Be Our Guest Fridays {32}: Top 5 Tools for Your Online Business from Life from My Laptop
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It’s a common and logical step for bloggers who love to write and manage social media to use blogging as a stepping stone to open an online business. What are your blogging and business goals? What do you need to get started in opening an online business? Alyssa from Life From My Laptop is a blogger, author and virtual assistant and is sharing with us her Top 5 Tools for Your Online Business. Her new book, FaithLeaps: The Christian Mom’s Guide to Starting a Virtual Assistant Business* is free for download on the Kindle until 9/20/2015. Check it out and see if a VA business is the right path for your online business goals.
Photo Credit: Unsplash/Barn Images
Top 5 Tools for Your Online Business
By Alyssa Avant from Life From My Laptop
Over my years of doing business, the most common question I have been asked is a variation of the question – “What do you use for your website?” Or “What do you use for your mailing list?” or “What do you use for invoicing?”
A related question is “How do you afford all the tools necessary for running a successful online business?” It is true that there are some areas of business where you don’t want to take shortcuts, therefore it is important to know what tools and resources are a must for your online business.
The following are a list of five of the resources that I highly recommend for each area of business. Most if not all of them come with a low price tag or are even FREE.
1. Gmail
I use Gmail for email to streamline my numerous email addresses. I love Gmail because of the ability to label emails, filter emails and created canned responses. Canned responses are like templates that allow you to save time.
2. WordPress
WordPress is my go to for websites. WordPress has all the bells and whistles necessary to run a professional website in one place. You can customize it to your specifications by adding custom or premium themes and have the look and feel of the professionals.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox is my choice for file storage. Dropbox allows me to save space on my computer and be able to access my files from any computer or even my iPhone. It also allows me to share files and folders with clients.
4. Teamwork
If you collaborate with others on projects or if you handle multiple projects at once Teamwork is the perfect solution. Teamwork is a project management system. It has both paid and free options.
5. Hootsuite
As a work at homer you know how much of a time suck that social media can be. Hootsuite allows you to manage your social media all in one place and even schedule it out ahead of time if you so desire. You can manage multiple accounts saving you time.
If you are looking for more tools for your online business, check out Alyssa’s 18+ Tools Every Newbie Virtual Assistant Must Have Report
About Alyssa
Alyssa Avant is an author, Christian Mom Blogger at Life From My Laptop and virtual assistant. Alyssa has been working virtually since 2007. She is passionate about helping other moms getting started working from home. Alyssa is also the author of FaithLeaps: The Christian Mom’s Guide to Passion, Purpose, and Profits*.
Follow Alyssa on her blog | Pinterest | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Google + | YouTube
I am a big fan of WordPress, Dropbox and Gmail/Google Drive. I keep a lot of documents and spreadsheets in Google Drive so that my files are accessible from my laptop and phone when I’m on the go. In fact, I keep this FREE 2016 Blog Planner on Google Drive. Feel free to stop by and download it if it will help you achieve your blogging goals too!
About Be Our Guest Fridays!
Be Our Guest Fridays is a weekly feature where I feature guest posts by my favorite bloggers and authors. I started this feature as a fun way to give back to the blogging community. I am excited to share with you these creative, inspiring and knowledgeable bloggers and authors. If you’d like to be a guest blogger, leave me a comment on this post and I’ll be in touch.
This post linked up with SITS Sharefest, Motivation Monday, Merry Monday Link Party , Inspire Me Monday and Mommy Monday Blog Hop .
I use many of these for my blog and enjoy learning what works for Alyssa and her business. What tools are essential to you? Where do you hope your blogging will take you? Do you blog for pleasure or do you hope blogging is a stepping stone to another career or monetary goal? Leave me a comment, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
Great post with good tips. A few simple tools for our online businesses makes life so much easier.
For some reason I don’t use gmail, maybe I should. Thanks for joining the Small victories LInkup party.
Great tips as always, Alyssa! I love all of these but have never used Teamwork. I’ve used Basecamp though. Carbonite is another “must have” too!. Stopping by from the Moms Small Victories Linky 🙂
Thanks Rebecca.
As usual, Alyssa is full of wonderful tips and tricks. I am a huge fan of Gmail and find it has many added benefits to it that many may not even know about. I’m excited to read Alyssa’s new book too.
Thanks for sharing on #SmallVictoriesSundayLinkup with us. I hope to see you again Saturday at 8pm EST.
I love Dropbox! It is so useful! Thanks for sharing with us at the Merry Monday link party. I hope you’ll join us again next week. Sharing your post on Twitter!
Thanks Ashley, I will be back for more Merry Monday, thanks for hosting. I hope you will stop by and add your best posts to our Small Victories Sunday linkup too starts tonight at 8pm EST.
I’m a big fan of Dropbox. It saved my life in grad school and I love them!
I use Google Drive but have not tried Dropbox yet. Thanks for commenting Allison.
So helpful! I really need to jump in on the Hootsuite boat & work smarter. Great tools to share! 🙂
Glad you found them helpful Tiffani. I signed up for Buffer and don’t use it nearly enough. Thanks for commenting.
Great tips. I use Gmail and WordPress. I should look into Hootsuite though.