This article reveals the best free online business tools and applications. The examples depicted in this essay ought to certainly affect your business and even become a wedge for improved productivity and and improved business.
Website Builder from Wix
If your small business needs a website (and the answer to that for most businesses is a resounding “yes, it does”) and your website building needs are basic, then try using a free website builder such as Wix, which offers a free account. Wix can help you create a full-featured, mobile-friendly website that won’t break your budget. After using the free plan for a while, if you realize that your business would really benefit from all the features a web hosting provider can provide you, then you can opt for a paid web hosting service such as HostGator Web Hosting.
WordPress
In my opinion, having a WordPress hosted website backed by the right monthly hosting plan is the absolute best balance between easy-to-setup website and scalable platform for future growth, especially if your online business model shows early positive growth signs. If you’re new to setting up a visually appealing website, there are an incredible amount of online blogging courses, tutorials, and free resources that can teach you how to get started with WordPress. I also put together one of the most in-depth guides on how to start a blog (that covers everything ranging from how to come up with winning blog post ideas, to effective ways you can drive traffic to your blog and actually learn how to make money blogging).
The free, simple to use Content Management System (CMS) that WordPress gives you is a basic website, published on one of their free default WordPress theme templates in a matter of minutes. For more creative control and advanced features that you’ll eventually want to use for your online business, you’ll want to pick up more complex themes and plugins.
Designhill
Designhill is a leading platform for small and medium businesses that need a variety of graphic design solutions. This site has many hundreds of skilled graphic designers from across the globe.
You can create your own logo, brochure, website and dozens of other design works through this site by launching your design contest and get many design ideas at one low price. You can also hire a professional graphic designer for your graphic design needs.
Virtual Private Network from CyberGhost
Small businesses that concerned about security (and you should be) need to implement personal virtual private network (VPN) services. These services hide online activity from snoops, and limits who can and can’t access network content. Most VPNs are pay-to-play but there are a few services, such as CyberGhost ($58.50 for Two Year Plan + Two Months Free at CyberGhost VPN) , that give you a bit of protection at no cost.
CyberGhost is the best free VPN service on the market. It offers reliable connection speeds and excellent network security, plus it works on most modern operating systems (OSes). It’s somewhat difficult to configure, especially for really small businesses; and if you need Mac or Linux support, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid version. But if you just need something simple, easy, and free, then CyberGhost is a great tool.
Bluehost
While I’ve since moved on to using Kinsta to host my blog now that I get millions of readers, Bluehost is where it all got started. Their hosting plans are some of the most affordable you’ll find online, ranking them amongst the cheapest hosting plans on the market—starting at just $2.95/mo with a variety of different plans to suit your unique and growing needs. Whether you’re starting your first website or you just want to get your online business up and running quickly, Bluehost is my pick for the quickest & easiest web hosting provider, though there are plenty of other best hosting plans to consider today. On top of just hosting, they also give their customers access to 24/7 expert support to help with any questions, troubleshooting, and customization issues you have as you get going. Plus, they back all of their hosting plans with a 30 day money back guarantee. You can get started right here.
Virtual Staff Finder
Virtual Staff Finder is your virtual assistant when you are looking for the best employees and need to hire them through interviews. This tool helps you in creating a job description.
Rebrandly
Rebrandly URL Shortener is the most advanced link management platform for creating and managing custom short URLs. Behind every piece of valuable information you share online there’s a link, and by using this tool you are able to put your brand on your links – turning them into a promotion for your brand.
Rebrandly’s reporting tool helps you better understand your audience by breaking down clicks on links according to country, language, device, frequent times, and more.
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PicMonkey
PicMonkey is an online image editing tool that you can use easily. It is best when you want to make business card design or flyer design or shareable graphics for social media and your blog posts. A premium version of the tool is also available on annual subscription. Free online image editing tool.
Endpoint Protection from Avast
What’s the point of growing a business if it can be shut down by viruses or hackers? Avast’s endpoint protection comes in a free and a premium version, both of which protect your network well.
