Business Tools
On this page I reveal the tools and resources that I use every single day to build up my online business.
Many of the tools are free but all of them offer great value.
A downloadable, pdf version of this page can be found here
1. Email
The best free email service is Gmail by Google. You can set up a free account quickly and easily and even forward emails from your Gmail account to another email account.
Because of the amount of spam email that plagues the internet, it is best to offer a Gmail email account when you subscribe to a service. That way you won’t clog up the email space provided by your internet service provider.
2. Social Networking Sites
There are 2 main social sites that I use to network and communicate with people:
Both these sites are hot. Set up a free account right now and start inviting your friends, colleagues, etc to join you. You can end up developing networks of thousands of people and keep them up to date with the click of a button. Best of all, its free.
Want to automate your tweets and follows? One of the best FREE automation services available is Social Oomph.
Here are my Facebook and Twitter pages:
http://www.facebook.com/johnlagoudakis
http://www.twitter.com/johnlagoudakis
3. Social Bookmarking Sites
Just like you bookmark (or add to Favorites) websites that you like or want to visit again, you can also bookmark them online for your friends and others to see.
There are free Social Bookmarking services that you can register with that will keep your bookmarks online for yourself to access anywhere and also for others to see. Some of the top Social Bookmarking sites are:
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Del.icio.us
By Socially Bookmarking your own websites to high Page Rank sites (as mentioned above), you get quality backlinks to your site and free traffic from those that see your bookmarks.
What’s even more powerful is if you can get lots of other people to Social Bookmark your site. Fortunately, there is a great free service that allows you to do this. It’s called SocialAdr. You can sign up for a free account here.
4. Roboform
This handy little password tool saves you heaps of time. There is a free version (holds up to about 10 passwords) and a paid version (unlimited passwords). It installs on your PC and creates a new toolbar on your web browser.
Whenever you go to a site that you need to enter a username and password, Roboform will automatically enter the details for you with the click of a button! I couldn’t imagine life without it.
Roboform
Download the FREE version of Roboform here
Find out more about Roboform here
5. Domain Name Registration
I use Namecheap to register my domain names. As the name suggests, the prices are competitive. Also, they have an easy-to-use domain management interface.
6. Web Hosting
While Namecheap do offer web hosting services, instead I use GVO.
The main reason I use GVO is their understanding of internet marketing businesses. If I was to have a few complaints about spam, etc, GVO won’t shut down my domain and seize possession of it – as other hosting companies have done and will do.
Another reason I choose GVO is their excellent support services. I live in Australia and my hours are after-hours in North America but I know I can get live 24 hour support with GVO – and I have.
GVO also offers you a great compensation plan for referring them to others. Some affiliates make a full-time income from home just promoting GVO itself.
Another great web host is Hostgator.
Hostgator are very competitively priced and offer very flexible hosting packages.
7. FTP Software
Once you have your own domain and a hosting account set up, you will need FTP software to easily upload/download content for your website.
I use Filezilla, a free open source solution that is the most widely-used FTP software available today.
Note: Make sure you download the “client” version.
8. Content Management System (CMS)
Wordpress
WordPress is the best (and it’s totally FREE) content management system for your website. WordPress is easy to install and is very user-friendly.
WordPress makes it easy for you to write and maintain content for your website. Also, it is extremely search engine friendly which means that you’ll have greater presence in Google and Yahoo! and, therefore, more free visitors to your site!
You can install WordPress from within Cpanel (in your web hosting account) under the “Fantastico Deluxe” section, this is the easiest way to install WordPress, or you can download it directly from http://www.wordpress.org and follow their setup instructions.
9. Webpage Design (HTML Editor)
Because I own Microsoft Office I use FrontPage for my basic webpage designs, such as landing pages. There is a free, widely-used alternative called Kompozer. Kompozer allows you to create and edit your own web pages.
You don’t need any programming skills so don’t be concerned if you’re totally new to this.
10. Autoresponder
If you want to build a subscriber list for a newsletter or otherwise, I highly recommend AWeber.
AWeber is easy to use, highly customizable, and has a high delivery rate. It is considered the industry standard and is used by most of the biggest players in internet marketing.
Tech support is superb. My requests have always been responded to within 24 hours and they even have a live support chat feature.
Another very popular autoresponder used by internet marketers is GetResponse.
11. Keyword Tools
Keyword research is so important to building an online business. There are 2 main keyword tools that I use:
Market Samurai is, without doubt, the best keyword tool available on the market today… and what’s even better, you can get a free, fully-functioning trial version of it here.
Choosing the right keywords is the MOST important part of any successful online business…
And it’s where most people fail.
Unless you pick the right keywords you will waste a lot of time and money.
Market Samurai gathers all the information that you will ever need about any keyword, within literally seconds. What used to take hours and hours is all done for you with the click of a button.
This tool will tell you which keywords get the most searches but with the least competing sites. This is what you need to know to have success.
The Google Keyword Tool is the best free keyword tool for finding out exactly how many searches any given keyword is receiving per month.
