TOP 10 Tools To Build Your Business Online. by JupiterTechs

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1 1. Hootsuite - Social Media Broadcasting TOP 10 Tools To Build Your Business Online by JupiterTechs Maintaining a strong internet presence with social media is critical to most businesses. Hootsuite makes it easier to achieve such a presence by allowing users to manage their social media interactions using a single interface. Rather than writing content and then going through the process of sharing it on different social media platforms, with Hootsuite, a user can write it once and then publish it to several platforms at once. In this way a user can easily broadcast a message to followers, friends, and associates on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more. So, why use HootSuite? To save time, of course, which often translates to saving money! It makes the top of our list because it s the single biggest time and effort saver out there when it comes to managing a social media presence. 2. Google Analytics - Measurement of Website Traffic and Engagement When you decide to focus your business energies on growing your business online, you will learn that data is king. Data, in this case, comes in the form of insights into the volume and nature of web traffic to your site. Enabling Analytics is a simple matter of embedding an unobtrusive piece of code into your site, which is associated with your Google Analytics account. When a user visits your site, this piece of code reports information about that user to Analytics, where it is compiled into useful reports. Included among such reports is information about how visitors got to your site and how they arrived there. Such information proves invaluable when figuring out how to keep users of your site coming back. We recommend Google Analytics because it lifts the lid on the black box that is web traffic. It s a premiere tool for measuring the effectiveness of your website. 3. Constant Contact Campaign Management High quality contacts are key to your marketing efforts, and successful campaigns using those contacts can be crucial to online growth. campaigns are a great way to make contact and create trust with potential customers, as well as to keep them aware of what products and services you re offering. Constant Contact makes setting up campaigns very easy with their online tools and templates. Once a campaign is begun it continues to run without any intervention from you, attracting attention from the desired audience, and enticing potential customers. Launching a successful campaign is not unlike flipping the switch on a new revenue stream. Constant Contact gets our recommendation because it simplifies the process of campaign creation and lowers the barrier to entry to users new to marketing. 4. Leadpages - Landing Lead Information When a potential lead follows a link presented in an campaign, via text, or on social media, he or she is directed to a specialized type of web page called a landing page, where lead information is collected. As the

2 name implies, Leadpages is a tool for creating and managing such landing pages. Thanks to their research into page layout and design, the team at Leadpages have identified key page elements, and have come up with a winning formula for lead data collection. Their tool lets you easily edit each page element, tailoring it to your needs, and streamlines the page management process. The result is a quality, well-designed page you create yourself without any need for web development skills. That s why like to say this product has scared more web developers than any other tool on the market! Whereas we think of lead presentation via as the beginning of the lead gathering process, we think of a quality landing page as the closer. We recommend this Leadpages because, used as designed, it can lead to a large increase in lead conversion rates for your business. 5. Power Editor Facebook Advertising at Scale Power Editor is a Facebook advertising tool designed for larger advertisers who need to create a large number of ads at once and have precise control of their campaigns. Facebook s ad platform is, without a doubt effective. However, large volume users often find the platform s default ad management interface unwieldy. Power Editor allows you to manage ads in bulk with in a more reliable, better organized fashion.. It has its downsides as the copy feature is more restrictive than managing ads the traditional way but we find that the shortcomings are more than made up for by the increased efficiency it brings to the table. For an advertiser playing the volume game, we can t recognize Power Editor enough. Time is quite literally money when it comes to a broad advertising footprint on Facebook, and the tool saves you quite a lot of it at a larger scale. 6. PayPal - The Premiere Name in Online Payments If you intend to do business online you will need the ability to accept payments instantly and securely. PayPal is a widely used and trusted solution for doing just that. Some payment collection services will charge up to 5% per transaction, but Paypal for business offers a much more reasonable rate of only 3%. PayPal allows you to easily create payment buttons to put on your website, which users click when they re ready to pay. Once a transaction is complete, an invoice is ed directly to your customer. Paypal is a highly recognizable online presence, and visitors to your site will feel comfortable using it. It s hard to top PayPal when it comes to turning on the online revenue spigot. With PayPal you get a trusted, near ubiquitous name in the business and a rock solid platform used the all over the Internet. We therefore recommend the service as our number one pick for your online payment collection needs. 7. WordPress - Roll Your Own Website WordPress has lead to something of a revolution in web development. Having grown from a simple blogging engine into a mature enterprise level content management system (CMS), WordPress allows users to build out their own full-featured sites with little to know web development expertise. A wealth of online resource is available to teach would-be site builders the finer points of the platform, and those who take the time to learn to use it will find great satisfaction in creating their own sites. Functionality of almost any sort is available thanks to a massive library of pre-built plugins, which are

