Have you decided to finally manifest your dream business and claim 2024 as your year? Perhaps you’re a veteran who’s simply keeping an eye over the popular tools used in business? Or are you that hustler freelancer who is looking for better tools to upskill yourself and scale faster? Whatever your reasons for being here, know that you are in the right place.
The Smitten Wordsmith has compiled the best digital tools that will upgrade the way you do business. We took into account not just the number of features that you can get with paid plans. We also made sure to look at the value provided by the free version of each tool. So even if you are literally just starting out, these tools will absolutely assist you.
So if you are ready for your business to bloom and embrace the blessings that come with it, welcome to our ultimate business tools guide! We hope you enjoy it as much as we loved putting it together for you.
Website & Hosting
Business owners can attest that first impressions matter when it comes to getting a high conversion rate. For digital entrepreneurs, the brand persona starts with having a good website. To aid you in your ecommerce endeavor, listed below are the tools you would need to launch the website of your dreams:
Whether you are a longtime business owner or a start-up founder, BlueHost has the best plans for you with its competitive pricing starting at $2.95 for Shared Hosting and $2.65 for WordPress Hosting. In fact, WordPress itself has been recommending BlueHost since 2005. BlueHost is also a digital jack-of-all-trades as you can do your domain registration, email-admin and hosting in one place.
For those of you who are not pleased with your current web host, do not fret as transferring your files will be easy with BlueHost’s CPanel. For a fee, BlueHost can handle your website migration from start to finish. If you’re eligible, you can actually get this service for free. BlueHost also has a 30-day money back guarantee. Feel free to check out if this is the web host you’ve been looking for!
To have a website, you need a website builder. While there are multiple brands out there, nothing beats the popularity and versatility of WordPress. WordPress is perfect for you especially if you rely on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) since the web builder was originally designed to post blogs. WordPress is free with several themes and plugins to choose from so it’s incredibly cost-effective for startups.
But what truly makes WordPress shine is the fact that it’s open-source which means that it’s highly customizable. It also has a large community of users which means you’ll never run out of tutorials for every issue you may encounter. According to Colorlib, WordPress is such a titan in the web industry that it powers 43% of all websites! So start using WordPress now and have fun unleashing your creative juices.
While WordPress has its array of free and paid themes, nothing beats having a specially made theme for your website. And if you are a female entrepreneur, then BluChic’s feminine wordpress themes may just be what you are looking for. BluChic has an array of affordable and marvelously designed themes that are pretty much plug and play. Check out our recommended themes here!
Of course you can take the design to the next level by hiring your own web designer to enhance your chosen BluChic’s theme. But if you prefer to do it all yourself, customizing your theme would be easy thanks to the intuitive drag and drop capacity of WordPress. You can also do the set up yourself by following the tutorial in BluChic’s website or calling customer service to help guide you. So grab BluChic now and enjoy looking the
Finance & Product
As entrepreneurs, generating profit is the same as breathing. It’s simply inevitable and very much needed to keep our beloved businesses alive. But the more your company expands, so does your revenue. Listed below are tools that will help manage your funds so you can focus on the essential:
Do you have clients from other countries? If so, you must be very familiar with the frustration of receiving money online for the first time then suddenly being charged way more than you expected when you try to cash out for fees you don’t even understand. Girl, we feel your pain. So if you’re sick of low-key unethical practices from mainstream banks, switch to WISE.
WISE is a technological service provider of international fund transfer advocating transparent pricing and real-time exchange rates. It also charges lower than traditional banks as it uses a peer-to-peer model. Not having a third party during the transfer means that money moves quicker as well! As for security, it’s all encrypted and WISE has proven itself with its fraud detection measures so rest assured.
Targeted towards small business owners and freelancers, FreshBooks merges invoicing, time tracking and project management. One of its top features is that it’s easy to customize invoices while looking professional as if it was done by an accountant. Imagine Canva except it’s for invoicing. So if you want a one-stop shop solution for your project needs, get FreshBooks here.
While we recommend having an accountant of your own if you intend to scale, FreshBooks makes it easy to manage the expenses of your business with its friendly user interface. You also get to track and time your projects then easily link it to your invoices. Freshbooks also boast task automation and app integration with other financial tools and productivity apps.
