It can be hard when you are running your own business. Money gets tight, and every penny tends to count. Sometimes you can’t even afford to buy a can of beans to eat. You have to live like a homeless guy, trying to scrape every little scrap together.
With the launch of our new book; Don’t Work Hard, Work Smart: Tools, Apps and Resources that Every Blogger and Entrepreneur Should Use (That Are Completely Free & Awesome), we thought we would compile a list of the best free tools and resources.
The tools featured in this book are some of the best free tools out there. These tools and resources featured in the book are used by some of the worlds top entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin among many others.
The book features hundreds and hundreds of resources to help you grow your business and take it to the next level.
Pixlr – This is one of the best photo editing tools I have ever used. It is just like Photoshop the only difference is it is completely online and completely free to use. You can edit your images, add filters and layers to them and modify them how you like.
Pixlr comes as three main versions. Pixlr Editor which is the full photo editing tool, Pixlr Express, which is a quick way to make changes and quick fixes to images and Pixlr O-Matic which adds retro effects and borders to images.
Pixlr is just as good as Adobe Photoshop and has a whole lot of features without the expensive price tag that Photoshop comes with.
GIMP – GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and is an open source free graphic design software similar to Adobe Photoshop. It’s available for Linux, Windows and Mac.
The video below shows you how to use GIMP. This video is a beginners guide to using GIMP but GIMP is so easy to use that you will be a pro in no time!
There are all the standard tools you would expect from such software like cloning, colouring, enhancement tools, etc.
Logo Garden – Another great website that provides free professional looking logos. It’s very easy to use and is as simple as pick and click.
The logos that you can create on Logo Garden do not long cheap or tacky at all and look very professional. I love the variety of different logos you can choose from and the easy pick and click tools makes it so simple.
Over a million entrepreneurs have already used this. Why not join them?
Flickr – Flickr is a photo sharing website that has millions of photos shared by its users. Flickr contains many great photos and images and you may find what you are looking for on Flickr.
Some users on Flickr offer their photos and images under a Creative Commons (CC) License. Make sure you pay attention to what the photo requires. A photo with a Creative Commons License usually requires you to give credit the photographer of the photo.
I use Flickr to find some awesome photos for my blog. It truly has some great photos that enhance your blog posts and articles and make them look so much better.
You know what they say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.
Any.Do – Any.Do is an app available for smartphones on most Smartphones. It helps you keep track of things you have to do. Say if you have to ‘send an email to John’ you can put in a date and it will remind you and tell you that you have to send an email.
A good thing about Any.Do is that every morning it will bring up your to do list and allow you to plan your day. This allows you to complete more tasks and complete your to do list quicker.
It has a nice simple design and the cross-platform support means you can use it on whatever device you want including your smartphone, tablet or computer.
You can also use Any.Do to send short term and long term goals for you and your business. Any.Do syncs well with its sister calendar app. I highly recommend using this app as it will improve your productivity.
RescueTime – All you have to do is install this piece of software and it will run quietly in the background and you won’t even realise it’s there. RescueTime tracks how much time you spend on websites and other applications and gives you a report of where you are actually spending your time.
The free version allows you to set goals, track how long you are spending in websites and applications and gives you a weekly report. Very handy for improving time management. The premium version is only $7 a month or $72 a year and comes with a handful of premium features such as the ability to block distracting websites.
42goals – A simple tool that helps you keep track of your goals and helps keep you accountable. With this tool you can set up your goals, track your daily progress and visualise your achievements.
This is a great tool for your business life and personal life. The great thing about 42goals is it is free! It is only $5 a month to use the premium package if you wanted to upgrade. As it’s a web based app, there is no installing required or any wasting time.
Cliché Finder – Do you find yourself using the same word over and over again and continually having to repeat yourself. Cliché Finder helps you weed out the repetitive words in your sentences.
All you have to do is simply copy and paste the text that you would like to check and click find. It’s as easy as that.
