eBusiness Resources List
TweetChances are, you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on software, services, and employees to get your small eBusiness up and running. You know you have the ability to do much of the work yourself, if you only had all the right tools, without all the expense. That’s what this list is for. Most of the tools and resources I’ve listed are either free or cheap, easy to use, or all of the above.*
eBusiness Coaching
Ok, that resource would be me, and I’m neither free, nor all that cheap. But you probably already knew that. 
Still, as a reminder, you can get more information about my coaching at my other site – eBuzzCoach.com. Now let’s move on to the easy/free/cheap stuff.
Business Planning
SCORE templates for business plans, cash flow and sales forecasts
Domain Names
Find the perfect domain name and register it at GoDaddy.
Hosting
HostGator is the only hosting company that I recommend these days. I’ve been superbly happy with them for quite a while now.
Blog / CMS Site Creation Tools
Blog – WordPress – no better choice. (The self-hosted version – not wordpress.com).
CMS – Snippet Master – easiest ultra-light content management system.
Themes
Open Source Web Design (OSWD) for free web design templates.
iThemes WordPress premium themes
Logo Design
LogoYes is a DIY logo design service.
Or use Logo Nerds to get a custom logo designed.
Royalty Free Images
e-junkie is the easiest shopping cart to integrate into your site that I’ve ever tried.
Marketing (Flyers, Postcards, Business Cards)
Next Day Flyers or Vista Print to design your own business cards, postcards and flyers. Vista Print even has free business cards, which will do in a pinch.
If you can’t wait for processing times, or you just want to print some business cards now, then your best bet is to use a business card program, so you can print them out right after you design them.
IAB Standard Banner Ad Sizes – Bookmark this because you’ll need to find this again sometime in the future.
Time Tracking
Freelancers, especially, need to keep track of how much time they spend on each project, so they can bill accordingly. toggl is a great little free time tracking tool that you can use either online or on your desktop. Perfect.
Finances: Accounting / Billing / Invoicing / Taxes
Invoices Made Easy designed for small service-oriented businesses like freelancers.
Small Business Accounting software for basic accounting without all the extra stuff you never use.
TurboTax because everyone has to do taxes, so it might as well be easy.
Legal: Contracts, Forms, Business Letters
Get almost any sample contract, form, or business letter from docstoc or Forms Guru.
Time Management / Scheduling
ToodleDo is your virtual to-do assistant (non-human) to help you remember everything.
Collaborating / Meeting / Networking / Office Apps
Zoho has everything you need to collaborate and share with others including a word processor, spreadsheet, note taker, wiki, organizer/planner, email, web conferencing, database app, and more.
Backup / File Storage
Mozy or Carbonite both do a great job of easily backing up your files. Backup is so important. Don’t put it off!
Gmail is the only email service I recommend. It’s free. It has fabulous spam control, and you can always search for old emails (because you never need to throw them away).
Aweber is the best subscription email, newsletter, and opt-in autoresponder service out there.
Bartering
U-Exchange lets you trade services and goods with others for free. This is a great way to market your services too.
Learning
Adwords Learning Center is the place to start before you use Google Adwords. Make sure you get the most out of those text ads by understanding the process first.
Here’s another guide to pay per click to help you get a handle on it.
W3Schools is the best place to start learning some technical skills, such as HTML, CSS, and PHP.
(Note: If this post looks familiar, it’s because I’ve written it – or one very much like it – before. However, I’ve decided to move that old post from another blog over to this one, and I’ve edited it along the way.)
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Disclosure: Affiliate links may be used within this post for products I recommend. They in no way affect my judgement of said products, nor do they affect the price of the product.
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Tags: e - business, Freelancer, resources
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An ebusiness coach, web developer, Internet Marketer, SEO, and all around web geek who makes her living from home doing all of the above.
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