8 free online tools to help you run your small business

I certainly don’t need to tell you how busy the life of a business owner is. You’re constantly thinking about all aspects of your business and how you can improve them–without breaking the bank. Luckily, help is out there. There are tons of free web tools available to help manage all types of business functions. If you find ones that fit well with your business you can save yourself a lot of time and money.  

How do you know which tools you should be using? There are so many options that it might be harder than you think to figure out which are the best for your business. Below I’ve listed a few that I think would be especially helpful for the owner of a class-based business like a CrossFit gym or a dance school. I’ve left off a few of the more obvious tools you probably (and should) already have–like email and social media.

These tools will help you save time, make smart business decisions, and produce high-quality content:

For search engine exposure: Google My Business

When you search for something on Google, do you ever notice the big box on the right highlighting a relevant business? You probably do–they’re hard to miss. And that’s the beauty of Google My Business. Fill out a free profile to have your business shown as a featured search result for relevant keywords. You can add contact info, images, reviews and more.

Here's how Pike13 looks using Google My Business. It's hard to miss if you Google us.

As a bonus, Google will also reward your efforts with an SEO boost. That’s a lot of return for a little effort. And since Google is still rolling out updates to the feature, it’s bound to only get better for small business owners.

For online reviews: Yelp

If you have a business, you should be on Yelp. Most people looking to sign up for a fitness or fine arts class will look at online reviews before choosing a business, and Yelp is the holy grail of review sites. If you don’t regularly ask your clients to leave reviews, now is a great time to start.

Yelp covers all types of businesses, but there are often more niche review sites for specific industries. Is there one for your industry? Are you listed on it? You should be.

For graphic design: Canva

Most of us aren’t graphic designers, but with Canva it’s possible for anyone to create professional-looking visuals. Templates help you quickly create social media and blog graphics, ads, flyers and more. As you can see from the screenshot below, there are a lot of templates to get you started.

The platform makes it easy to upload your own images and create your own professional-looking graphics.  And the best part? You’ll save a lot of money by not having to hire a designer.

For business insight: Google Analytics

There are a lot of reporting tools available, but Google Analytics is still one of the best. Just link your website to this free tool to see all kinds of useful information about your website traffic. What pages of your site are popular? How long do people spend on your site? What is the last thing they look at before they make a purchase?  Google Analytics can help you answer these questions and more.

One downside is that Google Analytics can be confusing and intimidating if you haven’t used it before. If you’re struggling at all, be sure to reference Google’s support center. You can even watch a series of training videos and get yourself Google Analytics Certified.

For website auditing: Hubspot Website Grader

Clients will almost always look you up online before signing up for a class. That means your website is the first impression they get of your business, and first impressions matter. Your website should be easy to use, on-brand, and aesthetically pleasing to clients and prospects.

Hubspot’s Website Grader can’t help you much with design, but it can tell you how well your website functions. Just enter your website url and your email, and you’ll instantly receive a report on your website’s performance, mobile responsiveness, SEO, and security. As you can see in the screenshot above, the report will tell you what works well and makes suggestions on how to improve. 

For customer feedback: SurveyMonkey

You should be regularly surveying your clients for feedback. Knowledge of your clients’ opinions helps you make better business decisions and improve the client experience. SurveyMonkey allows you to quickly design and distribute online surveys. It integrates with your website or email platform, making it an easy and ideal way to gather feedback. The only downside is that the free version is a little lacking in features, but it’s still an ideal solution for simple surveys. If you really want to commit to client surveys, I would recommend looking into the paid version.

For copyediting: Hemingway App

I absolutely love this tool. No matter what line of business you’re in, you’re going to be doing some writing at some point. Hemingway App is like having your high school English teacher right there with you.

Hemingway App grades your writing with color coded highlights, so you know exactly what to edit to make your copy stronger. It also tells you the reading-level your copy is suited for, which is important as best practice recommends not writing above a Grade 8 level for website and marketing copy.

For social media management: HootSuite

I am assuming you are already using at least a couple of the social media giants–Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Hootsuite allows you to manage all of them from the same platform. You can schedule posts in advance, see mentions and direct messages, and track analytics. By centralizing your social media management you’ll save yourself a bunch of time.

Help is out there

The abundance of free web tools means you can shop around until you find one that works for your and your business. Don’t like Hemingway App? Try Grammarly. Hootsuite doesn’t do it for you? Check out Buffer. The point is, there are tools out there that can help you. And the more time you save on administration, the more time you have to put back into your business and your clients.

What web tools do you like to use? Let us know in the comments!