Online Marketing & Other Resources
to Boost your Small Business
This is an attempt to collate all those great resources we have come across on the Internet and which have helped us. It’s a chance to credit some of the developers of the tools we have used and which may be able to help readers. Enjoy!
Business Growth Calculators
General Small Business Advice
- Kochie’s Business Builders (Yahoo7’s Australian Business Resource Centre) – a site looking at all business related subjects from Starting Up, through Management and Marketing to getting Online:http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com.au/
- Learn about Benchmarking your Business – from the Business Development Section of the Queensland Government web site:http://www2.business.qld.gov.au/support/783.htm
Getting Online
- You Don’t Have to be Big to be Big on the Internet – A Quick Guide to Getting Online for Small Business Owners (PDF):http://www.auda.org.au/pdf/SME.pdf
- Official Australian Government advice on getting on to the Internet and involved in eCommerce:http://www.digitalbusiness.gov.au/
- The Australian Government’s Principal Business Resource – Getting connected to the Internet and creating an Online presence: http://www.business.gov.au/
Using Online Email
- Gmail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvWsYk531mo – 3 Part Video Tutorial
http://www.g04.com/misc/GmailTipsComplete.html – 55 Tips for using Gmail
www.freeemailtutorials.com/googleMailGmailTutorials/ – Text Tutorial on Gmail
- Windows Live (HotMail):http://explore.live.com/windows-live-hotmail-using – Windows Tutorial on using Hotmail
Online Diagnostics
- A 10 minute diagnostic quiz from the Queensland Government to help you explore issues related to online activities. On completion you receive a report outlining where you are now as well as a range of suggestions to help your business move forward: http://www.sd.qld.gov.au/dsdweb/htdocs/ssb/diag/first_page.cfm?surveyType=STDBO
Australian Internet Usage
- Queensland Household survey – Computer and Internet Usage survey of 3600 Homes, from May 2009: http://qgcio.qld.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/Resources/householdsurvey2009.pdf
Domain Name Registration
- The Australian Domain Name Administrator – Official Site for all .au Domains including policy and registration advice: http://www.auda.org.au/
Password Management
- LastPass – One of the best Password managers and form fillers, allowing you to easily and securely use one password to sign into all of your online accounts: http://lastpass.com/
Google Local
- Google Places, aka Google local – is the name of a system that Google has created to help local businesses, attractions, venues & other places connect with searchers. Read about it and watch a video tutorial here: http://www.googlelocallisting.com/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ5K8BQQSbY – Video
Sites Highlighting Internet Scams
- Australian Competitor and Consumer Commission Site – alerting you to all types of scams on the Internet – from money transfer scams to health and mobile phone scams: http://www.scamwatch.gov.au
Free Screen Capture Software
- Jing -This simple and free tool allows you to capture video or screenshots from your computer monitor. Its a great way to create how-to information for your customers. http://www.techsmith.com/jing/
Free Screencasts
- Screenr – Screencasts specifically designed for use on Twitter, using a web-based recorder. No downloads necessary. http://screenr.com/
How to Write a Press Release
- Advice and tips on writing a good Press release http://www.ereleases.com/prfuel/press-release-topic-ideas/
Free Graphics Tools
- Picnik – makes your photos fabulous with easy to use editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. Fast, easy and fun. http://www.picnik.com/
- GIMP – Official Site of the GIMP Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. http://www.gimp.org/
- Paint.net – free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. http://www.paint.net/
Online Storage Facilities
- DropBox:Free and sharable Online Storage and Back-up: Get extra 250mb of space – Includes a Video of how it works.
- Skydrive – Windows Live solution offering 25 GB of free online storage for sharing Microsoft Office docs and photos. Learn More and Sign Up here: http://skydrive.live.com
- Amazon S3 – A pay-for service that provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store & retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
- Carbonite – A pay-for automatic online backup service, with secure file transmission and storage, simple file recovery.http://www.carbonite.com.au/how-carbonite-works/
- CloudFiles (from Rackspace Hosting) – Pay-for service offering unlimited file storage & content delivery: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/pricing/
Do it Yourself Websites and Blogs
- WordPress – the leading DIY web site service offers many templates fro creating your own site. This is the site to download the software for free: www.wordpress.org
- And this site teaches you everything you need to know about creating a Blog using WordPress: www.wordpress.com
Social Media Posting Tools
- Hootsuite – allows you to manage all of your social media networks through one interface, and works for multiple users too: http://hootsuite.com/
- Seesmic – a powerful collection of social management tools that provide businesses and individuals with everything they need to build their brand online. http://seesmic.com/
- Tweetdeck – A personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. http://www.tweetdeck.com/
Email List Management
- Mail Chimp – allows you to send 12,000 emails per month to a list of 2,000 subscribers—completely free. http://www.mailchimp.com/
- AWeber – Email marketing tools like professional email signup forms & autoresponder services to make it easy for you to build your email list & stay in touch with prospects. http://www.aweber.com/
Online Survey Creation
- Survey Monkey – allows you to create surveys without installing any software – Just open a browser and go.The basic service is free. Advanced features and customization available for a very low monthly fee: http://www.surveymonkey.com/
- Zoomerang – ‘Create survey, Launch Survey, See Results’. A similar offering to Survey Monkey above: http://www.zoomerang.com
- Google Docs – This can be used to create online surveys. This article shows you how:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4615530_survey-using-google-documents-free.html
http://docs.google.com/ – Learn more Here at the Google Docs site.
- Quizsnack – http://www.quizsnack.com/
Internet Marketing and Management Podcasts
- Small Business Big Marketing – Australia’s #1 Marketing Podcast: Stay up-to-date with the very latest in small business marketing ideas, techniques and developments: http://smallbusinessbigmarketing.com/
- Manager Tools – collection of podcasts on the essentials of effective managerial behavior: http://manager-tools.com/
- Podcast Answer Man – A Podcast Producer, Consultant and Coach shares his wealth of knowledge about creating great podcasts: http://podcastanswerman.com/
- Let’s Talk Net Podcast – This podcast makes the Internet easy to understand for small-medium Australian businesses. http://www.letstalknet.com.au/business.php
Website Tools
- CheckDog Spelling Tool – Spell Checker for Your Web Site http://checkdog.com
- WebSite Grader – How well is your website doing? Is it getting traffic? Does it have SEO problems? How popular is it in social media? Find out the answers for free. www.websitegrader.com
Search Engine Optimisation Tools
- Google Keyword Tool – Enter website name or keywords for list of related searches. Statistics show search count and advertiser competition: http://www.googlekeywordtool.com
- Market Samurai – Laser-Target High-Traffic, High-Profit, Low-Competition Markets With Devastating Accuracy: http://www.marketsamurai.com/
Random Sites that Rock!
- Pay With A Tweet – Tool for everyone who wants to create a buzz around his or her product, service, brand or just themselves. http://www.paywithatweet.com/sell.php