Since you are in business, it’s guaranteed that you are selling a product or a service. If so, SendOwl could be that heaven sent tool you’ve been looking for. If you are tired of needing multiple tools for every single stage of selling your product, no need to look further! Just get SendOwl. SendOwl is just like FreshBooks, an all-in-one software but for selling.
SendOwl allows you to sell your products using their interface in other sales channels like Amazon and Shopify as well as social media marketplaces like Facebook and Instagram. It also allows you to sell your items within your website by simply using SendOwl as a plugin. It provides product management, automated order fulfillment, customizable checkouts and shipping integrations.
Communication & Project
Communication is yet another inevitable process both as an entrepreneur and as a human. We have to interact with others to better achieve our goals. But the further your company grows, the more people you employ. And so to ensure seamless communication between your teams, we have compiled a list of helpful softwares for you:
Need a secure and comprehensive messaging tool to coordinate your employees? Check out Slack. You don’t need to mix your personal and professional life by using Messenger to reach out to your employees. Comfortably keep your work-related chats within the simple and customizable Slack that charges way lower than Meta’s Workplace.
Slack also includes integrations with a lot of softwares across all types of categories. Wish to get automatic updates from Airtable, Trello, Asana, Salesforce, and Google Drive? Done! Want to add plugins to use and enjoy more features? Easy. Require topnotch security? We got you covered. Slack has enterprise-level security along with reliable uptime. You can never go wrong with Slack.
Of course if you want a totally free app, you can always just go with Whatsapp. Just get another number to separate your private and work conversations! Recently, general messaging apps like Whatsapp gained the capacity to sort media, files and links. It’s now much easier to track documents with Whatsapp even with only a smartphone.
Since Whatsapp is one of the most popular apps and run by Meta, there’s better security and connectivity for this tool. A bonus is that it’d be easier to connect your employees to your clients should they need to interact in real time given that Whatsapp is widely used. Of course, Whatsapp has a business app but for small businesses, the regular version is good enough.
Need a project management tool with features suitable to a more robust team collaboration? Come check Asana. Asana is an established project management software that allows users to assign tasks, create workflowers, and track progress relative to the deadlines. It also allows users to set the priorities for each project.
It comes with a customizable dashboard that shows users an overview of the progress making it easy to get visibility on tasks. Just like with a lot of the apps mentioned here, Asana is also able to integrate with other softwares. So if you need a bigger project management tool, Asana will be better than ClickUp despite the latter being more user-friendly.
Social Media & CRM
When it comes to marketing, you can never go wrong by turning into social media. That’s just where people are. And the larger your social media campaigns become, the more insights you can derive to further refine both your product development and marketing launches. Here’s a list of useful apps to boost your conversion rate:
Since social media is a lot like our secondary homes in the digital landscape, it makes sense that businesses launch their ads and promotional campaigns in this sphere. But how will you know if your marketing efforts are really paying off? That’s where Later comes in. Contrary to its name, it’d be a boon if you get Later now.
Later is a social media scheduling app. Yes, that means that you can automate your posting so that you can ready your posts in the content library ahead of time and sit back as the engagements come pouring in. This tool is integrated with the top social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It comes with built-in analytics to monitor your posts’ metrics.
Are you an online course creator or blogger looking into promoting your content through email marketing? Say no more and grab Convert Kit. This handy email marketing platform allows you to include fillable forms and landing pages within your email message which is ideal for fast lead conversions. No need to have HTML know-how.
ConvertKit also segments your audience based on their online behavior and preferences for that optimized targeting. You can then automate sending the respective email sequence for each segment to boost your clicks. You can customize this further by doing subscriber tagging which means your sorting your audience from your own categories.
Are you looking into building an engaging survey, fun quiz, or just need an interactive and gorgeous form? Look no more! If you choose Typeform, you’ll be sure to have the best-looking form out there since it boasts an impressive 800+ form templates. Definitely guaranteed to provide the best experience to anyone answering your forms.
Owing to the more competitive nature of social media content and the increasingly shorter attention span of social media users, conversational forms are a must for any digital entrepreneur. Typeform is also fantastic if you want to gamify your website without needing to learn about coding or purchasing an authoring tool with a longer learning curve.
