13 Best Online Business Tools and Platforms to Drive Success

Sharing is caring!

---

Online Business Tools you need to know about

Website Building Tools

Wix eCommerce

What it is: One of the many eCommerce website builders that provide the quickest and simplest approach to set up an online store is Wix eCommerce. Ecommerce website builders provide all the features of an online store, including product pages and checkout processes. Due to its affordability and usability, Wix eCommerce is a fantastic website builder for small enterprises. You won’t need any coding experience or technical abilities to get started because Wix provides drag-and-drop editor-customizable eCommerce website template designs. Additionally, Wix eCommerce currently has a variety of sales tools, such as the capacity to enlarge product photos and bulk import product variants from a spreadsheet.

Cost: Plans begin at $27 per month.

Why you Need it: To put it simply, if you want to sell online, you’ll need an eCommerce website builder! Although building an e-commerce website may seem like a daunting process with many moving pieces, it is absolutely not necessary. This process is not only manageable but also pleasant thanks to builders like Wix eCommerce. Wix makes the website layout simple, according to one of the users we spoke with: “Even after just adding a few buttons to the home page, it looks incredibly professional. Simply put, it is incredibly organized, making it simple to see what is where and how it will look when published.

Domain.com

What it is: Domain.com is a domain name registrar or a business that oversees domain name reservations. Using Domain.com, you may look up names you want, check if they are available, and either register them (if they have never been used before) or buy them from the current owner.

Costs: Using Domain.com to look up available domain names is cost-free. You can buy a domain name for $10–20 per year if you’ve found the one you like.

Why you need them: Because prospective clients will type your domain name into their browser’s search bar to find your website, it must be distinctive and easy to understand. Consider it the “address” of your business on the internet (our domain is WebsiteBuilderExpert.com). Getting a domain name with a recognizable suffix, like.com or.net, is another crucial step in boosting consumer confidence in your company.

Marketing Tools

Constant Contact

How it works: With the help of Constant Contact’s email marketing platform, companies can create and distribute an unlimited number of emails using mobile-friendly, customized templates. It is simple to gather email addresses from various sources (such as Facebook or your website) and divide subscribers into various lists. Additionally, you can track your outcomes, which will improve the targeting of subsequent mailings.

Cost: Free for 60 days; premium plans begin at $20 per month.

Why you need it: The use of email marketing is crucial for maintaining contact with customers. The ability to personalize each email you send, which enables you to make sure that every consumer knows they are valued, is even more crucial.

HootSuite

What it is: HootSuite is a platform for managing social media. It essentially serves as a dashboard where you can manage every social media account for your business under one roof.

Costs: Paid plans begin at $29 per month after a 30-day free trial.

Why you need it: Hootsuite is a marketing treasure among small business tools since it enables you to keep tabs on what consumers are saying about your brand online. The ability to respond right away on any channel is fantastic for increasing engagement. Additionally, you can research your competitors to see what your target market really wants from your brand.

BuzzSumo

What it is: BuzzSumo is a research tool that lets you keep tabs on the most shared material by category and identify emerging trends. For instance, the top three articles currently shared for the term “content marketing” were found through our search:

Facebook shares are represented by the dark blue circle, Twitter shares by the light blue, and so forth across the platforms. Additionally, you can locate individuals with prominent social media profiles in other niches.

Cost: 7-day free trial; monthly fees for premium plans begin at $79

Why you need it: Without knowledge of current events, it is impossible to provide topical material. With BuzzSumo, you can duplicate the success of the content trends that are receiving the most likes and shares. It’s a fantastic tool for monitoring the success of the material created by your rivals.

Payment Processing Tools

Stripe

What it is: Stripe enables companies to accept payments from clients online. It distinguishes itself from the crowded field of payment processors by integrating seamlessly with e-commerce websites. Customers will love the convenience of staying on your website when they make a payment because they won’t be redirected to a different website. Additionally, Stripe is practical for businesses since you can accept over 135 different currencies with only one integration.

Costs: Since Stripe charges per transaction, there are no startup expenses involved. Instead, each successful card charge will cost you 2.9 percent plus 30 cents. On international cards, there is an additional 1 percent cost for currency conversion.

Why you need it: Stripe was designed to integrate with e-commerce websites, so it will help you provide a better in-person purchasing experience. You won’t have to worry about difficult installations or a lack of support because it has a ton of support from the main eCommerce firms, like Wix and BigCommerce.

Shopify Payments

What it is: Unlike Shopify Payments, which is only available through Shopify, Stripe interfaces with a variety of e-commerce website builders, including Shopify. There are many benefits to selecting Shopify as your eCommerce builder, including its in-house payment processor.

Costs: It’s included with no charge with every Shopify plan, starting at $29 per month. Additionally, there are no transaction fees to pay.

Why you need it: The simplest approach for a business to begin accepting payments is through Shopify Payments. You won’t need to create an account with a third-party provider, and if you ever have a problem, you’ll have access to Shopify’s support staff around-the-clock.

