15 Small Business Tools to Help Grow Your Business Online

From starting an e-commerce website to reaching out to customers, these small business tools will help you make a success online. Let the internet do the hard work while you crack on with growing your empire….

15 Affordable Small Business Tools for Online Businesses

1. Shopify

What is it?

One of the best small business tools out there, Shopify is an e-commerce platform with all the point of sale features you need to start, run and grow your business. You can integrate Shopify with your website to sell your products. Shopify has everything you need to sell online, on social media or in person.

How can it help grow your business?

Shopify Plus provides user-friendly design, 24/7 customer support, amenable pricing packages and customised e-commerce templates. It’s one of the reasons why small businesses are opting for Shopify Plus over it’s more traditional counterpart, Big Commerce Enterprise. Check out how it’s got the edge in Shopify’s Big Commerce Enterprise vs. Shopify Plus guide.

Cost: Plans start from £22/month. Click here to learn more about Shopify and and you get a 14-day free trial.

2. Tailwind

What is it?

Tailwind is a marketing app specifically for Pinterest and Instagram. It streamlines and schedules your posts and allows multi-board pinning, bulk image uploads, drag-and-drop calendars and hashtag lists.

How can it help grow your business?

For regular Pinterest and Instagram users, Tailwind helps you get the best out of these platforms by maximising your reach and providing you with data about what’s working (and what isn’t!).

Cost: Around £7.50/month but you get a free trial with no time limit here!

3. ConvertKit

What is it?

ConvertKit is an automated email marketing service provider built for bloggers and businesses who want to build an audience.

How can it help grow your business?

Your email list is one of your biggest assets: not many businesses grow without capitalising on this small business tool. ConvertKit helps you use that list to grow your business through forms, trackable data and powerful automations. It helps you reach and grow your audience at a click.

Cost: £22 to £70/month depending on your number of subscribers. Sign up here to unlock 100 subscribers for free.

4. WordPress

What is it?

WordPress is the world’s most popular blogging and website content management system. Set up a website or blog and get posting within minutes.

How can it help grow your business?

You won’t get far in business nowadays if you don’t have a website and a blog. WordPress is used by huge multinationals to people running businesses from the kitchen table, so it really is the best way to get yourself out there. A professional looking WordPress site is your shop window. You can also monetise your WordPress site.

Cost: Their basic blog is free (or £2.25/month) but a professional-looking website or blog with your own domain name starts at around £7/month. Click here to learn more about WordPress.

5. Bluehost

What is it?

Bluehost is one of my favourite web hosting company where you can host your WordPress website. In basic terms, it gives you a prominent space on the web to set up shop. Bluehost offers multiple website hosting options to fit various needs and budgets. Starting at £2.99/month.

How can it help grow your business?

Bluehost creates your shop window (alongside WordPress) and does it well. You get unlimited disk storage, domain hosting and emails with most of their plans, giving your small business that professional look your customers will trust and love. It’s also secure and reliable, giving you peace of mind.

Cost: Hosting starts at around £2.99/month, increasing if you want to add more features. Check this out if you want to start a blog here.

6. Evernote

What is it?

The Evernote note-making app organises your notes, projects, to-do lists and ideas. It’s a virtual personal assistant that keeps you on track and organised.

How can it help grow your business?

Being organised makes you more efficient. That converts into more sales, better customer experience and ultimately more cash in your pocket. Evernote helps you keep everything in one place, from schedules to lists, meaning you provide your clients with a better service.

Cost: The basic note-making app is free, but you can add more features for between £4.99 and £10.99/month (including a free trial). Sign up for free here!

7. Mailchimp

What is it?

As small business tools go Mailchimp has it all. It automates your marketing to help you share email and ad campaigns with subscribers. Simple and easy to use, MailChimp gives you the ability to entirely automate email campaigns.

How can it help grow your business?

Email marketing is fast becoming one of the best ways to reach your clients and grow your subscriber list. It helps you expand your reach by targeting a global audience. Work smarter by automating your work.

Cost: Basic version is free but you can add more features from £8/month.

8. Studio Press

What is it?

Studio Press lets you create and host beautiful WordPress sites which are SEO optimized and secure. They use their powerful Genesis Framework to provide amazing themes, making your website stand out from the rest.

How can it help grow your business?

Your website is the first point of contact for potential clients and customers so it has to look slicker than your rivals. Studio Press builds on WordPress’s themes to help your business stand out.

Cost: Plans start at £35/month. You get two months free if you pay for a year. Click here to find the perfect theme for your WordPress website.

9. Teachable

What is it?

Teachable is an online platform for creating and teaching your own courses – helping you to share and sell your expert knowledge. Create online lectures and a website to go with it.

How can it help grow your business?

By sharing and monetising your knowledge. You can use the site to teach students, reaching a wider audience than a traditional teaching set-up.

Cost: Around £22/month for the basic plan, which allows you to create a website and share your lectures or courses.

10. Dropbox

What is it?

Dropbox is a file storage and management system which keeps all your work in one place. You can store and share files and collaborate on projects.

How can it help grow your business?

It keeps all your files safe and helps you to share and send large files, documents and projects to clients, customers and colleagues. Dropbox streamlines your business, making you look like a real pro.

Cost: Starts at £6.58/month and includes a free trial.

11. Canva

What is it?

Canva is an online graphic design platform where you can create logos, posters, flyers, business cards and loads more both online and off. You can design anything and publish it anywhere.

How can it help your business?

Canva helps you target customers with engaging and eye-catching content and designs, making you look like a pro and drawing customers to your business.

Cost: The basic plan is free or add more features from £10/month.

12. CoSchedule

What is it?

CoSchedule is an automated marketing platform and calendar, which brings your strategy and social media under one roof. It syncs all your social media and marketing tools into one place, so you are not jumping from one site to another. It also helps you to collaborate on projects with your team and customers.

How can it help grow your business?

By having everything in one place, CoSchedule frees up time for you to do the important stuff of driving sales and traffic. It acts as a virtual project manager for your business.

Cost: £60/month for small businesses and you get a 14-day free trial.

13. Hootsuite

What is it?

Hootsuite is a social media management tool which lets you schedule and post across all of your social media in one place, using a handy dashboard. So you’ve got all your platforms in front of you at all times.

How can it help grow your business?

By streamlining your social media on Hootsuite, you post once and it goes across all your platforms. Freeing up time for you to do other things (like focus on your business).

Cost: Basic Hootsuite is free, but you can add more features from £25/month.

14. Google Analytics

What is it?

Google Analytics is a free (yes free!) small business tool which lets you analyse your website traffic and learn about your customers. It installs tracking code on your website which lets you know how people are arriving there. It also tells you a bit about who is visiting, like their age, gender and interests.

How can it help grow your business?

Google Analytics is an invaluable small business tool, as it gives you a window into who your customers are and how effective your marketing is! If you understand who is visiting your website, you can tailor your business towards them.

Cost: Free! (As long as you don’t exceed 5 million impressions per month)

15. Buffer

What is it?

Buffer is a smart way to share your social media posts. It automatically posts all your tweets, Facebook posts etc. according to a schedule you create (so you can post stuff according to different time zones).

How can it help grow your business?

Instead of bombarding your followers with lots of posts, you can use Buffer to space your content out, allowing you to post great content that doesn’t annoy people. It also saves on time and reaches your global audience while you sleep!

Cost: The basic plan is free, but you can add more features from £11/month.

Over to you

Are you signed up to any of the small business tools in our list? How have they boosted your business? Share with us her, we’d love to hear from you!

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