CRM & Project
Projects are yet another byproduct of businesses. It’s what our company converts into cash. And just like with communication, the further your company progresses on the field, the more projects you gain. And so organizing your tasks becomes much more vital. Here are the list of tools that can help you with staying on top of project management:
If you want to delve into general email marketing or simply amaze your business contacts with a message that looks more like it’s a website page rather than an email? If that’s the case, come join Mail Chimp. After all, Mail Chimp is designed to automate your emails and take them to the next level!
Not only do you get to automatically send mails, Mail Chimp also tracks the performance of your email campaigns and comes with analytics. Curious about your “open rate”, MailChimp will tell you. Want to compare which subject line produces more engagement? You can do A/B testing with MailChimp. And like the other tools, it also integrates with other famous softwares!
While Typeforms emphasizes aesthetics and experience, WP Forms is all about functionality. This trusted form builder offers a better cost-value ratio compared to Typeforms. It’s also the form maker to use if you intend to put your form in your WordPress website as it is a plugin while Typeform isn’t. Simply put, WP Forms allows you to build your forms within WordPress itself.
WP Forms is also user-friendly with its drag-and-drop interface and inclusion of a variety of form types. It focuses more on the quality and types of information that can be derived in a form so this is better suited for payment and contact forms. A bonus feature is that it has spam protection through the use of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA. So if you want quality data, get WP Forms.
While we already have Asana on the list, if you really need a giant project management tool that would double as a database, you’ll be better off getting Airtable. This tool allows you to flexibly organize large chunks of information without needing to be a techie. Capable of integrating with over 1,000 of the most used business softwares, Airtable is like the ultimate project management tool.
Airtable also has the functionality of a spreadsheet to maximize customizability when it comes to keeping various types of data. Users can put attachments and automate their tasking by inputting workflows. And since this is tons of information we’re talking about, it makes sense that it also advanced reporting or a bit of data analytics.
Content & Asset
Since yours truly specializes in content creation, you can rest assured that the best tools will be recommended for you. But even if you aren’t doing copywriting or content marketing, you will still need content softwares for all of your paperworks from your business correspondences all the way to your project documentation. Here are some of our go-to-apps:
If the 15GB free storage of Google is not enough for you, you might want to opt for Dropbox instead. While the 15GB is way bigger than the 2GB free storage of Dropbox, keep in mind that your email and Google photos also consume the memory space. Besides, if you’re good at referring friends, you can actually get a max of 16GB free space with Dropbox.
While Google is cheaper overall, Dropbox is superior when it comes to syncing. This capability scales the bigger your file is so this is the tool for people who work with large amounts of data. Dropbox is also better when sorting your files and can even be automated to an extent through your files. It also offers more customization in file sharing including link expiration and password protection.
Do you want to create documents without wanting to pay for a Microsoft license because you don’t need all the features? If this is you, then Google Workspace will be your friend. Google comes with docs, sheets, and slides that are all integrated with Google Drive so you don’t need to worry about backing up your files.
Google Workspace is also collaborative in nature so it is best for entrepreneurs who operate a remote company or work in a fast-paced industry like marketing. Workspace allows you to provide access to other people as long as they have a Google account. They can either edit, comment, or view your file. Remember, these are all completely free.
Want to ensure that your written content is as refined as it can possibly be? Grammarly will be your bff! The first thing that floats in the forefront of people’s minds is that Grammarly is a software that checks grammar and spelling. Students and researchers also see it as a plagiarism-checker. However, Grammarly is much more than that!
Grammarly is one of the best writing assistants you can ever have. Correctness of your file aside, it also checks the quality of your output by rating its readability. It also offers intuitive writing suggestions by flagging jargon and superfluous sentences. It will even help you rewrite your tone if you’re someone who tends to use double negatives. And so if you want to elevate not only your writing but the experience itself, be sure to subscribe to Grammarly.
Creative Resources
As a creative, you all know that I truly love producing graphic designs though these days, I have an awesome employee who takes care of that for me. No matter what kind of business you are, you’ll have better engagement if you have stunning visuals. Engage all the senses as they say and leave a lasting impression. And we picked three of our top tools for your graphical needs:
Are you in need of high-quality images for your website or social media posts and Pexels isn’t enough anymore? Consider becoming a member of the Styled Stock Society. This website is a must for businesses that rely on blogs for SEO marketing. After all, SEO isn’t just about using hot keywords. It’s also about having multimedia and external links within your blog.
