Wednesday, June 17, 2015

My Top 22 Tools for Digital Making, Organization, and Running a Web Business

For an utter web-junkie that makes a living online, I don't use a massive array of aps or web tools daily. I adore my composition books for business notes, plan ahead with a simple $1.00 pocket calendar and love to keep it simple. Simple is good, but the right tools are vital for making a living on, or easily navigating, the web. These are my favorite tools for digital creating, organizing and running a web business that I've gathered over my many years working online. I use some of these daily! I'm always on the hunt for more, so please so share any you swear by in the comments!


1) Tool to Remember Passwords for Various Accounts + Extra Account Security | Roboforms

2) File Storage + Easy Way to Share Files for Collaboration | Dropbox

3) Photo Storage + Web Traffic Booster + Photographer Social Network | Flickr

4) Online Resume Host + Job Hunting Tool | LinkedIn

5) Free, Easy, Customizable Online Store Set-Up | Storenvy

6) Service to Help You Build a Gorgeous Stand-Alone Shop + Portfolio | Squarespace

7) Service for Selling Your Artwork Printed on Various Wares | Society6

8) A Space to Sell Your Themed, Curated, Handmade and Vintage Wares | Etsy

9) A Space to Sell a Wide Variety of Random Valuable Wares to a Wide Audience | eBay

10) User-friendly, Easily-Customized Way to Host a Blog | Blogger

11) Easy way to Set Up an Art Portfolio | Other People's Pixels

12) A Pretty, Visual BookMarking Tool + Website Traffic Generation | Pinterest *

13) Blog Reader, Bookmarker, and Blog Traffic Generation | Blog Lovin'

14) Tool to Find the Best Font for a Project (With the ones you already have ) | Wordmark.it

15) Free, Royalty-Free Images | Morgue Files

16) Inexpensive, High Quality,  Royalty-Free Images | Dollar Photo

17) High Quality Stock Photos of All Kinds | iStockphoto

18) Document Making, Hosting, and Easy Sharing + Collaborating | Google Documents

19) 100% Free Fonts for Commercial Use | Font Squirrel 

20) Free Website Counter and Analytics | Google Analytics

21) Easier Website Domain Name Set-Up | GoDaddy

22) Additional Free Website Visit Counter and Analytics | Statcounter

* I see the merits of it, but I hate Pinterest! Every time I do a craft post I'm asked if I have a Pinterest on which to host my craft posts? No! That's what my blog is for, to host my content. I've met tons of people who think Pintetest creates the content rather than the creators themselves! Boo! Hiss! I know loads of people love it but I'm bitter about it. I feel like it contributes to a lot of content ubiquity as so many content creators copy and compete to keep their photos super "Pinterest sharable."

Do you have any swear-by, go-to aps or websites to share? I'd love to hear them! I've tried many different calendar and task-setting aps and collaboration softwares but I love the tangible tiny real calendar and the simplicity of google documents.
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20 comments:

  1. I love Pinterest but I do understand why you have sour feelings about it.

    For free photos I use Pixabay but I will be checking out your suggestion as well. I store my photos on Photobucket. I have for years.You can also store video there.

    I used to love the site picnic (spelling) for free photo editing but it is no more. I'd love to find another free site where you can white out a background on a photo.

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    1. I'll have to check out Pixabay, I only use free photos for magazines/clients, they really come in handy for that! I've used picnic in conjunction with other software long ago. I'll have to investigate all the others and write a review. You'll never look back after upgrading to maybe photoshop elements, it was just what I needed for editing large quantities of product photos at the same time.

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  2. Van check your link to Morgue Files. I think it is pointing to the wrong site.

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    1. Thanks, I'll fix that. At 2am I was too tired to check, bad me :)

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  3. I hate Pinterest too, do a Google Images search and half the images that come up point only to Pinterest and not to the original site. Piterest steals content from creators, pure and simple.

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    1. That's the other reason I hate it. That google image problem is so annoying!

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  4. A good one I left out (share by #fennarama on twitter) is the square reader and paypal reader for taking payments to your web accounts on-the-go! Super important ones to have now-a-days. People in the service industry can take tips on them, too.

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  5. Fantastic roundup, Van! I use a couple of these myself :)
    I actually get a lot of traffic to my blog from Pinterest!

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    1. Pinterest is a big one for generating blog traffic...still bitter about it, haha

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  6. I like Pinterest, but I hardly ever use it because it's just one more social media thing I don't have time for. I try to focus on my blog and staying active on other's blogs that I enjoy like this one. I have facebook and use twitter a little bit.

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    1. It's better to focus on doing a couple of social media websites well then spreading yourself thin on a lot of them. I've taken a step back from all of it while I figure out the re-branding for Thrift Core. :)

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  7. Great post, Van! I have so many online tools, but my new favorite is picmonkey.com. Easy to use, can throw a collage of photos together in no time! time = money

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  8. Great post, Van! I have so many online tools, but my new favorite is picmonkey.com. Easy to use, can throw a collage of photos together in no time! time = money

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    1. I'll have to play around with it. I love my photoshop elements but I want to play with all the free ones too, some have time savers + I can recommend them to people if they're good :) Thanks for the rec!

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