The Essential Small Business free Toolkit

We’ve found throughout our years at SEO CoPilot, that it’s essential to utilise some of the business software that’s available online. These sites will undoubtedly save you time, keep you on track with your tasks, and help your business get off to a great start when online.

Although it can often be difficult to distinguish the useful sites from the ones that are inadequate, and doing so, is something that requires valuable time and effort. Which is why we’ve compiled this toolkit for you, featuring the best business software that can be used by any small business on a daily basis.

Managing tasks with Trello

Cost: Free and paid versions for business starting at $9.99/month

Website: www.trello.com

This collaboration tool allows your team to effectively record tasks, keep track of projects and organise their workflow, in what is essentially an online task board. In a business where deadlines have to be met and projects need to be tracked, this board can tell you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what and how far along a project is in its process.

Trello also offers many different features within its workboard, such as the ability to edit each other’s notes, create specific labels for your tasks and add file attachments. Which is incredibly helpful for any small business having to deal with a lot of task on a daily basis. You can plan out your day to day jobs, stay organise and collaborate with others on your notes. Overall, we believe this is a great tool to incorporate into your daily routine, which can be really helpful for communication and organisation.

The Ultimate Password tool, LastPass

Cost: Free and paid versions for business starting at $2/month

Website: www.lastpass.com

How often have you forgotten a password for an important site, and have had to spend time looking for the paper you wrote it on, or go through the inconvenient task of resetting it? We understand that it’s frustrating, and when you’re managing hundreds of accounts, it’s vital that you have a secure way of keeping track of your passwords.

Here at SEO CoPilot, we have seen that ‘LastPass’ is a very secure online password vault available to use. By simply adding the login details of your frequently visited sites to your vault, you can log in to any one of your accounts with just one click. It’s incredibly easy to use and even comes with a plug-in for your web browser, so it automatically adds accounts to your vault, with your permission of course!

Stay Connected with Dropbox

Cost: Free and paid versions starting at £7.99/month for more benefits

Website: www.dropbox.com

Ever had trouble passing documents and files between team members or finding it hard to keep track of versions that you are working on? We have learnt that using an external hard-drive or memory stick is not always the answer when trying to store files. Dropbox and Google Drive are just two of the cloud based software’s you can use to keep track of all your documents and share with other people. This allows all of the team to view the document and add their edits at a time.

One handy aspect of Dropbox is that all the files are cloud based and can be accessed from anywhere at any time. This way you aren’t having to rely on memory sticks which you may lose or break and there isn’t any chance of your files falling into the wrong hands. Therefore, you can save money and interruption from any important files you need to access. Try Dropbox today and you will notice how easy file sharing and document tracking can be.

Tracking your Website using Google Analytics

Cost: Free

Website: www.analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

If you haven’t heard about Google Analytics and what it can do, you have much to learn. Google Analytics is a website tracking software that has many features and functions which all contribute to tracking your website. This includes:

• Seeing how many views and sessions your website is getting
• Finding out about your audience and what age/gender they are
• Getting a view of the locations you are reaching to
• Where your visitors are going to on your website

There are many, many ways you can use Google Analytics and this does take time to learn each key feature. One of the most important factors of Google Analytics is the monthly views of the website which you can compare to the previous month. Therefore, you can track how well the website is doing and if it is making any progression over time. You will be able to focus primarily on seeing increases in website traffic and look into every aspect of the analytics to use this data for more guidance. You can get a clear insight to where the visitors to your website are going and what they are looking into. This is why it is important you know how to use the tool, how to set it up correctly and ensure you are using it to its full capacity.

Getting Insights through Search Console

Cost: Free

Website: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Have you ever wondered how to track errors for your website, or if there’s a tool that can let you know if there are any problems? Google Search Console is the tool you may not have heard about. This tool by Google tracks a variety of information such as if your website is doing anything it shouldn’t be, what people type in Google before clicking on your website and any penalties Google has sent to you for your website.

Google crawls and scans your website to find any errors or problems and lets you know through the Search Console the errors you can fix. One example of this is that the tool tells you how many 404 links (broken links) your website has for you to fix. We know this tool is very useful and you must always make the most of Google’s tools which are there for a reason.

Learn more from us

Are you wanting to improve your business organisation through the online tools shared in this blogpost or want help maintaining your online presence?

Here at SEO CoPilot, we work with businesses not only to improve their online rankings and beat their competitors but to help them stay organised and keep work flow at 100%. There are many tools you could be using which can boost your productivity and keep your team synced together. Want to find out more how we can help you? Call us on 01246 556565.