“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan. Having the right website tools is especially important online, where we have access to a myriad of tools and what others think about them. You’ll only be as effective as the tools you use. Even tasks that take a lot of time and effort will be effectively simplified if you have the right tools.
Here are 5 website tools to help you effectively run your online business under a budget:
# 1. Easy WebContent
We all know how important having great web design is. For its simplicity and its capabilities, everyone uses Wordpress. After all, the majority can’t be wrong – especially when they’re 70 million+ people. Unfortunately, Wordpress isn’t necessarily for everyone, especially if you’re a small business operating on a budget or a startup without much to spend.
While the Wordpress CMS is free, it costs a lot to have a professional look and design for your website; you don’t have control over the free themes unless you’re good at coding and you can only get a design unique to you by going for a custom webdesign; with some web design firms you can easily see yourself spending in excess of $5,000 to get a custom Wordpress design.
While there are premium themes being sold for less than $100, the same themes are being downloaded and used by thousands of other people so it doesn’t really help you stand out. If you don’t have the $3,000+ to spend on a custom design, Easy WebContent also has a site builder and a host of premium templates you can customize to your taste to have a great blog. This is also supported with an HTML editor in case you already have your HTML website hosted on another server.
# 2. PostJoint
No business can thrive online without effective marketing. One of the best ways to market your business online is by guest blogging; you give a blogger free content in exchange for a link back to your website and some exposure. This alone can be more effective than most forms of advertising.
With guest blogging, writing the content can be very easy but reaching out to bloggers who will accept your guest post takes time and effort; PostJoint simplifies this by serving as an intermediary between the blogger and the guest blogger. You select the blog of your choice, submit quality content that meets the criteria of that blog and that gets published.
# 3. KissMetrics
Analytics is something very important and powerful that most online businesses ignore. Building a successful business isn’t just about having a clean design and marketing. Most importantly, it’s about testing every action and every change you make to see what is giving you the best return on investment.
Unlike basic analytic tools like Google Analytics, KissMetrics helps you monitor important metrics that can influence your business growth; it can monitor anything from how many leads you get as a result of a particular campaign to what traffic source leads to the most conversion. It also ensures each user is properly tracked and as a result makes sure you don’t waste your marketing efforts.
# 4. Informly
This newly-launched tool gives you access to almost all of your online stats in one dashboard. Whether you want to monitor your Google search positions, your Kissmetrics data, your AWeber or Mailchimp subscription growth and email analytics or the performance of each article you publish, Informly is for you.
With Informly, you have all your online dashboards in one place and you don’t have to worry about logging in to various dashboards and accounts every day before you know what is happening with your online business.
# 5. Bufferapp
Bufferapp makes it easy for you to streamline your social media marketing. Instead of having to spend hours managing your social media profiles every day, Bufferapp gives you a platform that allows you to do it all in one place.
Every online business not using social media is making a huge mistake; irrespective of the size of your business, social media can work for you. Take Cisco for example; Cisco was able to save $100,000 in product launch expenses and still break previous records by focusing on social media as opposed to doing things the traditional way they used to. Bufferapp makes social media easy for you without having to spend the huge bucks.
What tools do you suggest for your website?
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