If you are running your online business, then you probably know that Internet is an essential tool for it. You can use all sort of tools to manage your business operation, both paid and free. Free tools can be very useful since they don’t require budget for their use. There are thousands of free online tools out there, but one question remains – which one to choose? Here is my list of free online tools for small business owners, to help you manage your operations easier and cheaper.
Free online tools for small business comes in handy if you don’t want to spend much money on the tools and equipment you need to run and manage your business. There may be free tools that can do the trick if you just know where to look.
Acquire.io
Acquire is an omnichannel customer engagement platform that helps you enhance customer experience. Through the platform, your customer-facing teams can handle a higher volume of requests and customer queries, as well as have better sales conversations, quicker and more effectively.
What can this tool do for you?
Talking to customers about the right product or service at the right time is key for online business growth. For example, Acquire’s conversational sales chatbot helps your team by drawing website visitors in and gathering information. This helps you to save time and resources and eventually have more targeted and relevant sales conversations.
Also, Acquire can boost customer support and make sure your customers stay with you. With pro-engagement features like cobrowse and live chat, your customer support team is better positioned to resolve customer requests. Acquire’s tools for building knowledge base and support chatbots are also an asset to your customer support operations.
ConvertKit
A huge part of getting traction with any online business is building your email list and learning to do email marketing. Your subscribers are one small step away from becoming customers, and they’ll serve as your first group for testing new products, sharing helpful insights, and launching new features. I’ve used several different blogging tools for managing my list, but ConvertKit is my all-time favorite. Their functionality is designed specifically for solopreneurs, bloggers, small business owners, and they’re constantly creating new features with these users in mind.
It’s very affordable (starting at $29/mo) and comes with every feature you need to build lists, quickly generate high-converting landing pages, set up automated emails, message subscribers, and includes numerous helpful email templates to start with. It also integrates directly with WordPress and dozens of other important tools for online business owners, so you can easily install visually appealing opt-in boxes and capture leads. If you want to take your email marketing seriously, check out ConvertKit today, it’s by far my most essential online business tool. Check out this comparison of ConvertKit vs AWeber vs Mailchimp to see for yourself.
Bit.ai
Documents these days need to be more flexible and multidimensional than ever before. And, as the information around us keeps growing, we need more powerful tools that can adapt to our needs.
Bit.ai is an all-in-one document collaboration platform that offers a smart editor for creating interactive live docs – a robust content library and document tracking that allows sales and marketing teams to see how people interact with their documents after they are shared.
What can this tool do for you?
Bit documents are built for teamwork and collaboration. Considering over 75 percent of employers rate these two factors as “very important”, it makes sense to invest in business tools that supports them.
With Bit, multiple people can collaborate simultaneously, creating a smart document in real-time. It’s a wonderful way to manage projects, create proposals, share meeting agendas, generate client-facing material, brainstorm ideas, and more. Bit’s smart editor makes the process of documentation and content creation quick and easy, too.
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.
ZipBooks
Do you have a hard time reconciling your financial records? You’re not alone. Many business owners and operators share this experience; dealing with large numbers can be hard. And that’s where business tools like ZipBooks come in. ZibBooks is a free accounting software that takes care of every number-related need in your business.
Reliable for fine-tuning checks and balances, its intelligence-driven software takes it up a notch by providing insights on performance to guide your interactions with customers.
What can this tool do for you?
Human errors are inevitable. Checks and balances are too delicate to be totally left in the hands of employees.
Businesses are unable to stand the test of time when tracking expenditures, revenue and profit becomes a problem. With ZipBooks’ automated bookkeeping, you can make sure that recurring expenses, accounts payable and other financial transactions are recorded properly.
OptimizePress
OptimizePress is one of the best WordPress themes for creating conversion-optimized websites, and it’s what I use to power my online business as the website builder behind-the-scenes on this blog. The amazingly simple visual live editor and template library enables you to very quickly build high converting landing pages, make a website, construct member portals, offer gated content, and so much more at an affordable price point.
As an added bonus, all of the pages you’ll create with OptimizePress are automatically fully responsive, so they’ll display perfectly on mobile & tablets—a major consideration when designing your blog layout. The theme is regularly updated with new features, functionalities, and has an amazing support team to answer any questions you have once you get started. On top of that, the theme plays very nicely and has direct integrations with all of the other top online business tools on the market, which makes seamlessly running your business a breeze.
Basecamp
You would not be mistaken if you referred to Basecamp as an online “organizer” as it basically helps you put your office in order. Basecamp creates an opportunity for team members to work closely, executing both individual and group tasks without unnecessary hassles. It is indeed a vital tool as research shows that being organized at workplace increases productivity.
What can this tool do for you?
Effective communication enhances performance. When you inform team members about what they are expected to do and provide all the resources needed, they are most likely to deliver great results. Basecamp builds strong communication ties between team members by facilitating instant communication.
Big on delegation, it allows you to assign tasks to the most suitable team members based on their expertise. Employees are motivated to excel in their areas of specialization. Other team members are not left in the dark about the progress of projects as they are kept in the loop, and can follow the conversations – this creates room for learning, and promotes team spirit.
Conclusion:
Free tools for small business to make managing your online business easier. It is important to manage your tools effectively to succeed in an online business. If you are running a small business, the time is limited, and the resources are usually limited. Thus, having effective tools to make your life easier can make a difference between success and failure.