My favorite tools
for web design & photography
As a web designer and photographer, I come in contact with dozens of different tools. The tools, you see here, are my favorite tools for web design and photography. I have thoroughly tested these, use them in my daily work, and therefore highly recommend them.
Some of these products represent three values that I consider very important:
🍀 = sustainable product
🇪🇺 = made in the European Union
🔒 = privacy friendly product
Favorite tools web design
Astra theme
🍀
A featherweight WordPress theme that lets you build a super fast website. Useful for building sustainable websites!
Price: free or $69 per year for Astra Pro
Burst Statistics
🍀🇪🇺🔒
A European and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics. This plugin is easy to use and clear!
Price: free or €42.63 per year
CleanTalk
🔒
Keep your website or blog spam-free with this powerful tool. It stops all spam under blogs and in contact forms on your online pages.
Price: from $12 per year for one website
Combell
🍀🇪🇺🔒
Your website securely hosted on a server in a sustainable data center in Brussels? With host Combell, your site and e-mail are in good hands.
Price: from €5.99 per month.
Complianz
🇪🇺🔒
Looking for a cookie banner to make your website GDPR- or AVG-proof? With Complianz, you can sleep on both ears.
Price: free with possible paid extensions
Divi
A wildly popular WordPress theme and builder. Works very intuitively and you build the most beautiful websites with this.
Price: $89 per year or $249 for lifetime access
Ecosia
🍀🇪🇺🔒
A European, sustainable and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Search. You search, Ecosia plants trees. Usable in all your browsers.
Price: free
Elementor
A plugin to build strong designs. Functions well with different themes and has a slightly less steep learning curve. Fast and light for long-lasting sites.
Price: from €60 per year for one website
Monarch
A plugin to put nice social media sharing buttons on your blog or product pages. Encourage your audience to share your content.
Price: included with Divi’s lifetime access plan
Mozilla Firefox
🔒
A privacy-friendly browser ideal for building websites. With strong inspection tools and a color dropper to read color codes!
Price: free
Popup Builder
Easily set up and track popups? This builder works with almost any theme, is easy to use. Ideal for entrepreneurs!
Price: free with possible paid extensions
Proton VPN
🍀🔒
Safely work on your website while using another WiFi connection. This Swiss VPN is privacy friendly and durable too!
Price: free or from €2.99 per month
Really Simple SSL
🇪🇺🔒
Secure your safety certificate? It can be done with this plugin. It also includes other options for securing your website.
Price: free with possible paid extensions
SEO Handbook
Become a pro at SEO yourself with this rock-solid handbook by Sabine Boogaard from Bogota, Colombia. It is a Dutch-language e-book.
Price: €25 for an e-book full of tips and tricks
Search Console
Want to learn how to work even better with Google Search Console? This strong course is a video tutorial by Sabine Boogaard, I definitely recommend this.
Price: €45 for a comprehensive tutorial
WordFence
🔒
Secure your website against brute force attacks and set up two factor authentication (2FA). WordFence protects you day and night.
Price: free with paid extensions
Vibe (Le Chat)
🍀🇪🇺🔒
Le Chat (now: Vibe) by Mistral AI is the European, sustainable and privacy-friendly alternative to ChatGPT. A great chatbot from France!
Price: free or from €14.99 per month
WPML
Make your website multilingual in a professional way! Choose manual or automatic translations that you can customize yourself.
Price: from €39 per year
WP Rocket
🇪🇺
A rocket you can attach to your WordPress website to make it lightning fast. Works well with a theme and builder like Divi.
Price: from € 59 on an annual basis
Yoast SEO
🇪🇺
Follow up in real life to see if your pages and blogs are SEO proof. Yoast is easy to use and provides SEO tips to improve your content.
Price: free with possible paid extensions
Favorite tools and services photography
Adapter
🍀
Also so attached to old Canon lenses? Use this adapter to place your EF lenses on your new RF body. Very sustainable, because this way they will still last!
Price: €119.99
Bridge
Almost vintage, but oh so handy and powerful for resizing, renaming and numbering large amounts of photos.
Price: free.
Lens 50 mm
My faithful travel companion: the Canon 50 mm f/1.8 lens I almost always take with me. For photos of the what you see is what you get genre.
Price: € 209
Rental service
🍀🇪🇺
Looking for a photography equipment rental company? I can highly recommend Kamera Express Rental. A sustainable solution.
Price: varies.
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