As a business owner, it is essential to have certain aspects of your business automated or at least organized to increase both productivity and sales. In this day and age, it is nearly impossible to know about all the latest apps, websites, and trends- but the internet and social media seem to connect us better than previous generations.
Photo by PICHA Stock: https://www.pexels.com/photo/three-women-looking-at-the-computer-3894378/
According to Top Design Firms Survey, "Over two-thirds of small businesses (67%) use social media tools." I have compiled a list of the top FREE apps that every business owner should know about and be implementing into their business.
1. Canva
Canva has a mobile application and a desktop version that are both user-friendly, equipped with hundreds of templates. Sign up is free and you can start designing social media flyers, invitations, presentation, and even videos!
What I love most about this app is its sharing capabilities. Any designs you may be working on can be easily shared to people to view and/or edit. Similarly, they have a teams option where you can create a team of shared designs and folders.
This site does offer a premium membership with benefits such as resizing images, using premium site elements, and adding more than 3 people to a team. The free version is still just as great!
2. Pixlr
Have you ever wanted to used Adobe Ph
otoshop but without the price tag? Pixlr is the perfect website for this! Although, their mobile application does not have as many capabilities as the online desktop version, it does include great filters and overlays for photos.
This website is user-friendly with similar photo and video editing options as Adobe Suite. No sign up or sign in is required and it is 100% free.
After navigating through a few YouTube tutorials, you can quickly learn to use Pixlr for professional editing options like using multiple layers, saving designs as a .png transparent file, and removing the background from photos.
3. Google Voice
Google Voice is a "smarter phone number" that allows users to call, text, and leave voicemails with anyone in the US and Canada for FREE. You can sign up with either a personal, work, or school account to set up your Google Voice account.
One of my favorite features are the voicemails! They are transcribed to your inbox where you can search through them like emails. Google Voice is easily accessible across all of your devices, both phone, computer, and tablet.
For more details about signing up and Google Voice features, visit here.
4. Hotjar
Their website boasts that Hotjar is, "Free Forever - No Credit Card Needed". Often compared to Google Analytics, Hotjar provides its users with website usage statistics and how customers actually interact with the site.
By tracking where and what a user clicks on a website, Hotjar is able to generate heatmaps of your site with analytics that allow you to see how customers interact with your website. It even has features that give you access to things like scrolling habits, form entries, and mouse movements. Through a combination of both analysis and feedback tools, Hotjar reveals the online habits and behavior of users, giving you insight to increase conversion rates and improve user experience.
This app is a great resource to unlocking how your customers interact with your website and why. You can use the free or "Basic" version but if you do decide to upgrade, they start their subscriptions at $32/month. For more details, about their pricing and guidelines, visit here.
5. Wistia
If you want to create a better brand experience for users and your company/organization does business-to-business (B2B) selling, this is the perfect site for you! YouTube is made for influencers and digital creators while Wistia is supports the needs of B2B companies.
So what is the difference? Wistia allows users to fully control what and how their content is viewed. Similarly, their platform provides more in-depth analytics and videos that are embedded are ad-free.
6. ALISON
These self taught courses are geared to empower individuals and sharpen any business concepts and skills, they may already possess. And did I mention they are F-R-E-E? Upon completion you can even receive a certificate!
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