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20 Must-Have Tools to Automate an Online Business
By Donna Gunter (c) 2007

With all the information online about tools and techniques
available to help someone effectively manage and run an
online business, how do you ever decide which ones are
truly useful to have in your business management toolkit?
Here's my listing of the 20 indispensable tools that I
cannot live without:

1. Article Marketing: SubmitYourArticle.com
(http://www.submityourarticle.com/) automates the article
submission process by allowing you to submit up to eight
articles each month and then distributes the articles to
hundreds of web sites, article directories and ezine
publishers. Without a doubt, this has been my most effective
online marketing tool that has produced tremendous results
for my business.

2. Audio Recording/Podcasting: AudioAcrobat.com
(http://www.audioacrobat.com/) makes audio streaming fast
and simple, whether you want to add an audio greeting, audio
testimonials, podcast or videos to your website or send
out an audio postcard or record a teleclass.

3. Backup: Carbonite.com (http://www.carbonite.com/) offers
an unlimited amount of data storage for $50 per year.
Carbonite is very intuitive and went directly to my email
files and Roboform files to back them up without me having
to manually select the backup files. I frequently use this
service to find the original version of a file that I've
accidentally overwritten, as well.

4. Blogging: Typepad.com (http://www.typepad.com/) is both
simple to use and powerful. You can set up as many blogs as
you desire with a Pro account, and you can customize your
blog in an infinite number of ways. Once it's set up, the
online interface makes it a snap to make new posts to your
blog.

5. Bookmark Manager:  SPURL.net (http://www.spurl.net/)
makes managing a moderate to massive amount of bookmarks
very easy. You create any number of categories in which to
file your favorites, and adding a favorite website is as
easy as clicking a button.

6. Color Matching:  Pixie
(http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html) is a tool that I use
daily to help me match a color exactly for a document that
I'm creating or a color I'm trying to replicate on a
website. Run it, simply point to a color and it will tell
you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values of that color.

7. Content Management: Edit.com (http://www.edit.com/) is a
website maintenance service that makes your current website
editable so you can change the content yourself. They
handle everything to get your site set up and provide you
with phone training to walk you through your first edits.
There is no software to install because it just uses your
web browser. At no charge, you can have them review your
website to ensure that your site is compatible with their
service.

8. Email List Management/Autoresponders:  aWeber.com
(http://www.aweber.com/) is a great service for creating,
mailing and reporting back on the success of your newsletter
as well as to subscribe your readers to a sequential
autoresponder, either associated with your newsletter or
with another product. I love to be able to see how many
readers opened my newsletter, who opened the newsletter,
and what links they clicked on from the newsletters.

9. Fax: MaxEmail.com (http://www.maxemail.com/) lets you
send and receive faxes through the Internet/email and makes
your need for a fax machine obsolete. The faxes arrive in
PDF format, so you can easily share you faxes with others
as needed. They also offer voice mail on your fax line,
and the voicemail message arrives as an audio file in your
email inbox.

10. Graphics Program: SnagIt.com
(http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp) lets you show someone
exactly what you see on your screen. Select and capture
your screen image and send it to SnagIt's editor to add
professional effects, edit the image (resize, adjust
color), and or drop it into your favorite application.

11. Hosting: Aaces.com (http://www.aaces.com/) offers the
ability to buy a hosting plan in which you can host and
manage a large number of websites through one account
rather than buying multiple hosting plans for each website
for your business. And, their customer service can't be
beat.

12. Idea Management: With EverNote.com
(http://www.evernote.com/en/) you can easily store and
quickly access typed and handwritten memos, webpage
excerpts, emails, phone messages, addresses, passwords,
brainstorms, sketches, documents and more! A free version
or a 30-day trial of the paid version is available for
download.

13. Merchant Account:  PracticePaySolutions.com
(http://www.practicepaysolutions.com/) offers an all-in-one
ecommerce solution that helps you take payment online. The
coolest feature that they offer in this service is the
ability to do batch uploads of charges, so if you have a
number of clients on retainer that you invoice every month,
you can simply create a spreadsheet and batch upload the
data rather than entering each client's information
individually.

14. Publicity Tracker:  Google Alerts
(http://www.google.com/alerts) lets you type in an unlimited
number of search terms, like your name, your company name,
your industry, the name of your competitors, etc. Google
will then deliver an email alert for any mention of your
search term online. This is a wonderful way to track your
own PR as well as industry trends.

15. Password Management:  Roboform.com
(http://www.roboform.com/) is the top-rated password manager
and web form filler that completely automates password
entering and form filling. You'll never have to remember a
password again! I maintain both my passwords and user info
and that of my clients in this program.

16. Shopping Cart: KickstartCart.com
(http://www.kickstartcart.com/) is easy to use and setup,
and offers the ability to create affiliate programs, follow
up with prospective and current customers with
autoresponders, create coupons for limited-time offers, as
well as enable buyers to immediately download electronic
purchases (ebooks, audio files). There is a free 30-day
trial, but don't sign up until you have the time to test
drive it--30 days goes by fast!

17. Spyware: CounterSpy.com (http://www.counterspy.com/)
will protect your computer from spyware, adware, Trojans
and other malware threats.

18. Teleconference Line:  LiveOfficeFreeConferencing.com
(http://www.liveofficefreeconferencing.com/) lets you meet
with colleagues, associates or even family members through
a teleconference bridge line that can bring up to 250 people
together at one place over a teleconference phone line. You
can use the line to conduct classes and training and record
your calls, as well as manage your participants from an
online interface.

19. Time Tracker: TraxTime.com (http://www.traxtime.com/)
has helped me keep track of my consulting projects for
years. You simply create projects and clock into and out
of them, with the ability to write memos about how you've
used your time.

20. To Do List Management: Accomplice.com
(http://www.accomplice.com/) works online and offline,
integrates with Outlook and other software you already use,
and syncs with your PDA. What I love most about this
software is that I can create in-depth, hierarchical to-do
lists (tasks and sub-tasks of a bigger project) very easily,
and add additional tasks on the fly as they occur to me. I
can see at any point what are my more important tasks and
what is coming due soon.

Try out these tools with the trial offers provided and see
how your business becomes easier to manage!
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Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business
Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals
learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their
expertise on the Internet and get more clients online. To
claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing
Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com .
Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at
http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com .
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