Branding Tools

Wix Logo Maker

What it is: Wix Logo Maker gives you all the tools you need to create a company logo without having to do any complex design work. Instead, Wix will develop a logo for you after you simply answer a few questions about the nature of your company and your personal design tastes. You may always change the font, color scheme, and size after the fact, so the result will be to your liking.

Cost: There is no charge to use the logo creator, and you may get a free sample of the finished product. The Basic Logo package, which costs $12.99 and comes with high-resolution files and complete commercial usage rights, is available if you’d want to buy your logo. For $49.99, you may also select the Professional Logo package, which comes with print-ready files, high-res files, complete commercial usage rights, vector files, a social media kit, and a brand guide.

Why you need it: You don’t have to, even if 65% of small firms are prepared to spend up to $500 on a new logo. Using the Wix Logo Maker is a less expensive approach to utilizing expert design tools and knowledge. You’ll be happy with the outcome if you choose to customize your logo, and you’ll have complete commercial use rights to any logo you produce.

Canva

What it is: Canva is a design tool that enables you to create expert graphics for any purpose, from infographics that are suitable for social media to bar charts. The “Social Media” and “Flyers” sections below are just a couple of the categories you can browse on the free plan. Canva offers over 8,000 design templates to meet over 100 objectives.

Additional capabilities, including brand kits and limitless storage for older designs, are available if you decide to switch to a premium membership.

Cost: Free; more capabilities are available on the Pro ($9.95/month) and Enterprise ($30/month) plans.

Why you need it: Canva allows you to start creating for free, allowing you to experiment creatively without having to worry about losing money. Additionally, there are a ton of motivational forums available to help you search for ideas because the free edition attracted so many aspiring designers.

Infogram

What it is: Canva’s savvier sibling. A data visualization software called Infogram makes it simple to produce stylish reports, charts, and infographics. Never before have statistics, graphs, and lines looked so good!

Costs: It’s free, but premium plans are optional and start at $19 per month.

Why you need it: With the right data visualization, you can effectively convey complex concepts to your audience. A tool like Infogram is the ideal approach to display data like gross profit or customer satisfaction rates since a visual summary of the information is simpler to consume and understand than a packed spreadsheet.

Organization and Communication Tools

Trello

What it is: Everyone in your workplace can use Trello from their individual computers. It effectively functions as a collaborative To-Do list. Anyone with an account can make “cards” for tasks or projects, group the cards into lists, and access the lists. A card can be moved across lists to represent the many phases of an ongoing project.

Create a card for the task “Book flights” on this sample Trello board and move it through the “Things To Do,” “Doing,” and “Done” lists.

Costs: On the free plan, which we suggest, you receive limitless boards, cards, and lists (essentially, everything a small business will need to keep organized). However, a premium plan is also an option, starting at $9.99/month.

Why you need it: Trello makes the “getting things done” process simpler, which is why you need it. It aids you in maintaining organization and tracking priorities like a regular to-do list. However, Trello is superior to a conventional to-do list because it enables team collaboration on projects and deadline meetings for everyone in your organization.

Slack

What it is: Slack is a platform for team communication that can be accessed on both PCs and mobile devices. Consider WhatsApp but on a more formal level. Slack allows you to form team group conversations and send private messages to coworkers, but its “channels” feature is its strongest feature. A Slack channel, which anybody may make, acts as an archived group chat for everything happening at your firm. You could, for instance, create separate channels for planning a colleague’s birthday party and a product launch.

Cost: The price: There is a constrained free plan (10,000 messages), and premium plans start at $6.67/month.

Why you need it: There are numerous venues available for business communication. However, none of them combine organization and communication, as well as slack channels, do

LastPass

What it is: LastPass is an online password vault. It’s a password manager, in other words, that keeps track of all of your passwords across several devices. If your company employs a number of different apps and software packages, you may frequently have to re-authenticate or change lost passwords (as most do).

What it costs: It’s free, but premium subscriptions are optional and start at $3 per month.

Why you need it: This will save you a ton of time and increase your productivity because you won’t have to spend time trying to recall the name of your first pet as a child when you might be working instead.

Summary

Although it may not appear that way these days, the internet was developed to improve our quality of life. These online tools for small businesses will help you achieve just that, whether BuzzSumo helps you keep current or Infogram enables you to visualize your data. The most practical business tools, listed by category, are as follows:

1. Website Building Tools: Wix eCommerce and Domain.com.
2. Marketing Tools: Constant Contact, Hootsuite, and BuzzSumo.
3. Payment Processing Tools: Stripe and Shopify Payments.
4. Branding Tools: Wix Logo Maker, Canva, and Infogram.
5. Organization and Communication Tools: Trello, Slack, and LastPass.

There are undoubtedly a lot more digital tools available, but we’ve chosen the finest. If you have a favorite tool for your company, please let us know; we’d love to hear from you!