Top Small Business Tools: Part Two
I use a lot of tools and services to keep the business running smoothly and to keep my life just a smidge easier. I shared a few of these in my Top Small Business Tools You Can’t Live Without: Part One so now it’s time to share a few more with part two!
SiteGround
Hosting my website is a very important part of my business. I rely on it daily to work in the background without much maintenance. So even though I’m not doing things on SiteGround daily it is essential in keeping Proof & Parchment running smoothly. Since I use WordPress.org (as mentioned in my last top small business tools post) I have to have my website hosted online which is why I use SiteGround. It was really easy to set up with my WordPress site with and use my own domain name. Overall it has been exactly what I needed in a hosting service.
If you’d like to try it out for your website here is my referral link!
Adobe Creative Suite
First off I have to preface this one by saying this is not a cheap product! Also I do have background training in Adobe software from my degree and career as a graphic designer. But I literally could not run my business or this blog without the Adobe Creative Suite. I have an older version but hopefully will be able to upgrade to the latest version soon! The majority of the time I use InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. I use InDesign for all of my graphics and layout projects, Photoshop for my product photo flat lays and photo editing, and Illustrator to clean up my lettering artwork.
Google is life to my business! Hopefully that’s not too much of an exaggeration. But yeah Google is a great tool for my business, for the most part I use these main apps within Google: Email, Drive, Analytics, Calendar. It’s great being able to use my personalized email address in Google plus I love being able to organize all my blogging files and contracts in Drive. Also just the variety of information I can learn from tracking my website and Etsy shop in Analytics is so good for growing my business.
PayPal
Like I mentioned in my past post on my favorite tools, I use Wave for my invoicing and finance. However there are a few instances where I do use PayPal as well, it just depends on the specific client and what works best, especially for foreign clients! Mostly I’d prefer to have everything in one place and I do like Wave a lot but since it doesn’t cover all my needs 100% of the time it’s nice to have additional options like PayPal to round out my finance tools. Plus it’s super easy to invoice with my own branding and the fees are similar to Wave overall.
These next two top small business tools I have only recently started using and am still pretty much in trial mode but I thought they were worth mentioning since they are really useful and definitely helping me out with my business so far.
Marmalead
This website app is used for my Etsy shop and helps me to optimize my listings with the best titles, tags & more. I love being able to search keywords and compare them plus it’s great to see what is trending. Lastly it rates my listings and while I still have a ways to go to optimize my shop it’s fun to see how to improve my listings. I’m still experimenting with Marmalead but I have a feeling overtime this will become an essential tool in my business.
Tailwind
The last tool in this round is Tailwind which is another new one I’ve just started. I use this website app for my Pinterest strategy. I’m trying to grow my Pinterest following and use it to lead others to my website content and Etsy shop. As I use Tailwind I’m liking certain features like how it scheduled the pins based on the best time for viewership. I also like that you can join tribes to find great content to pin and share with so everyone gets more activity, basically a win-win!
If you’d like to try out Tailwind for a free month, here’s my referral link!
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