It’s also very handy in finding other relevant keywords that you might not come up with yourself.
12. Payment Processors
Clickbank makes payment processing easy if you have a digital product you want to sell.
Clickbank take care of everything; they handle credit card payments and also refunds. Also, they handle affiliate commissions.
To set up a merchant account with Clickbank, sign up as a Vendor.
PayPal is a great alternative for payment processing. Their fees are lower but it is more hands on.
13. Office Software
For my word processing, spreadsheets and databases I use Microsoft Office mainly but there are a couple of free solutions that are just as good:
i) Open Office
ii) Google Docs
Open Office works just like Microsoft Office and is even compatible with it. You can exchange and modify documents with other Microsoft Office users.
Google Docs is awesome. You can use an online word processor, spreadsheet and calendar just like you would use Microsoft Office. The one major advantage with Google Docs is that you can access the program and all your documents from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection.
Also, you can assign anyone permissions to view and/or modify one, any or all of your documents!
14. Article Marketing Software
A big part of your internet marketing traffic strategy will be article marketing.
The reasons for this are; it’s free, the traffic is highly targeted, and it will generate sales for you on total autopilot for years to come.
Another reason you’ll want to publish articles is to get backlinks to your site so that it will rank higher in the search engines.
One of the most fully-featured article creation and spinner software suites that I know of is Content Professor and it is totally FREE to use (an article spinner helps you to create hundreds of unique articles).
Get free access to Content Professor here.
15. PDF Creator
If you create reports, such as this one, you will need to have a PDF printer to convert your word documents to PDFs. There is a free one that I use called Doro PDF Printer.
If you want to create a PDF document with active hyperlinks in it, you can use the built-in PDF creator in the Open Office suite.
16. Paint Program
Graphics and images play a big part of creating an online presence. An excellent free image editing program is called Gimp. Gimp is open source software and has all the functionality of Adobe Photoshop without the hefty price tag 
Want quality stock photos? Check out this site for totally free photos you can use on your sites:
If you need to create banners for your site, here’s a great FREE service you can use:
17. Screen Capture
Capturing screenshots is a great resource, especially when you are preparing a how-to guide. Below is an example screenshot that I took with ScreenHunter:
ScreenHunter screen capture software
ScreenHunter is a free program.
18. Video Creation
Creating videos is a must these days. We all know how to create videos with our video cameras but creating screen recording videos is extremely useful.
The most widely-used screen recording video software is Camtasia Studio. It is not cheap but it is a great product. I have a copy and used it to create a video ecourse and other projects.
Download the 30-day trial version of Camtasia here
There is a free alternative but I haven’t used it myself so I can’t comment from personal experience. It is called CamStudio and it comes highly recommended by those that do use it.
Get your FREE copy of CamStudio here
Creating screen recordings is a great way to teach others how to do something. You can then use that knowledge to drive traffic to your site by posting your videos online. Which brings us to the next resource I use…
19. Video Hosting
The most popular video hosting service on the net today is YouTube. YouTube membership is free and it also costs you nothing to upload as many videos as you want. The only limitation is that the video length can be no more than 10 minutes (unless you are willing to pay for a different plan).
YouTube is a great source of free traffic. Videos are so popular and they will only continue to attract more and more visitors in the years to come.
Even better than hosting your video just on YouTube is to get it on 20+ sites, all with the push of one button… how do you do this? With an awesome free service called TubeMogul.
20. Outsourcing
If you’re stuck with any particular task that you need done for your online business, or if you just don’t have the time or interest to do something, then you can always outsource it!
Outsourcing your online business tasks can be very easy and cost effective. Some of the best places to outsource are:
As the name suggests, everything on Fiverr costs just $5
What can you get done for just $5? You’d be surprised! Anything from articles to backlinks to Facebook fans. It’s all there.
Elance is a great place to find reputable, professional people to perform specific tasks.
Odesk is a great place to find long-term virtual assistants and skilled professionals.
With all of the outsource sites mentioned above, there is a rating system for you to check up on the past performance of each candidate. Make sure you only go with those that have a proven positive track record.
Wow, that’s a huge list
Thanks for that link to Instant Banner Creation! I was looking some easy ways to create banners.
By the way, you didn’t mention Fiverr, which is a very very cool way to outsource. I think I’m spending too much time there. Recently, I’ve found one person who can transcribe up to 60 minutes of audio just for 5 bucks, which is crazy. I wouldn’t think she would deliver high quality job, but she has great feedback, what is really amazing what people are willing to do just for five bucks
Also, if you’re using PayPal to sell internet marketing products, you should be careful, because there are some horrible stories how a lot of money was frozen for a long time. And the worst part about this is that they had a lot of members who were paying for membership and they lost all these members as well. You can read these stories: http://derrickvandyke.com/warning-your-paypal-account-is-at-risk.html
Matt Poc
Thanks Matt. Great idea to add Fiverr… an excellent resource for every internet marketer. I’ll update it soon