Syed Balkhi, founder of WPBeginner, dropped by #bufferchat recently to share tons of recommendations for supercharging your website!

Read on for the highlights, or check out the full recap of this chat!

What advice do you have for someone just starting out with their website?

From Syed:

• Use WordPress as your platform and build an email list from Day 1!
• For those wondering, when I refer to #WordPress — I mean the self-hosted one (see the difference)

More great advice:

• “Keep your audience in mind for all copy—what do they want? How will you provide value? Benefits over features. ^Hayley” @unbounce
• “Make sure it looks appealing and professional and be consistent with your content” @TeriMKojetin
• “Don’t expect immediate results. Keep posting great #content, stay diligent, share it wisely & results will follow.” @CraigWilliamsPR

How do you balance flattering design and usability?

From Syed:

• Design with usability first approach. Usability trumps beauty.

More great advice:

• “Usability definitely outweighs design. Think about what your users want. Sometimes, the best designs are simple.” @samdunsiger
• “Design around your target market, what I think is usable and stylish might not keep my clients’ attention” @sitoub
• “Intuition. Does not matter how cool a site’s design is or how good it looks if not easy to figure out.” @CraigWilliamsPR
• “Simplicity is beauty… K.I.S.(S) Keep It Simple (Sweetie) (that’s the kind version of K.I.S.S)” @Plumlytics

Best tools for creating web content and blog posts:

• Canva
• Evernote
• WordPress
• EditFlow
• Grammarly
• Keyword.io
• Spotify
• Wunderlist
• Medium
• Trello
• Death to the Stock Photo
• Hemingway App
• Google Keyword Analyzer
• Twitter Search

Most essential WordPress plugins:

From Syed:

• Yoast SEO
• OptinMonster
• MaxCDN
• Gravity Forms
• Thirsty Affiliates
• Vaultpress
• AfterTheDeadline
• I created a list of 20 must-have #WordPress plugins for 2015

Other great tools:

• Disqus
• UpdraftPlus
• PodPress

Best tools for lead generation and email collection:

From Syed:

• I haven’t found anything better than OptInMonster for WordPress lead generation/list building. (Full disclaimer, I’m the co-founder of @optinmonster so I’m a bit biased)
• Lead generation is not the only thing. You have to nurture the lead and engage consistently.
• Pro tip: if you want to boost your email engagement, then start segmenting your list based on user interest.
• I use @mailchimp and then customer.io for a lot marketing automation

More great tools:

• Aweber
• FanBridge

Thank you so much for everyone who joined in on this great chat!Catch #bufferchat each Wednesday at 9 am Pacific/noon Eastern and join our Google+ community for the latest news.

Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!