My Content Creation Toolkit for 2022

My Content Creation Toolkit

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All the various items I use to run my business and manage my digital life.

Computer Equipment

Dell XPS 9500 (2021) Laptop – Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti – various spec options are available for this PC.

CalDigit Docking Station – All my peripherals are connected to this via one USB-C Cable.

2x BenQ Bluelight Filter Monitors – Two monitors. Must have. I want to upgrade these to 4K output shortly.

Synology DS920+ NAS – For home and business file storage, also used for running docker containers and apps.

Multiple Raspberry Pi 4 w/ 4GB RAM – For various projects such as Home Assistant, Magic Mirrors, OctoPrint and other things.

Camera & Recording Equipment

Canon EOS M50 Mark II – For creating longer form content and training videos.

RØDE VideoMic – Used in addition to the camera above.

RØDE NT-USB Versatile Studio-quality Condenser Mic – For live webinars, Zoom calls and training videos recorded on my laptop.

Canon Dummy Battery Power Adapter Pack – for longer shooting and connecting my main camera to a permanent power source.

Manfrotto Multi-purpose Tripod – To hold my camera and phone in place when filming.

Ring light x2 – skin smoothing and lighting to make my videos look more professional, and to help me feel more confident.

Soft Box Light Diffuser – for higher quality video footage in my training videos.

DJI Osmo Mobile – my hands are extremely steady until I hold my phone or camera 🙄 so I got this gimbal as a lavish investment to improve the quality of my content and it really works!

GoPro Hero 9 – for filming B-roll, or footage when I’m out & about.

Clip-on Mobile Mic – I don’t bother with the RØDE VideoMic when filming quick clips on my phone, so use this clip-on microphone instead.

Business & Marketing Software

SEO

KeySearch – an excellent low cost alternative to SEMRush and more expensive tools (use code KSDISC for 20% recurring discount!)

SEMRush – I do use SEMRush as I have the budget but it’s not for everyone!

SiteBulb – My absolute favourite technical audit tool for websites and SEO!

Screaming Frog – Another great SEO Technical Audit tool. This one has a free version (limited to 500 URLs) whereas SiteBulb does not.

Social Media Tools

Tailwind – Use for scheduling and automating all aspects of my business where I use Pinterest. All my pins across my multiple accounts are scheduled and managed with Tailwind.

Publer – Social Media Scheduling across all platforms including Twitter, Facebook Pages, Groups, LinkedIn, Instagram, Stories, Google My Business and more. This has the lowest price I’ve found for an all-purpose social media tool.

Design

Canva Pro – who doesn’t love Canva? I managed with the free version for a ling time, but having access to the Pro elements can take your designs to the next level. Must. Have.

Adobe PhotoShop, Lightroom & XD – I have the photography subscription to Adobe for £9.98 monthly, although I rarely use any of its features, I may cancel this soon.

Figma – for working with some wireframes and vector graphics outside of Canva or Adobe.

Automation

Home Assistant (free) – home automation software that keep my devices at home off the cloud. I don’t believe that things like light bulbs, plug sockets or security systems need to be connected to someone else’s cloud. Click here to see a full list of the smart home equipment I own.

n8n (free) – this is a free version of Zapier that I run locally in Docker. It keeps my credentials and OAuth tokens off the cloud and avoids paying monthly fees for another service.

Node Red (free) – more workflow software that I use inside Home Assistant. This is mostly for controlling things in my home.

Productivity

Notion – Notion is the best app for organising things in various different ways. Since the Notion API was released last year, I use n8n (mentioned above) to automate loads of things inside Notion.

Obsidian – Obsidian is my favourite markdown editor and note taking app. I especially like the way it displays links in the graph/map view to connect all your ideas together. It’s also free!

Miro – Miro is my new secret weapon for visualising processes, making plans and diagrams without spending hours on it. It’s free to get started and there are so many possibilities with this.

Slack – Slack is where I communicate with my colleagues. Even though I mostly work alone, I have 2-3 close colleagues and a business partner who I mostly communicate with via Slack, or occasionally WhatsApp.

Discord – Discord is where I go to learn new things and engage with people in the wider community.

WordPress Stuff

Astra Pro – Astra is my favourite theme for WordPress sites. I use it with Gutenberg, the default WordPress editor so there’s no need to buy any other page builder when using Astra. The Pro version includes advanced hooks, conditional logic and white labelling.

Blocksy Pro – Blocksy is another excellent block-based WordPress theme that works very similarly to Astra.

ACF Pro – ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) is what I use to turn WordPress from a blogging system into a full content management system. This allows you to add loads of custom fields and post types to WordPress, as well as design custom blocks.

Yoast SEO Free – Yoast adds basic SEO data, schema and other important SEO options to your WordPress site. I use this on every site, as its competitor plugins like RankMath are not as well-made as Yoast.

Web Hosting

CloudFlare – Every website should use Cloudflare’s DNS, Firewall and security. Even at the free-level, it’s better than no protection at all. Although, the pro version is just $20 per month and offers loads of extra protection. This should be a priority for your site when it starts to make money.

Krystal Hosting (UK) – Krystal is my go-to hosting provider for all sites in the UK, although I still use CloudFlare’s DNS at the same time. Krystal are completely powered by sustainable energy and all their servers use Litespeed which is exceptionally fast for WordPress sites.

Domain Names

NameCheap – Very cheap domain registration and simple interface.

CloudFlare – CloudFlare also offer domain registration at very low prices.

Coding

VS Code – free IDE software from Microsoft. Just the best.

GitHub – repositories for collaboration and version control and cloud storage.

Finance

Xero – for invoicing, accounting and reporting.

Starling Bank – for business banking services.