3 installed and configured through the intuitive admin interface. One needs simply to find a plugin that meets a given need and install it in a fashion not dissimilar to making a Facebook post. In addition, this admin interface is used for all content management, including text posts, links to external video and audio, and pictures. WordPress might seem a little daunting to a new user, but with time and practice, creating a site and managing its content can become as easy as editing a document in Microsoft Word. The more time you take to learn the platform, the more you will get out of it. We suggest very strongly that you adopt WordPress for your site needs because once you master it, you ll become the master of your own online presence. 8. Google AdWords Getting the Word Out Marketing is the key to a successful business and growth. The Google Display network is an extremely efficient way to generate highly targeted traffic to your website. A site operator, you use the system to drive traffic to your site by building campaigns in which bids are placed on certain search terms. Through a combination of the price you are willing to pay for a given term and the site s quality rating, search relevance and ranking is calculated. This translates into better placement in search results and more visibility of and traffic to your site. In addition to search result optimization, the platform offers a powerful remarketing feature, which lets you rekindle interest in ads on your site by presenting them to visitors even after they ve moved on. This is a great way to re-engage with potential customers who were interested in what you were advertising, but weren t ready to commit during their previous visit to your site. Google is synonymous with search, and AdWords is an invaluable tool to leverage search to drive visitors to your online content, ads, and products. Effective use of the platform can result in significantly increased traffic, and we encourage anyone interested in maximizing online exposure to take advantage of it. 9. Yelp, Bing Local, Etc. - Directory Assistance for the Web Whereas search engines can be thought of as a way to find a site in the wild, directories narrow focus on a particular market segment or location. Presence in such directories as Yelp and Bing Local lend an air of tangibility and credibility. This is especially true for businesses with a physical location such as an office or storefront, as your may end up near the very top of results in a given geographical area. A highly relevant search result listing your business in a trusted directory, accompanied by positive reviews and feedback from visitors, is a potent way to attract customers. Remember, always, that in the minds of many people, the Internet and the real world are distant and disconnected places. Presence in a list that ties concretely to a given community or place can therefore set you apart in a search that turns up a large number of results. Most directories offer listings for free, and we recommend listing your business as a powerful way to increase its appeal to potential customers 10. LeanKit Kanban - Efficiency of Execution Kanban is a tool based on a successful Japanese method of automobile production. While it may seem like a stretch to tie this to building an online business, we think the practices for increasing efficiently apply. Using this tool, you can more effectively plan, execute, and track processes within your organization. What does this have to do with an online business? Well, Kanban is an online product. Using a site set up

4 for your team, you organize tasks on virtual cards, moving them across vertical lanes as they move through their lifecycle. The tasks themselves represent discrete units of work toward a larger task, and thus help your team get around the problem of trying to do too many things at once, or to think too far outside the scope of the task at hand. The cards themselves are quite versatile. In addition to a description of the task they encompass, each allows for supporting elements to be included in the form of attachments, notes, etc.. Setup is easy, and you can spin up a project and begin assigning cards to team members within minutes. So, why use it? Kanban gives you and your team constant feedback. Cards languishing in a particular lane for a long time immediately become points of focus, and necessary actions can be taken either to move them along or to break up the task defined in them into more manageable subtasks. Sometimes a stuck task can be approached from a completely different angle in order to keep the project moving forward. Kanban is a great way to maintain an at-a-glance status report of any projects while dividing up work intelligently among your team members.

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