In web design jargon, the tech stack (short for technical stack) means everything you need to design, develop and publish a website. This includes WordPress themes and plugins, SaaS (Software as a Service) apps, web hosting, internet domain registrar, etc.
You could use a proprietary platform such as Squarespace or Shopify where everything is included so you don’t need to worry too much about a tech stack. But if your account gets suspended, hacked or closed then you lose your entire website and you may have to restart from scratch.
This is why we create websites with WordPress, an open-source software application, because it doesn’t rely on a single service provider. WordPress websites can be built with thousands of different tools and published on any web hosting service.
But the freedom that comes with WordPress can be overwhelming. You may spend a lot of time researching the right tools for your situation. So I’ve compiled below the list of my favourite tools and service providers.
These are not cheap. But the good news is that we include complimentary licences of WordPress themes and plugins with all our website care plans. We can create your website or take over the maintenance of your existing website. And you will automatically benefit from our licences for the duration of the care plan.
There are no affiliate links.
Web hosting in Australia
- VentraIP: one of the largest Australian-owned web hosting company and also domain name registrar. Good 7/24 technical support located in Melbourne as far as I know. They offer many hosting services from shared hosting to VPS, as well as email hosting. I usually recommend shared web hosting for small businesses because the price is affordable and the service is good. Ideal for business owners.
- Synergy Wholesale: a sister company of VentraIP where web professionals can buy hosting at wholesale price in order to resell. This is for web agencies only.
- Wordify: global web hosting company based in Sydney. They only offer managed WordPress hosting on AWS and Google Cloud servers. But they do it really well and performance is really fast so it’s ideal for more complex websites and online stores. They also offer up to 10 free Development sites. While they have plans for individual websites, they mainly target web agencies.
Domain Registrar
- VentraIP: large and affordable Australian internet domain registrar. Ideal for business owners.
- Synergy Wholesale: VentraIP’s sister company, offer wholesale prices for domains. For web agencies only.
WordPress themes
- GeneratePress: lightweight theme with a free and pro (i.e. paid) version. Since 2024 we use the pro version for most new website projects. With the pro version you have access to starter sites (templates). There’s a learning curve to master this theme. But the output HTML code is clean and websites therefore load fast without any optimisation.
- Divi: premium theme and page builder. The interface is intuitive and small business owners usually like it because they can easily create their own website. However websites will usually need some optimisation to load fast.
Security
We use one of these 2 premium WAFs (Web Application Firewall) depending on the situation:
Page builder
We now use GenerateBlocks for most new projects. For some complex websites, we still use Divi.
- GenerateBlocks: powerful blocks for the Block Editor. We use the pro version.
- Divi: premium theme and page builder
Business emails
This means emails that you send/receive directly from your mail app. Your web hosting plan may have free email hosting but this is not ideal in the long term because it’s not as reliable as professional email hosting.
- Google Workplace: ideal if you like Gmail
- Microsoft 365: ideal if you like the Microsoft Outlook app
- VentraIP email hosting: budget email hosting
Transaction emails
Transactional emails are sent by the website, eg from a Contact form or an online store.
- SMTP2GO: SaaS email provider based in New Zealand. Pricing is affordable. Free tier.
- Gravity SMTP: this premium plugin connects WordPress sites to SMTP2GO. It’s included in the Gravity Forms Elite plan.
Bulk emails
Bulk emails are sent to large number of people at once, usually marketing emails such as a newsletter.
We use Mailchimp. The free tier may be enough to start.
Performance
This often depends on the hosting company. Some providers offer server and/or object caching. Here are tools that we regularly use:
- WP Rocket: page caching and optimisation
- Asset CleanUp: stop Javascript and CSS files from loading on certain pages
- OMGF: store Google fonts locally
Accessibility
There is no plugin or external app that will make your website compliant with WCAG 2.2 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Avoid 3rd party tools collectively known as “accessibility overlays”.
As much as possible, we select plugins that can natively produce accessible content.
For Divi websites, we use the free Divi Accessibility plugin as a base and we complement it with custom PHP/Javascript code.
Forms
We use Gravity Forms. It integrates with many other plugins and is web accessible out of the box.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics for now.
SEO
SEOPress is an affordable and yet powerful plugin for on-site Search Engine Optimisation.
Images
- ShortPixel Image Optimizer: automatically compress and/or resize images in the Media Library. Need a API key from ShortPixel (free tier available)
- SVG Support: free plugin that allows to upload SVG images
- Enable Media Replace: free plugin that makes it possible to replace an image in the Media Library
Backups
- Whatever tools the web hosting company provides for onsite backups.
- UpdraftPlus Backup premium: backup offsite to Google Drive or Dropbox.