If you opt for the free version, keep in mind that you won’t have access to proactive controls, a firewall, or data shredding. However, you’ll still get access to solid malware blocking, security scanning, and rescue disk functionality—all of which will come in handy at some point.
Gmail.
Gmail will help you become significantly more effective with your email follow up (and email organization). Snooze emails to a later date if you can’t deal with them immediately. Send emails to potential clients and trigger them to resurface in your inbox if you haven’t heard back within a week. This online business tool for better managing my email has become an essential part of my content distribution cycle and outreach process for guest blogging—or even when it comes to remembering to follow up on my work from home job or otherwise remote work opportunity leads. The goal of using Inbox is that you’ll never forget to follow up or lose track of important prospects again.
Video Conferencing from join.me
If you’re looking to connect with clients, prospects, and remote workers, you’ll need a reliable video conferencing solution to help you get the job done. Join.me offers a free plan that lets you invite up to 10 video participants, share screens, and supports up to five video feeds.
Join.me isn’t the most robust offering on the market, but it’s definitely a strong competitor among the free solutions. If you don’t have money to spend, and you need the cream of the free crop, try join.me.
Email Marketing from MailChimp
MailChimp ($10.00 at Mail Chimp) is one of the best and most popular email marketing platforms on the market. Service tiers are priced depending on how many emails you send per month. If your company sends fewer than 12,000 email messages per month to fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you’ll absolutely love MailChimp’s Forever Free plan.
This steal of a deal lets you use built-in signup forms to gather subscribers from across the web. You can use MailChimp’s drag-and-drop designer and email templates to craft the perfect message. You won’t get robust reporting on the Forever Free plan, but you’ll be able to check open rates and compare them to the average company in your industry. Not bad for zero dollars.
E-Commerce Software from X-Cart
For companies that have products to sell but don’t have much money to design a complex online shopping cart, X-Cart ($29.95 at X-Cart) is a powerful solution. X-Cart 5, which is the name of the free version, offers advanced features such as newsletters, social-commerce sharing, and a sitebuilder for tweaking themes. X-Cart provides free core upgrades and free extensions such as ShipStation to generate shipping labels, Magic Slideshow to create a slideshow on the site, and Diib Analytics.
Keep in mind: You’ll need a bit of technical prowess to get started with X-Cart 5. It’s not a plug-and-play e-commerce tool, so be sure to have a handy IT person around to walk you through your setup.
Document Scanning from Evernote Scannable
Scannable (Free at Apple.com) , which is a new app from Evernote (Free at Apple.com) , quickly scans stacks of business cards, notes from a meeting, and documents by using nothing more than your smartphone and its camera. When you scan multiple documents in one session, each one is treated as a separate note in Evernote rather than as one note with several images embedded. This is a great idea for receipts and business card organization.
The app also connects to LinkedIn for added networking context as it parses text extremely well. Because the tool connects to the cloud, sharing documents is as easy as sharing a photo on your phone’s hard drive.
Customer Relationship Management from Apptivo CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools are often complex, expensive, and flooded with features you’ll never need. Apptivo CRM (Visit Site at Apptivo) offers a free Starter plan for up to three users that’s designed to ease you into the complicated world of customer data.
With the Starter plan, you’ll gain access to detailed reporting, 500 MB of data, and project management features such as milestone tracking and project templates. You’ll also be able to connect your free CRM to free helpdesk, finance management, and procurement tools, which is especially helpful if you’re a startup that is just dipping its toe into the world of cloud services.
Google AdWords.
Affordable, targeted paid marketing to as wide or as narrow a client base as you’d like within Google’s sponsored search results or across their vast display network of partner sites. Cheaply test the viability of your product by driving paid traffic at a quick landing page to see if they’ll sign up for more information about your online business. Attract your first customers who are ready to buy, conduct aggressive A/B testing campaigns, and grow your blog with relatively cheap pay-per-click advertising.
CONCLUSION
There are numerous tools available online which would be of great help to the business startups, entrepreneurs or individuals. You will find below examples of these free or low cost tools which are available for you today.
Online business tools are ideal choices for all types of business owners when they wish to accomplish a lot of tasks smoothly.