Google Keyword Planner – Google Keyword Planner is usually used for Google AdWords campaigns however you can use it for researching titles for your blog posts or articles.
Basically you can search for a word and Google will tell you the competition of the keyword based on the Google search engine and how many people are roughly searching for that particular keyword.
LibreOffice – LibreOffice is open source software similar to Open Office and boasts all the features that Open Office has. It includes the same applications as Open Office such as Writer, Impress, Draw, Calc and Base however it differs through usability and community support.
Why pay for Microsoft Office or any other Office suite software when you can get LibreOffice that is just as good as Microsoft Office. The best thing about LibreOffice is that it is totally free!
LibreOffice is available to download for free and is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac computers.
Just Retweet – You can use this tool to get your tweets retweeted and liked more and also to get more followers to your Twitter account. This service is completely free and you can also use it with Facebook and Google Plus to get more likes and +1s.
A very helpful tool if you want to build up your social following
Kindle – Kindle is one of the best reading apps made by web giants Amazon. I highly recommend Kindle for its simple design and awesome user interface. With the Kindle app you also can shop from more than 2 million books which include best sellers and new releases.
This is one of the best eBook readers in the market. Kindle is available on all platforms including iPhone, iPad, Android smartphones and tablets, Windows 8 devices and computers and more. The best thing is you don’t need a Kindle to download the app.
I use Kindle to discover amazing new titles that are breath-taking to read. I also use it to find great books to learn from.
Plus from time to time Kindle have free promotions on, so you may be able to pick up your favourite book completely free.
You also get access to free samples of books and with Amazon’s Whispersync technology – you can save and sync your books to read on all of your devices.
Want to make money creating your own eBooks that you can sell on Amazon: Click here
Flipboard – Flipboard your personal magazine and allows you to add any topics, subject or news that interests you. There is a wide array of topics that you can choose from, over 30,000. You can chose from business, advertising, gaming, entrepreneurship, music and many more.
You can find out all about news in the local and national area while also including international news.
It has great and unique user interface that is simple and elegant.
The video below shows you how to use Flipboard and what you can do with it.
Flipboard is available on Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Nook and Android devices
HipChat – HipChat is a messaging app with a difference, it is aimed at businesses. There is group chat, 1 on 1 chatting and screen sharing as well as the ability to share videos, images and audio files. It’s available for all major platforms including smartphones, tablets and computers.
Wave – Wave makes all your accounting, payroll and invoicing simple. You can create unlimited invoices using Wave completely for free while also doing your accounting and bookkeeping completely for free.
Even if you are not an accountant Wave makes it simple to understand. You can even use Wave on your mobile device to access your accounts.
CuteRank – Want to see what your website is ranking for in the search engines? You can with this software! All you have to do is download it onto your computer and you can check 1 website and keep track of the keywords it is ranking for.
It allows you to track unlimited keywords on all the popular search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask and it has many more features.
Quantcast – Quantcast provides you audience demographics and allows you to measure where your audience is coming from. You can check the page rank of yours and your competitor’s websites as well as monthly visitors, age of people visiting your site, income and many other demographics.
The great thing about Quantcast is that it allows you to compare your sites activities with your competitors so you can see where you need to improve your site. Another good thing about this tool is that Quantcast is completely free to use.
Don’t Work Hard, Work Smart: Tools, Apps and Resources that Every Blogger and Entrepreneur Should Use (That Are Completely Free & Awesome) is available to download completely free on Amazon from 25/11/2014 to 27/11/2014.
In Don’t Work Hard, Work Smart you will find hundreds of completely free tools, apps and resources to help you grow your business and take it to the next level.
The tools, resources and apps featured in this book are used by successful entrepreneurs like Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and Pat Flynn.
Make sure you download your free copy before it’s too late.
I would appreciate it if you could leave an honest review of the book as this lets other people discover it.
