Running a small business? Looking to start your own side hustle? Either way, there’s a plethora of free online tools you can get your hands on to help you work more efficiently.
Here’s our favourite:
1. WordPress for websites
If your small business needs a website and those needs are basic, try using a free website builder such as WordPress, which offers a free account. You can use it for the basics and then add on as you go. The options for adding on are endless. After using the free plan for a while, if you realise that your business would really benefit from all the features a web hosting provider can provide, you can upgrade.
2. Canva for design
We love this tool and use it every single day. Canva is photoshop for dummies. With Canva you can create professional designs for your business, which you can use in your social media, blog posts and on your website, and it’s easy to navigate too.
4. Trello for project management
Recently surpassing 25 million users worldwide, Trello is one of the most popular productivity and project management apps out there. In Trello’s own words: “It’s a collaboration tool that gives you a visual overview of what is being worked on, who is working on it, and how far they’ve gotten.” It’s great for small teams of 3-10 or larger teams with 250+ employees.
5. Join.me for video conferencing
If you’re looking for an easy way to connect with clients, prospects, and your remote staff, Join.me offers a free plan that lets you invite up to 10 video participants, share screens, and supports up to five video feeds.
6. Shotcut for video editing
If you’re running a small business, you’re on social media too which means you need a free video editing tool. Our fave is Shotcut – it’s a straight forward editing platform that Supports popular image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG, TGA, TIFF, WebP as well as image sequences, and it doesn’t require any importing, native timeline editing instead. Winner.
7. HootSuite for social listening
Your small business probably doesn’t need a mega social listening platform. A free, easy-to-use dashboard that lets you stay up-to-date on what your customers are saying should be enough. Fortunately, Hootsuite offers a free version of its software that’s good enough to do the trick.
8. MailChimp for email marketing
Mailchimp is one of the best and most popular email marketing platforms on the market. Whatever your company size, you should be using this tool. The service tiers are priced depending on how many emails you send per month. If your company sends fewer than 12,000 email messages per month to fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you’ll love MailChimp’s free plan.
9. Google’s G Suite for emails
With G Suite, you can get a personal Gmail account for free, with access to multiple Google apps. It also allows you to store and share in the cloud, synchronizing files across all your connected devices, and connecting you in real time.
Considering which course is for you? Check out what you could learn next, or call us on 1300 738 955.
