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5 Free Business Tools You Might Not Be Using Yet but Should Be

Posted on 03/05/2013 Written by Angela 1 Comment

5 Free Business Tools To Check Out

Let’s face it, as business owners there are plenty of costs to doing business so when you can take advantage of free business tools it is well worth it. There are a lot of great free business tools out there, today I am going to discuss my 5 favorites. These are sites that I use on a daily basis to build my business. I find all these sites worth my time as I can see measurable results from each one.

Here are 5 free business tools to add to your arsenal:

IBOtoolbox IBOtoolbox is one of my favorite free business tools. The site has so much to offer, with all kinds of great benefits. IBOtoolbox is a business social network that allows you to meet and network with other small business owners. You can blog on the site, share your videos, use their URL shortener, team build and advertise for free. They allow you to place banner ads and text ads similar to Google PPC on the site by using credits you have earned. You earn credits by the activities you do on the site, like creating blog posts, commenting on people’s blog posts, attending webinars, etc. This site is actually quite effective for advertising because they get over 300,000 views a day and over 96% of that traffic is non members. It’s a great way to get eyeballs on your business from other business owners and business seekers.

Just Retweet This is a way to get viral exposure for your website, blog or videos. I think this is one extremely powerful tool if you are using social media to build your business. Just Retweet allows your content to easily get retweeted on Twitter, liked on Facebook and to Google+. Just Retweet is based on a points system, when you Tweet or share others content you get points which in turn you can use to have people Tweet or share your content.

TribePro This is a great syndication network to help bring exposure and traffic to your website. Tribepro is made up of entrepreneurs who share each others blog posts, videos, content and website’s to their social networks. This helps get you traffic and more brand exposure.

Post Planner I love this tool for scheduling Facebook posts to your profile or pages ahead of time. This helps with regular engagement on your profile and page. I think it is a great tool to upload posts in bulk to save you time. That being said I still believe in being actively engaged on Facebook. My strategy is to schedule several posts a day ahead of time and then to do a post or 2 a day on my page that are relevant to that day. I also go and interact with people daily on my page and profile. I don’t use this tool to completely automate but I do use it as a time saving device.

IWowwe Free Video E-mail This is a great tool to build your business because it adds such a personal touch to your e-mails. I love it because not only can I use it for business but I can use it to interact with my sister who lives on the other side of the world. The system has hundreds of pre-loaded templates for your e-mails so you can send one out for any occasion or even create and upload your own template. You don’t have to worry that this is complicated either, it is very user friendly and quick to send out a video e-mail.

If these are business tools that you are not yet using I highly recommend each of them. I would love to hear what other free business tools I did not list that you use. Leave me a comment below and let me know.

Image courtesy of [image creator name] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Angela Paige
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p.s. Want to learn to get more leads and sales? Check out this great video!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

URL Shortener with Big Benefits

Posted on 03/04/2013 Written by Angela 1 Comment

URL shortener your are going to love

If you are blogging, sharing content or have affiliate links there are many reasons you want to use a URL shortener. URL shorteners make your links easier to share, shorter for social media and simple to track. There are lots of options to shorten your links with a few of the most popular being bit.ly or tinyurl. Those are great tools to shorten a URL but today I want to share a URL shortener that I think is one of the best out there because of all the cool features and benefits you get with it.

URL Shortener with benefits you will love

This URL shortener goes beyond just a regular link shortener because it has features you don’t see with the other options available out there. Here is a list of the cool features:

- Create a URL where you can track views
– Create a custom alias to make your URL more likely to be clicked on
– Small image on the top along with every URL that shares your other information, such as other videos, blog posts, and social networks (see photo below)

- This tool is a part of a business network where you get a whole bunch of other great tools

As you can see this has some cool features that you don’t get with the other URL Shorteners out there and it is free. As I mentioned it is a free tool included in IBOToolbox which is a free business social network, kind of like a Facebook for business networking.

Here is a video I made that walks you through setting up the URL shortener.

