Tools For Building A Great Online Business
If you're just starting out as a new Webmaster and are taking those first tentative steps in building your online Empire, you've probably been overwhelmed by the number of hyped up offers trying to sell you various products that are “Guaranteed to Make You Money!” They all promise basically the same thing. They offer a push button ease of use, cookie cutter solutions, and money hand over fist. The problem though is that in most cases the only money that's being made hand over fist is by the guys doing the hyping. They get you excited about their product, take your money and you're left with a tool that doesn't really work. Or, if it does work, it doesn't work nearly as well as you were led to believe.
The good news is that there are some really great tools out there to help you build and then grow your online business. The best part is that many of these tools are free! You don't have to pay a cent. Having said that, there are some really great paid tools that will automate certain things that are big time sinks, so don't think that everybody with a product to sell is a scam artist, because that's not the case. If you're a new Webmaster just starting out, you would be very well served by taking the approach of using nothing but free tools until you have a firm grasp of the process. Once you do and you're making money, you can reinvest some of those profits by purchasing tools that automate the parts of the job you like the least. At that point, you'll have a better understanding of exactly what you want a paid tool to do for you and be better able to determine if the ad you're reading is pure hype or if there's something to it. Here are some of the free tools you'll want to pay attention to:
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
There are some really great keyword research tools on the market you can buy but the Adwords keyword tool is still one of the best. This is the first place you should look when it comes to doing basic keyword research. If you want to supplement the data that Google's tool is giving you, get the free version of Traffic Travis. Between the two, you'll get tons of good insights about keywords, and you won't have to spend a penny.
Open Office
Don't spend the money on Microsoft Office. There's no need Open Office has all the features of the paid product plus it has a PDF creation tool built in (if you were to buy that separately from Adobe it would cost you right at $100). If you're going to be doing a lot of writing (and if you're serious about making a go of your online business, you certainly will be!), then you're going to need a good, robust word processor. Open Office is the one you want.
GIMP
The Web is increasingly a visual medium. To that end, you might be tempted to spend the money to get Photoshop. Don't. GIMP is open source and free of charge. If you don't like GIMP (and some don't, because its interface takes some getting used to), then look at JASC's Paintshop Pro as an excellent alternative. In fact, some people like it better for the “tube” feature, which is admittedly pretty fantastic.
Windows Movie Maker
Here is another freebie. With this and the software mentioned above, you can create unlimited videos to help market whatever it is you're selling. Given the popularity of YouTube, it should come as no great surprise that video marketing is huge and getting bigger by the day. If you're not doing it, you probably should be. Fortunately, you can get started for nothing.
These tools aren't sexy or glamorous, but they don't have to be. They get the job done and they do it well. If you don't have them, you need them! You can pick up the whole set for absolutely nothing.
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