Today I’m sharing with you the exact online business tools and resources I use every day and couldn’t live without. Everything I’ve listed here is something that has helped me grow my business and make money. Oh, and I believe in keeping overheads low to maximize profit so everything here is super affordable (and some of it FREE) to help you find that sweet spot where you start making money from your business as early as possible.
A bad workman blames his tools. A good workman gives his tools the credit they deserve. Click To Tweet
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The Basics
WordPress & Weebly
WordPress is where all the big boys (and girls) blog. It has a lot of cool functions, clean, attractive themes (even the free ones) easy to install plug-ins, widgets, and more functionality than most other platforms. It also integrates easily with almost any other program you might want to use and finding advice and tutorials is always easy, because it’s so popular.
The Savvy Solopreneur is a WordPress blog. I’d never recommend you run a blog that you hope to make money from anywhere else. So why have I even mentioned Weebly?
Weebly is a basic WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) platform that makes building a professional looking website even easier than WordPress. It doesn’t have the plug-ins, widgets, SEO capabilities and integration features of WordPress, and I don’t recommend it for building a blog that you hope to make a lot of money from.
I’ve also run sites on Weebly and I love how low maintenance and intuitive it is. Everything is drag and drop and I never have to spend time updating plug-ins (because there aren’t any). If you’re looking for a ridiculously easy website to showcase your portfolio, for example, and you’re really not a tech wizard, you may find a use for Weebly in your bag of tricks.
Hosting and Domain Names
I’ve used all the big hosting sites (some for myself and some while working with clients) and I recommend Bluehost for hosting your WordPress site. It’s recommended by WordPress too, and it can take less than ten minutes to set up. It’s super affordable, reliable and simple to use. You can get your Bluehost account up and running in no time and then install WordPress with the click of a button.
Bluehost are currently offering a free domain with their hosting, which you can register while you’re setting up your blog. But if you already have one, it’s easy to use that as well.
Mailchimp and Aweber
You’ll need an email program to build your list of potential clients and communicate with your audience. I use both Mailchimp and Aweber for my own lists and when working with clients. They both work just fine. Aweber probably has a little more in the way of functions BUT Mailchimp is free for your first 2000 subscribers, which can be really tempting if you’re on a budget. The free version doesn’t allow for an autoresponder sequence though, so if you want that from the start, go with Aweber.
Social Media Sites
Social media marketing is vital to grow a thriving online business, and it’s (mostly) free. Yes, you may end up paying for ads to increase your social media reach, but you can start building an audience on any social media site for free. You’ll find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
I advise you to at least have a presence on all the big sites. If you don’t use a particular one often make sure your profile says what you do and who you serve, and includes a link to where potential clients can find out more about you and get in touch.
Dropbox
I store all my work in progress in Dropbox (online cloud storage) allowing me to access it from any location and any device. This is the one tool that helps me be truly flexible, highly productive, and effectively location independent in the way I run my business. It’s also really useful for sharing files with my team and my clients. And the basic version is FREE. (You can upgrade to a paid version if you have a ton of files to store and need more space). Find out more here.
Content Creation
Microsoft Office
Many freelance writers and professional content creators use all kinds of fancy writing software. Not me. I stick with Microsoft Word. Word documents are easy to work with, universally accepted by editors, and easy to convert to other formats (such as PDF) using a free online conversion tool (I use this one).
I even write my books in Word these days. It’s easy to convert a Word document to a Kindle book or to an EPub format which is what you need to sell on iBooks, Kobo and other ebook retailers.
With Office you also get Excel which is what I use to track freelance submissions, income and expenses.
The Co-Schedule Headline Analyser
I use this free online tool on every headline I write, whether it’s for my own blog, my content creation clients or my freelance writing pitches. I’ve started using it to test out future book titles too.
Grammarly
Your personal online proofreader, Grammarly can proofread everything from a blog post to a book. I’m not saying you should always skip paying a human editor/proofreader (it depends on the project) but for your day-to-day content, Grammarly is great. If you’re launching a book, course or information product, you might want to perfect it by employing a professional copy editor and proofreader, but you can still save money by using Grammarly to improve your content before handing it over to an editor. The folks at Grammarly have made a quick video to help you decide if this tool is for you. You can view it below.
Yoast SEO
This free WordPress plug-in optimizes every post I write, both for myself and my content creation clients. If you're still not sure how to use Search Engine Optimization, this online guide does a great job of explaining it, but if you use Yoast, you'll need less of an in-depth knowledge, and more of a basic understanding.
PLR
PLR (Private Label Rights) content is content you buy in to adapt, personalize, monetize and use on your site. PLR articles are usually written by a ghostwriter and sold to several website owners. This means that you (and a limited number of other bloggers) can edit the articles and publish them without being required to link back to anyone or give anyone credit for writing them.
Using PLR is a little complicated, but once you get the hang of using it, it can save you a ton of time. Grab this free report How to Use PLR Content.
My favourite PLR companies are WhiteLabelPerks.com and Piggy Makes Bank.
Bonus tip: I rarely buy PLR at full price. Sign up for the newsletter at the above sites and they'll let you know when they have discounted PLR packages or site-wide sales. That's when I stock up. Sometimes they'll even send you free content you can re-brand and use in your business. (You may need to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the sign-up box).
Coachglue
My best resource for 'Done-For-You' content. Coachglue sell ready-made templates, planners and coaching kits you can adapt and rebrand to use in your business. They mainly serve business coaches, providing kits they can use to coach their clients and organize their business, but some of their resources work in various niches. I use their planners (such as the Book Brainstorming Planner and Amazon Author Page planner) to coach other writers.
Free Image Sites
Images are really important in my online business, but I don't spend a lot on them. I mainly use these free stock photography sites to source images, combined with the resource below.
Canva
Simple to use image editing software that has a basic free version. I only occasionally use the paid elements and you can do so on a pay-as-you-go basis, spending as little as $1 at a time if you want to use a premium image or graphic.
Other
Fiverr
I use Fiverr.com to outsource easy one-off jobs like designing a simple cover for an ebook or info product, keyword research or techie stuff (like moving a blog from one platform to another or making a new domain point at an old site). These are things I could do myself but as I don't do it on a daily basis it would take me a while to work out (or remember) how to do it. I can outsource it for as little as $5 so... Why not?
Amazon KDP & Smashwords
I use Kindle Direct Publishing to publish my ebooks on Amazon, and Smashwords to push them out to other retailers like iBooks and Kobo. I also log onto those platforms regularly to monitor sales and promote my books.
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tyvm!
You’re so welcome!
Karen recently posted…Relationship Marketing: Why You Need To Build Strong Networks
Awesome post! I’ll check out some of the tools you mentioned here. Did you hear of proofy.io maybe? It’s an email verification tool which provides organization for integration with your mailing client delivering marketing information to targeted audience.
I’ve been using three of the tools which you have mentioned especially grammarly and Yoast seo which I love the most. These ones helps me a lot on my blogging content optimization highly i recommend the same for others too. One more you can add up Surfer SEO which one looks more cool on now on the market.
Thaha recently posted…Are Twin Eagles Grills Good? (Are They Worth it?)