You can see how effective and beneficial this really is. If you are blogging, sharing content or using affiliate links anywhere I highly suggest this helpful tool. Get signed up for your URL shortener by creating your free IBOtoolbox account here.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged: URL Shortener

Why Your Money Mindset Matters in Business

Posted on 02/18/2013 Written by Angela 1 Comment

Money Mindset Matters

When I first got started in online marketing there was a product my company sold that was the path to residual income in the business. I had a bad attitude about it and actually kind of saw it as a rip off and way too costly. With a money mindset like that you can probably guess how much of that product I sold. Yeah, not a lot, my sales of that product were bleak. Do you think my bad attitude about it was attracting people to my team who were excited about it and wanted to sell it? Heck no! My attitude has since shifted and now I understand what an incredible value it is rather than having the mindset that the company is just trying to get money out of me or rip me off.

It is interesting how your money mindset can totally affect your business. You are going to attract people to you that have the same money mindset as you do. So if you are not willing to invest in your business you are setting that same standard for your team and prospects. I wanted to share a few ways to shift your money mindset to create a positive impact on your business.

Here are 3 ways to shift your money mindset in your business

Treat your business as an investment

I have run into people that think that putting money into their business is wasting money. They say they will spend money once they have money coming in but sometimes you have to invest money to get the cash flowing.

You have understand that investing money is just a cost of doing business. This is an important part of your money mindset because it is easy to struggle with spending money on your business. I think there are things that you need to be willing to invest in like systems, training and personal development.

If you are nickle and dimming your business you are setting a precedent for your team and you will get team members and prospects that have the same money mindset. If you want to be a good role model for your team you can’t be afraid to invest in the right things for your business.

Figure out a budget and what sacrifices you might have to make as you build your business

If you have read about my story you know that I believe in having a budget and not going into debt to get your online business going. To invest in your business you might have to make some sacrifices in your own life and personal spending. For instance, what would cutting out eating out save you that you could apply to your business? Maybe you could cut out cable or a family vacation to be able to make an investment. I think making sacrifices in the short term is well worth it to create a long term, stable business.

Set up a daily plan of action and figure out the steps you need to take to cover your business expenses

I think it is easy to shift your money mindset when you have clearly defined a plan of action. If you know you have certain business expenses it is easy to lay out what steps you need to take to make the revenue to cover those expenses. An added benefit, having a plan of action will bring you focus in your business.

You set the standard for those who follow you with your money mindset. What you believe you will attract.

If you want to learn how some of the top money earners online approach their businesses to make as much as 200% more money per customer check out this free 35 minute video.

Image courtesy of [image creator name] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged: Money Mindset

Promote Your Blog After Each Post

Posted on 11/08/2012 Written by Angela 8 Comments

Promote Your Blog with These 4 Simple Strategies

Unless you are blogging for fun you definitely need good ways to promote your blog. If you want to get traffic to your blog you need to be consistent with promoting each new piece of content. I wanted to share with you the steps I take after each blog post I write.

Follow these 4 steps to promote your blog after each post

1. Social media is on the top of my list as a way to get blog content out there. I think it is powerful to get your posts in front of people you have built relationships with. The people who know you and trust you have good content are more likely to share your content. I myself am much more likely to share someone’s blog that I know and trust has valuable content.

A great way to get more shares of your blog on Twitter and Facebook is by using Just Retweet. It allows you to share your blog posts to be Retweeted on Twitter or liked on Facebook. You get points when you Retweet or like content other people’s content that you can then use to share your own blog posts.

2. Tribes are great because not only are they a good way to promote your blog they are also a way to meet other bloggers. If you are a blogger I highly suggest getting involved with a tribe. If you don’t know what a tribe is it is basically a syndication group. It is beneficial because you get your blog content syndicated and you syndicate others while creating relationships.

