions to improve writing clarity. We never knew we needed this app until we started using it.
Try Grammarly »
Harpa AI – We’re not sure how AI will change the legal industry, but we’re watching and learning. Everyone knows about ChatGPT, but have you heard of Harpa AI? It sits in your web browser and is always there to help with pre-written prompts. It’s interesting and well worth trying out.
Try Harpa AI »
Canva – Canva is a great Australian startup story. They lead the world in easy-to-use browser-based graphic design. We use Canva almost every day to create all our graphic design elements. Follow this great YouTube Channel if you want to learn how to use Canva.
Try Canva »
Semrush – If you care about Google rankings, you need to understand keywords, backlinks and on-page SEO. There are plenty of options out there, but we like Semrush. It’s feature-rich, and the interface is easy to use. We only wish we had more time to get the most out of this powerful tool.
Try Semrush »
Camtasia – To walk customers through our online templates, we use Camtasia for screen recording and editing. Their audio editing add-on, Audiate, allows us to edit audio from a text transcript of the video. It’s very cool and saves heaps of time.
Try Camtasia »
Wistia – Then, to host our walk-through videos, we use Wistia. Wistia has a customisable video player that we’ve tweaked so it looks on-brand, great video controls and built-in transcript generation. We don’t use half the features Wistia has to offer, but we love its simplicity.
Try Wistia »
Online Business Tools for Automation
Xero – Who would have thought that accounting could be made easy? Well, Xero has cracked that nut. And they’re a New Zealand company, too! Bravo. With Xero, our accounts are up-to-date daily, and we have a real-time view of our P&L and Balance Sheet. Genius. Can you tell we’re excited by Xero?
Try Xero »
Calendly – We use Calendly for our Book-a-Call service. There are plenty of call booking services out there, including Google, but Calendly is still the best. The interface is elegant, the integration with Stripe is nice and moving bookings is super simple.
Try Calendly »
Mailchimp – We use Mailchimp for our email newsletters because it makes designing emails easy. Yes, they’re quite expensive, but the email automations (like the abandoned cart one) are priceless, deliverability is high, and they integrate with Easy Digital Downloads.
Try Mailchimp »
Zapier – We’re big on “Eliminate, Automate, Delegate”. Most of our online tools “talk” to each other. For example, Easy Digital Downloads talks to Mailchimp. But when there’s a gap that needs bridging, Zapier is the perfect tool. And if you find Zapier challenging, they have a directory of experts who can code anything you need.
Try Zapier »
Recurpost – You’ve probably never heard of Recurpost. This app does a very specific task. It posts evergreen content on social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter/X. We have Legal Guides that are always current so we just want to recycle them regularly in our social posting. And that’s where Recurpost comes in.
Try Recurpost »
Gravity Forms – If you run a website on WordPress, you’ll need a form plugin. There are countless options, but we use Gravity Forms because its functionality is almost endless. And if it’s not part of Gravity Forms, then there will be an add-on to do exactly what you need.
Try Gravity Forms »
Online Business Tools for Outsourcing
Codeable – These guys are all WordPress experts, and we trust them with our website! That is a huge deal. The last thing you need is a shady coder “breaking” your website. Well, that’ll never happen with Codeable. Their developers go through a rigorous vetting process to ensure they’re the best and provide high-quality coding work.
Try Codeable »
Upwork – You need patience and a good vetting process to outsource on Upwork. They have plenty of good talent, but the great talent is already fully booked. On the plus side, Upwork’s project management, time tracking and billing system are brilliant and a real time saver.
Try Upwork »
Fiverr – We use Fiverr for “quick and dirty” outsourced tasks. What makes Fiverr valuable is the sheer breadth of services available on-demand at affordable rates. Turnaround times range from a few hours to a few days. Reviews are a must when picking suppliers. If you’ve never tried Fiverr, you should.
Try Fiverr »
Wing – We’ve only recently taken the plunge and started using overseas Virtual Assistants. We don’t recruit directly but use Wing to find our talent. Wing’s rigorous vetting and training process ensures we get highly skilled, experienced virtual assistants who match our specific business needs.
Try Wing »
Google Docs – We’re big fans of the Google ecosystem and Google Workspace ethos for sharing and collaborating on documents and files. We can easily control who can view, edit or comment on documents both inside and outside Legal123. The version history tracks all changes for accountability – super important for a law firm.
Try Google Docs »
Wise – We use Wise (formerly TransferWise) to make international payments. Wise has reasonable fees and competitive exchange rates and is much cheaper than the banks. Most importantly, we know exactly the amount the recipient will receive, adjusted for fees paid at our end.
Try Wise »
Recommended Hardware
Apple MacBook Pro Laptop – There’s no denying it: we’re “Apple Fanboys” and girls. We don’t have time for system crashes and lost documents. Apple hardware is rock solid and gets better every year. That’s why we’re NEVER switching.
Try Apple »
Google Pixel Mobile Phones – We’re also Google devotees, so it’s no surprise that we use mobile phones that integrate perfectly with Google services. Pixel mobile phones are also excellent value for money, and we upgrade every 18 months to 2 years.
Try Pixel »
Sennheiser Headphones – We rely on Sennheiser headphones for premium audio quality and noise-cancelling sound. They’re not cheap, but this German audio brand engineers some of the best-sounding headphones on the market.
Try Sennheiser »
Recommended Human Talent
Samantha Rigg, Enlight EQ – Samantha is a Business Growth Coach who helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses. She provides personalized, end-to-end guidance from setting up and launching a business to scaling with effective marketing, sales, and digital strategies.
Contact Samantha »
Anthony Mayer, OnlineIsEasy.com.au – Anthony is a Digital Coach who helps businesses with their online strategy. Whether you’re launching a new venture, moving to Google Workspace, or seeking to streamline your digital operations, Anthony has the experience to help.
Contact Anthony »
Anne C Clark – Anne is an Online Business Manager who supports online businesses from behind the scenes. She manages everything from social media content to email marketing, website design, podcast marketing, and more. If you need a partner to handle day-to-day operations, talk to Anne.
Contact Anne »
There you go. We’ve “opened our kimono” and let you look inside Legal123. We hope this article helps you on your online journey. We stand behind all the tools, apps, services, plugins, etc. mentioned and will keep this guide up to date. Here’s to your online business success!