You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars into DSLR cameras yourself or hire a separate photographer. You can just pay a small amount of fee and gain access to the array of beautiful images in Styled Stock Society perfect for female entrepreneurs. Using photos here will also ensure that you never run into copyright troubles!
Want to spice up your graphic design or perfectly materialize your unique vision? If that’s so, it will be in your best interest to join the Creative Market. This platform is where visual creatives reside whether you are a buyer or a designer. Yes, you can sell your assets here too.
Creative Market is curated by a team of passionate creatives ensuring that the selections are of the best quality. You can get templates, themes, fonts, icons, and more here. It also doubles as a community as feedback is encouraged here and your fellow creatives will be more than happy to assist you with your concerns.
Do you want to create customized stunning graphics like posters and infographics or transform your case studies and business proposals into elegant files? If so, Canva’s for you! This editing app is jaw-dropping with its rich repertoire of templates for just about every type of digital file there is. Seriously, click “all categories” in templates.
Canva also allows you to create eye-catching visuals without having to pay for anything. All you need is to be a little bit creative with customizing templates or mixing and matching elements! But of course, if you want to have more options, you can subscribe to Canva and gain access to all its assets. Have fun giving your brand a makeover with Canva!
Video & Audio
Static graphics aside, we also have sounds and motion pictures that we can utilize in presenting our brand. And even if you outsource your marketing, you’ll still benefit from automated tools that make instruction dissemination and meeting consolidation easier. Here are some convenient softwares that make your life much easier when it comes to video and audio management:
Marketed as an automatic transcriber artificial intelligence (AI), businesspeople usually associate Otter.ai with meetings. It is pretty handy for meetings as you just need to record with Otter and there would be no need to repeat yourself over again to those who were absent. But Otter’s capacity goes beyond that!
Have you ever conducted a live seminar or impromptu podcast session? Otter.ai ensures that you or anyone else won’t need to fret about taking notes with its real-time transcription, especially if your content goes beyond an hour. Pro allows you to import 10 vids/month while Business allows unlimited imports. So if you want a brilliant secretary for your meetings, be sure to download Otter.ai.
Speaking of meetings, are you someone who does not have the luxury of time to conduct frequent meetings with your employees? What if I tell you that you can just record yourself for any instructions that you need to send to your offshore agent? Or that you can simultaneously record your screen live for software tutorials or onboarding purposes?
If these caught your attention, then Loom will be perfect for you. Loom is a video messaging software that allows your recordings to be instantly shareable. Unlike Zoom and MS Teams, your videos in Loom are never going to expire. So if you want to never have to worry about conducting meetings at all, get your hands on Loom.
Need to edit a video promotion for your page but don’t want to go out of your way shooting scenes or paying a filmographer? Worry not as StoryBlocks is here to provide all your stock video needs. Notice those well-shot YouTube videos with a lot of 1080p clips? They’re most likely using StoryBlocks. What’s more amazing is that the videos are all royalty-fee which means no recurring fees!
Storyblocks’ pricing scheme is as friendly as its user-interface. It’s a small and fixed amount every month that allows you to have unlimited downloads from its library of over 1M assets. You also won’t have to worry about copyright strikes on YouTube. So if you want the best videos, audio, graphics and illustration, subscribe to StoryBlocks today!
Final Words
Entrepreneurship is simultaneously a rewarding and challenging journey. It’s not just a fancy label, it’s a way of life. Though it comes with a lot of struggles, we stay because it teaches us more than just business. It also shows us who we are. And while we are grateful to be entrepreneurs, we certainly would not mind having all the help we can get.
It’s true that hiring employees, forming business partnerships, and raising capital should be at the top of your list but it’s just as crucial to have the appropriate tools. It won’t just uplift the quality of your output or make you submit faster, all the little benefits will help your brand realize all of its potentials.
So take your time in selecting the right softwares and apps for your business. You don’t need to immediately commit to premium subscriptions or even get all of these. Pick whatever works best for you and trust in yourself that you are doing everything you can for your company to succeed. Always remember that you got this!
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