There are 2 tribes I highly recommend, the first one is TribePro and the second one is Biz Blogging Buzz. I like TribePro because it is a large tribe with a lot of smaller niche’s within the site. When you share your post’s here you can get a lot of exposure for free. Biz Blogging Buzz is great as well because it is a smaller community where you can get to know other bloggers. This is a great time to get started as it is just picking up steam after a recent change of leadership. It is now in the very capable hands of Kimberly Castleberry, if you don’t know her she is the queen of keeping you up to date on all the changes and important things to know about social media.

3. One of my favorite ways to get more blog views is a site called IBOToolbox. I love this site because it is a free business social site, like a Facebook but it is specifically designed for independent business owners. There are several ways to use this site to drive traffic to your blog. The first is posting on the wall like you would with Facebook. The second way I think is even more powerful is to rewrite your blog posts and put them on IBOToolbox as press releases. The great thing about doing this is you get points which you can convert to advertising credits. Once you convert your credits you can post text or banner ads to either direct people back to your blog or to your opportunity. IBOToolbox gets over 200,000 views a day so it is a great way to promote your blog.

4. Pinging your posts. Pinging is meant to notify search engines that you have updated your blog and help speed up the process of getting it indexed. The site I use to Ping my posts is Pingler, it is free and pings your URL to over 80 sites.

Make sure you take the steps after each new blog to get your information out there and noticed! Each time you promote you will be driving more traffic to your blog.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged: blog, Blogging, Promote your blog

Best WordPress Plugin For Targeted Leads

Posted on 10/12/2012 Written by Angela 3 Comments

Best WordPress Plugin to get targeted leads and opt-ins

This is a big bold claim but I really think this is the best WordPress Plugin for targeted leads and opt-ins. I love this plugin because it allows you to change your Widgets on your pages, categories, or posts. This is very powerful because you can target your offers and opt-ins to the people who are most interested in what you are offering.

The plugin is called Display Widgets and it is free , so it really is a no-brainer. If you have a blog where you post on multiple topics this is a great solution.

Why is this the best WordPress Plugin?

Below are some images of how I use this plugin on my blog and why I think it is the best WordPress plugin. As you can see I change out the widgets in my sidebar based on the category, page or sometimes individual posts. This helps me to be very targeted in my offers and opt-ins.

Check out the video I did on this WordPress Plugin

You can see in these examples how each sidebar widget targets people based on what they are looking at on my blog. It helps me get more targeted offers in front of interested people and more targeted people on specific lists.

This really is the best WordPress plugin to get targeted leads and opt-ins in my opinion. I would love to hear if you use it on your site and what results you have seen from it. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged: Best WordPress Plugin, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugins

Free Software Like Photoshop

Posted on 10/01/2012 Written by Angela 1 Comment

If you can’t spend a fortune on photo editing get this free software like Photoshop

I am a Photoshop junkie but I recently ran across a great free software like Photoshop that I have been having a lot of fun playing around with. I know if you are like me and you spend any amount of time online you want to share photos with friends and family or for business. While Photoshop is awesome maybe you don’t want to invest that amount of money to edit a few photos or you can’t spend the time learning all the ins and outs of the program. Now you don’t have to worry because you can do some cool stuff with this free software like Photoshop. I love this site because it is free, there is nothing to download and there is nothing even to sign into.

What can you do with this site?

With this site you can edit your photos with similar tools to Photoshop but I think it is a lot easier to use. It is a very intuitive platform, you click the buttons and it makes the changes for you. You can do everything from simple cropping to much more advanced things like artistic filters, borders, changing photo coloring and much more.

The site allows you to do more than edit single photos. You can also make collages and create Facebook timeline images. So it really is a great option if you want to use if for personal or business use.

Here are a couple before and after images of a couple photos I was playing around with on the site.

These are just a small sample of tons of things you can do with the software. I suggest you head on over to Pic Monkey and play around with your own photos. I do also suggest you do this when you have a little extra time because I warn you it can be fun and addicting. I think you will love this option if you are looking for a free software like Photoshop.

Filed Under: Tools and How To's Tagged: free software like photoshop