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As an entrepreneur on a small budget, I like to pocket my profit and avoid spending whenever possible. In today’s economy, you can’t afford to waste your money. Check out my listing of the top FREE and affordable web tools for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners.
My favorite Small Business Tools
Paypal | eJunkie | iStockPhoto | Hostmonster
Business Cards and Stationary Tools
Small Business to Smart Business Tips
With you in mind, I took some time out of my busy work week to create my Smart Business Tip List, which includes 10 how-to videos that you can watch at your leisure for no cost!
It Pays to Use Payal
As a Solopreneur, I use Paypal to handle all my merchant solutions. My eBooks, membership websites, directories, web design projects, affiliate programs, etc. I do everything through Paypal. I use Paypal for many reasons. First and foremost there is no startup cost, but there is still a small cost. Paypal takes out a small percentage of each transaction, and I’m okay with that because I do get a great deal in return. I can easily transfer funds into my account. I can easily refund transactions or dispute transactions when needed. I can easily track all transactions and download my business reports, which is vital when answering customer inquiries and completing taxes. The best part is that Paypal integrates with practically every web service that I use. I can setup shopping carts, buy now buttons, subscriptions, or simply send out invoices on an as needed basis. And the next best part is that your customers don’t have to signup to Paypal to use it, there is an option to process payments via debit or credit card instead of via a Paypal account. And of course paying for things I want with my Paypal balance as opposed to having to use my bank card, is an absolute bonus! If you don’t have a Paypal account, I recommend getting one, but of course everyone is different. Before signing up for any service you should do your research and find the eCommerce solution that works best for your business.
Small Business Marketing
More Free Small Busines Tools
1. I said it before, but I will say it again, the best free web tool for every entrepreneur is of course Paypal. I use paypal for everything; sending out invoices, setting up subscription payments, and creating shopping carts.
2. My cell phone is my primary line and that simply won’t do as an entrepreneur. I spend little to nothing to make international calls on Skype and I host all my teleseminars, conference calls, and virtual meetings for Free using FreeConferenceCall.
3. Adding Video or Audio to your site doesn’t have to cost you a thing! If you can’t afford Go-to-Meeting, use UStream for live video streaming, it’s free! PC Users take advantage of your free Movie Maker to create your own movies. For audio, download audacity, a free audio recorder. It’s great for podcasting. I host my podcast on podbean for less than $5 a month, and I make money by adding a subscription fee to my premium podbean posts. In my podcast I share my e-business tips with other entrepreneurs.
4. I self publish all my books at no cost on lulu.com and use Kunaki to mass produce my CDs.
5. There is no better Free email service than g-mail. Google has tons of free small business solutions, from google analytics to Google Docs for word processing applications, which are great if you don’t have MS Word or MS Office.
6. Do you want to keep track of your website and marketing campaigns. Use google analytics to track your stats. Signup for Google Alerts and create alterts on your name, website, or business to receive free email notifactions of any weblinks relevant to you. When creating a new alert, remember to put phrases and names in quotations. Try Google’s free keyword tool if you need help with selecting keywords for your ads or SEO campaigns.
7. If you are looking for free software visit Download.com or the FreeSite.
8. You can try eFax for online faxing services. When I don’t feel like paying for faxes, I simply scan my document and send via email as a pdf. Get’s the job done without the extra hassle.
9. If you are looking for freelance work or a freelancer for your project, visit elance.com to promote your business or find inexpensive services.
10. Get access to tons of Free Templates for newsletters, calenders, invoices, and more at Microsoft Office’s Small Business Templates page.
11. Quality images are so important for your business. Every week I am in need of professional images for my blogs, banners, photos for business material, eBook covers, etc. I get my clipart and stock photography graphics from iStockphoto.com for as little as $1.
12. For only $5 per month I make hundreds of dollars in weeks by selling my e-Books on e-junkie.com, the best website for selling digital content. I create all my eBooks using MS Word, Istock Photos, and I use a free webtool to convert my files to pdf format - PDF995.
13. Blogging is so important for my business. I get tons of Free Advice on Blogging from ProBlogger Darren Rowse, and Yaro Starak. Yaro even has FREE How-to-Blog video tutorials to help you build your first blog.
14. No Cost Marketing is my favorite kind of marketing. I promote my site for free online in tons of different ways. I created my own social networks for FREE on ning.com. I use free social bookmarking and networking sites like stumbleupon.com and twitter to share my posts with other entrepreneurs. With thousands of friends on Myspace and Ning, I hardly ever pay for advertising.
15. When I am not on my Ning website, I am networking with people on yahoo groups and meetup.com.
16. For Creating a Blog, there is no better Free Blog Publishing Tool than Wordpress. Here is a listing of over 45 Free premium word press themes.
17. Send out your press releases using PRLeap and PRWeb.
18. The best free websites to host your videos are of course youtube.com and blip.tv.
20. For the most affordable web hosting plans and domain name registration I suggest godaddy.com and hostmonster.com.
These are just a handful of free web tools and smalll business resources that I feature in my eBook, the Web Entrepreneurs Back Pack. I created this guide to give you access to over 500 web tools, so that you never have to waste your precious time searching for the right resources. You can download this ebook by itself or get it in a collection of my 3 Best Guides featuring information about Internet Marketing, Selling Your Products and Services online and finding affordable Small Business Services Online.
LaShanda Henry
Premium eBooks for Web Entrepreneurs
http://www.e-junkie.com/lhenry
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