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Five Free Tools to Improve Your Start-up Business

July 10, 2018/by Corey Padveen

Running a start-up can be challenging. With the use of helpful free tools, tedious and time-consuming tasks can be simplified and semi-automated.

Below I have outlined 5 helpful tools, which my business uses regularly. These will help you speed up and improve communication and productivity which will allow you to focus less on time-consuming procedures and more on improving our business.

Asana

Keeping up with the progress of your employees can be a time-consuming task. Using a central platform for communicating progress can help your projects run smoothly and on time.

Asana is a program which allows you to create projects, assign tasks to employees, and automatically create a calendar which upcoming tasks. Employees can then contact other employees on the platform to exchange ideas, and check off tasks once they are complete. The free version can have up to 15 employees and unlimited projects. By using this program, you can easily tell if an employee is on track with their work, and make adjustments accordingly.

Zoho Mail

When I started my first business, I needed email addresses ending in my domain (ex: name@mydomain.com). Using your domain’s hosting service for email can cost you over $5/month per email account under your already-purchased domain. Small costs add up when running a small business and can be avoided.

Using Zoho’s email service you can create up to 25 email users for your domain, free of charge. The only catch is that you have to use Zoho’s email platform to check your email which may be an inconvenience. Luckily, Google makes it easy to link your Zoho account to your Gmail. This way, if you are already used to checking your Gmail account, you can view and send all your mail from one place. For more info on how to link your Zoho account to Gmail, watch this video.

Google Drive

Google Drive may be the most commonly used platform in this top 5 list. Google drive is a powerful tool used for document collaboration, file sharing, and organization. Using Google Drive, users can collaborate in real time on text documents and spreadsheets and allows users to change the permissions of a document to read-only or edit as they please. The spreadsheet feature of Drive can be put to use to easily update important stats such as revenue, stock, etc. The platform makes it easy to create folders to keep all files organized and at no cost for 15 Gb of storage, it’s well worth trying.

Skype

Skype is known mostly as a tool for video calling, however, its instant messaging service can be powerful for your small business. A running issue faced by employees is the unnecessary amount of time checking and writing emails throughout the day. Email creates boundaries of formality which add time to the drafting of an email and can add significant time when reading through an email to find the important information.

Instant messaging on Skype makes it easy to send quick messages, pictures, and files between workers while saving the time of writing emails. The platform also supports group messaging for easy project discussions. Of course, it can also be used for conducting audio and video calls free of charge from one user to another. As a whole, Skype messaging can create a less formal and more productive culture within a business.

HootSuite

HootSuite is a popular marketing tool used by small businesses because of its simplicity and reliability. The platform offers a free limited version of the full software which can be effective for a small business that wants to improve their social media.

The free version allows users to schedule up to 30 social media posts across 3 social media accounts. This means you can have Hootsuite automatically post to your social media every day, at a specified time, rather than manually log into each social media account every day and posting on each account. This is a helpful solution for an entrepreneur who can’t find time to post consistently on their social media platforms.

These five free platforms should provide a helpful basis for running your start-up’s operations. Check them out and see if any of them make sense with your organization, then try them out for free to see them in action.

What Is Content Curation? [Video]

January 22, 2016/by Corey Padveen

What is content curation and what are some of the best content curation tools?

Sometimes, one of the fastest ways to build your presence and acquire new fans and followers is to find and share some of the greatest content on the web. Of course, you’ll always want to have a focus on creating your own great content, but sharing (and, naturally, properly attributing) third-party content across your social channels through the process of content curation can be a major asset.

So what exactly is the process of content curation, and what are some of the pieces of technology that make this process simpler? Watch this short video and find out how you can start curating the best content across the web to fire up your brand building process.

5 of the Best SEO Tools Marketers Should Know About

April 20, 2015/by Corey Padveen

The marketplace for SEO tools is no smaller than any other, and there are plenty of great ones.

Just as there has been a proliferation of marketing, social media and management tools, there has been a growth in the number of SEO tools on the market. How to choose?

While there are several tools that offer some great features and assistance when it comes to search, these five are among the best SEO tools on the market that every marketer should know about.

1. Moz

For anyone who has researched SEO tools in the past, it should come as no surprise that Moz sits on top of the list. Long-heralded as one of the best search softwares on the market, a brief overview makes it easy to see why.

When it comes to keyword research and link building, few tools are stronger than Moz. The software also provides a thorough competitive analysis and a series of additional tools (with the pro version) to help any search marketer find success.

The only drawback is found when looking into volume. While some other tools on this list allow for a fairly extensive number of keywords to be researched, programs to be tracked and social accounts to be analyzed, Moz doesn’t offer quite as many. But that doesn’t take away from its excellent value-added.

2. Raven Tools

Another powerful search software, Raven Tools, with a series of tools that will help any marketer – from newbie to experienced search pro – optimize a campaign or website.

Track up to 20 social accounts (more than Moz), receive extensive competitive analyses and conduct thorough keyword research with Raven Tools. There is also an extensive analytics dashboard, which any marketer loves to have.

Support is also outstanding, and the only drawback is the keyword research depth that is offered with the tool. While services like Web CEO Online offer 500 keywords for analysis, Raven only offers 100.

3. Web CEO Online

Web CEO Online offers tons of keywords for analysis and is a dream for the multi-faceted product search marketer.

There is also a keyword generator, a link-building tool, competitive analysis and plenty of reporting. Again, this service offers info and recommendations related to social (as any good tool will) and top-of-the-line reporting.

The online/cloud version of this service is not quite as robust as the desktop version, but if you’re willing to go pick it up at the store or order it online, it is well worth it.

4. SEMrush

With features like a phrase matching tool and up to 500 keywords that can be researched by a user, SEMrush is great tool-based service.

If you’re looking for help tracking competitors, SEMrush is also going to be one of your go-to services. While it is not quite as robust as its cohorts mentioned above when it comes to things like campaigns and social, it does give you plenty of insights into what is happening with your industry when it comes to search.

5. UpCity

While we are certainly grateful that UpCity included one of the t2 eBooks as one of the best on the web, we can assure you that their inclusion here is based on the fact that UpCity really is one of the top search tools on the market.

Now while UpCity is more of an online marketing solution, it does offer an SEO toolkit that can prove to be extremely useful to small businesses looking for all-in-one solutions. There is not quite as much depth in terms of keywords and reporting, but there is a suite of tools that will help you along the way when you are getting started with SEO.

It is particularly useful for smaller enterprises that need some assistance with every aspect of their online marketing initiatives and not just SEO.

Conclusion

There are plenty of SEO tools on the market today, and each one has its own value depending on what it is you are trying to achieve. Be sure to conduct proper research when deciding on a tool and outline your goals and necessities clearly in order to be certain that you are making the right choice.

We would love to know more about your favorite SEO tools! Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!